We Are Social’s Monday Mashup #255

Mashup
nick.mulligan

Facebook launches new Messenger Platform
Facebook has rolled out its updated Messenger Platform, as predicted by last week’s Mashup (not to say we told you so). Users can now share content including GIFs and videos through a number of third-party partners, such as ESPN, JibJab and Giphy.

Messenger Platform

Facebook adds new video features
Facebook has made a few updates to its video offering. First of all, you can now embed video on other websites by copying and pasting an HTML code.

fb-embed-video

Meanwhile, there have been a few changes to the video API, divided into three categories: control, customise and ‘other’. ‘Control’ improvements include limiting an audience by age/gender/location, adding an expiration date and posting to a page but not the News Feed. ‘Customise’ add-ons allow customisable thumbnails and subtitles across multiple locales and ‘other’ posts look to make the upload process more efficient. The changes come with a new set of publishing partners for video.

New Facebook comment functionality
Facebook announced a new commenting system, which curates comments on web pages and Facebook links to those pages, then displays them simultaneously. Would you be interested in an illustrative GIF? I’m sure you would.

comments-fb

Instagram launches Layout app
Instagram has revealed a new standalone app for iPhone, named ‘Layout’, which allows the creation of photo collages. Naturally, some brands have been quick to jump on it, including Victoria’s Secret and Sephora.

A photo posted by Victoria’s Secret (@victoriassecret) on

A photo posted by Sephora (@sephora) on

Twitter launches Meerkat rival
Twitter has launched Periscope, a live video streaming app that looks set to rival (and quite possibly outdo) Meerkat. Users can notify some or all of their followers when a broadcast begins, see viewers as they join and comment live. Unlike Meerkat, videos can be stored in the camera roll and viewed in the app for up to 24 hours. Adweek produced a piece on first impressions, which you can read in full here; by and large, people seem impressed. It’s slicker and more polished than Meerkat, simple and easy to use. The only problem? Meerkat got there first. We’ll look forward to seeing how this one pans out.

As with anything that’s almost a week old, brands have rushed to get involved. Some good examples include adidas’s live stream of Rodríguez signing a new Real Madrid contract, Spotify posting behind-the-scenes content with Irish folk singer Conor O’Brien and Red Bull sharing exclusive video content from its Miami Music Week events.

Twitter and Foursquare partner for location services
Twitter and Foursquare have revealed a partnership that will allow Twitter’s location feature to be more specific, including landmarks and businesses, rather than just cities or areas. Foursquare CEO, Dennis Crowley, penned a blog post in light of the move, in which he discusses how the company has moved on since its initial focus on check-ins. The key takeout?

The big idea was to create a system that could crawl the world with people in the same way Google crawls web pages with machines.

Twitter starts testing autoplay video
Twitter is trialling autoplay videos for a small number of US-based iPhone and iPad users. Some will see an entire video autoplay in a loop, others will get a looping six-second teaser clip.

Brands and One Direction
So Zayn Malik left One Direction. Try and hold back the tears by looking at these examples of branded social media content, including Lidl cutting the price of One Direction easter eggs by a fifth.