WE ARE SOCIAL ASIA TUESDAY TUNE UP #351
Twitter revives its chronological timeline
The social network has revived an old-school feature on mobile and web for users to view their timelines in reverse chronological order, populated solely by the accounts they follow.
It was first brought back to iOS in December, and then to Android the following month. A simple tap of the “sparkle button” will allow users to toggle between “top Tweets” and “latest Tweets” at any time.
This fully personalizable feature will also take into account users’ preferences and automatically select their default viewing mode.
Android users now have control over sharing their location information with Facebook
iPhone users would be very familiar with terms such as “always”, “while using”, and “never”. Apple’s operating system gives users autonomy over sharing their location information with applications. Unfortunately, this was never the case for Android users – until now .
Facebook has noted Android users’ concerns over their data being shared and rolled out a new “background location control” function. This gives them the liberty to choose whether they allow Facebook to collect their location information when they are not using the app. Facebook users who frequently use features such as “nearby friends” – where users share locations with their friends – will now have to give Facebook permission to access their location. The latest update also frees Android users from the burden of sharing their location history, which had to be previously enabled to use the feature.
Instagram is testing a feature similar to Pinterest’s
Found in a code within the Instagram Android app, a prototype feature now allows a user to create “public” collections that multiple other users can contribute to. While collections themselves have been on the platform for some time – allowing users to save and organize posts – these collections were private, only visible to their owner. This new public collection feature would position Instagram as a direct rival to what many consider the original “collection and curation” platform, Pinterest, whose monthly active user base exceeds 250 million.