Hardly a day goes by without something happening in the world of social media. Every week we take a look back at some of the biggest social media news stories of the past seven days.
Facebook introduces new weather forecast feature
Facebook hab announced the roll-out of a new feature that puts a full local weather forecast directly within it’s mobile app and desktop site. The social network have confirmed the new feature has launced to around 95 percent of its global user base this week. The new feature is described as an expansion of its earlier “weather greetings”, short informational weather updates that appeared at the top of your feed in the morning.
The new Facebook Weather section is powered by data from Weather.com. It is available via the “more” menu on the mobile app and direct from News Feed on the desktop site. It offers exactly the kind of data that you would expect from a weather app; a full week’s weather forecast. It also features a cartoon-style header that is reactive to the current forecast.
Investors mistake little-known startup for Snapchat
Shares in a little-known video chat and online dating service provider have almost doubled in the past few days because investors mistook it for Snap Inc – the creator of popular social network Snapchat. The amount of daily Snapchat users grew to an average of 158 million at the end of December 2016.
The name of the little-known startup is Snap Interactive. It seems that investors were incredibly eager to invest in the first public offering of Snap Inc, who last week said it had filed for an initial public offering of $3bn. This resulted in shares of Snap Interactive growing by 164 percent.
Twitter announces new measures to tackle harassment and abuse
On Tuesday Twitter announced expansions to it’s efforts to protect users form abuse and harrassment. These include the prioritising of safer search results and the collapsing of potentially abusive, low-quality search results. Twitter have also outlined intentions to identify, suspend and stop the creation of new accounts by those who have been permanently suspended.
