More blows for Facebook’s cryptocurrency plans
Facebook’s embattled cryptocurrency project, Libra, has hit a few more roadblocks this week. Firstly, The Financial Times reported that planned partners Mastercard, Visa, eBay and Stripe have pulled out, following the withdrawal of PayPal the week before. Facebook’s executive in charge of Libra is trying to put a positive spin on this, describing the pullouts as “not great news in the short term, but in a way, it’s liberating”. However, it’s not the only bad news Libra faced last week. A report by a G7 taskforce (which includes senior officials from central banks, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Financial Stability Board) outlined nine major risks posed by digital currencies such as Libra. It also said that even if Libra’s backers address concerns, the project may not get approval from regulators.
Facebook adds brand templates in Stories
Facebook is helping brands gear up for the holiday season with a couple of new features. Firstly, it’s released a set of customisable Stories templates for use across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger. Users can change the background colours, music and call to action effects – useful for those looking to produce simple and consistent Stories posts without a massive design budget. Secondly, Instagram Direct has some new features, such as instant replies and away messages, making it easier for businesses to manage their private messaging capabilities.
Facebook’s Workplace hits 3 million users
Facebook’s internal social network for businesses, Workplace, now has 3 million paying users according to the platform. Companies now using Workplace include retailers like Starbucks, airlines such as Virgin, global enterprises like Vodafone and agencies like… erm… We Are Social (see more on our experience with it here). Workplace is continuing on its quest for global domination (as if you’d expect anything less from Facebook) and has introduced a host of new features to make it even more appealing. These range from voice and video calls through Facebook’s Portal video-calling device and a new automatic video captioning feature.
Instagram moves focus away from camera with ‘Create’ mode in Stories Instagram has launched a ‘Create’ mode in Stories, giving the app more flexibility to adapt to a broader range of content formats, other than those just focused on the camera. As the platform says, “Create mode helps you combine interactive Stickers, drawings and text without needing a photo or video to share.” One of the new additions is ‘On This Day’, which allows users to remise over terrible haircuts and awful exes by pulling up a post from the same day the year before to be shared. People on the app can also now choose any GIF from Giphy and set it as the background for a Story. Anything that cuts down the quantity of mirror selfies gets my vote!
Snapchat enables in-game purchases for new Adidas game
Adidas has teamed up with Snapchat to launch its new 8-BIT cleats, allowing users to purchase products via a game in the app for the first time. Dubbed Baseball’s Next Level, the game is launched to coincide with the start of the Major League Baseball (MLB) playoffs. Players are invited to pick their favourite Adidas 8-BIT cleat and MLB icon to participate in a home run derby challenge. Players can then purchase their cleats from the new Adidas Baseball 8-BIT collection directly on the platform. If you don’t have Snapchat fear not – you can play Baseball’s Next Level here or buy various cleats directly from Adidas’ site.
Pinterest Lite launches in five markets
Last week, Pinterest became the latest social media platform to launch a ‘Lite’ version of its full mobile app. Pinterest Lite is now available to Android users in Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Mexico, only requiring just 1.4 MB of storage space to download. The move comes as Pinterest continues to expand its global footprint, recently reporting that international monthly users were up 38% to 215 million, out of a total of 300 million users.
TikTok marks National Coming Out Day with #ThisIsMe
TikTok has celebrated this year’s National Coming Out Day in the US (October 11th) by teaming up with GLAAD on the #ThisIsMe challenge, a charitable initiative in support of LGBTQ youth. Running until Wednesday 16th October, for every user who shares a #ThisIsMe video, TikTok will donate $1 (up to $50,000) to GLAAD, an American non-profit which aims to tackle some of the biggest issues around LGBTQ+ acceptance.
Facebook and Pinterest get new features for World Mental Health Day
In support of World Mental Health Day (October 10th), this year Facebook and Pinterest both added new features. Facebook partnered with the World Health Organisation to launch two new tools on Messenger – a camera filter called ‘Let’s Talk’ (available for a week after WMHD) and a pack of Stickers (saying things like “Talk to Me”) which users can send in private messages to friends. For every Sticker sent, Facebook has said it will donate $1 to a select group of mental health organisations around the world, up to $1 million.
While Facebook has focused on helping users kick off conversations around mental health, Pinterest has put an emphasis on expanding the wellbeing activities it introduced to its platform earlier this year. Since July, users who have searched for things such as “stress quotes” and “work anxiety” have been targeted with wellbeing activities which they could do via the platform. Now, these activities – along with a host of new ones and a set of spruced up illustrations and animations – can be accessed by simply searching #pinterestwellbeing.
