Written By Wei Rong Loh, Tricia Lee and Melantha Tan.
Facebook pulls all stops to be relevant again
The recent Facebook boycott may have made a slight dent on Facebook’s stock price and most likely it’s revenue from advertising, but it looks like the social media giant is not going to fall any time soon. In this week’s Tuesday Tuneups, we uncover more tricks up Zuckerberg’s $400 Brunello Cucinelli tee sleeve.
Harkening to scrapbook days with E.gg An experimental new platform developed by Facebook’s NPE team, the E.gg app is a nostalgic call to bring back “the raw and exploratory spirit that was so emblematic of The Early Internet.” No short-form videos or 4-second vines. On E.gg, you create canvases – free-form mixed media collages/pages that let you express anything from your favorite films/albums/novels to a collage of succulent pics to, say, an about page for an app. It lets you bring together content such as images, GIFs, and text that can be freely positioned and sized within canvases. Think of it as an electronic scrapbook of sorts. There is also no likes or comments feature on the app, and users will have to join a waitlist to try.
Hitting up the charts with new Music Video Facebook Watch
After announcing its new program for hosting exclusive music video clips earlier this month, Facebook has unveiled a new ‘Music Video Playlists‘ within Facebook Watch, which aims to increase the focus on Facebook-exclusive releases in partnership with music labels.
Given that music videos have made up a significant portion of YouTube viewership, with YouTube developing YouTube Music to further tap into the popularity of music videos on its service, Facebook’s entry brings in new dynamics for artists and music publishers moving forward.
Another key feature for Music in Facebook Watch is that you can explore music videos by genre, artist, or mood, as well as themed playlists like “Hip Hop MVPs,” “Trailblazers of Pop” and “Epic Dance Videos”.
Facebook is also testing a new Page format in its app, bringing emphasis on essential Page details – with a larger central profile image, a short statement beneath the name, and larger text for the key details.
But the biggest change comes in the removal of the Like button. The main CTA button on the new Page is a prominent, blue ‘Follow’ prompt, while the total Like count is also not displayed. Instead, a total ‘followers’ figure is shown. While Likes is mainly a proxy to gauge for a Page’s popularity and relevance, follower count is more valuable, as people who have expressly chosen to follow a Page will (in most cases) see all of that Page’s updates.
The new Page layout also includes some admin and system changes that will make Pages easier to manage, by easily switching between your personal and business Pages so you can comment and interact with a few taps. Facebook is also looking to simplify the mechanism of assigning and managing admin access permissions based on specific Page elements.
