media update’s Nikita Geldenhuys takes a look at these developments.
Facebook Marketplace
News in South Africa is that Facebook Marketplace has finally launched in the country. This platform is a destination for users of the social network to buy and sell products.
Marketplace was first launched in October 2016 and was available in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The platform was off to a rocky start as users put items up for sale that violate Facebook’s policies and standards. Items included illegal weapons, drugs, adult services, and wildlife.
Attributing the problem to a technical issue with its filtering system, Facebook fixed the problem and has since launched Marketplace in 47 countries.
Here are the
instructions for buying and selling.
Instagram GIF stickers
Instagram announced on Tuesday, 23 January that users can now
add GIF stickers to photos or videos in their Instagram Stories.
Users have been able to add static stickers to the images and videos that they include in their Stories, but now these stickers can move. Instagram provides users with a library of thousands of GIF stickers to choose from.
The company also hinted at a future roll out of the ability to upload photos and videos of any size to your story.
WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp’s news is that it is rolling out an app that will help companies tap into its massive user base.
Talk of a WhatsApp feature that will connect users and businesses started all the way in January 2016.
By August 2016, the company said it was testing something like the feature. Then, on Thursday, 18 January, it finally introduced WhatsApp Business, which will roll out in the coming weeks.
On the new app, companies can display their business information, like their physical and email address and website URL. They’ll also have the ability to set up quick replies that contain answers to frequently asked questions. Businesses can also set up automatic greeting messages and away messages.
Companies will be able to administrate the app from computers, not only mobile devices – which is good news for support teams in offices. On mobile devices, WhatsApp Business is only available for Android at this stage.
Snapchat entices publishers
It looks like Snapchat might be trying to cash in on publishers who are unhappy with Facebook’s recent algorithm change.
The Facebook development in a nutshell: Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s CEO, said in early January 2018 that a change is being made to News Feed, which will show users more content from friends, family, and groups. Some digital publishers are concerned that this will affect the amount of traffic their websites receive from Facebook.
A week after the algorithm announcement from Facebook,
Snapchat reportedly reached out to a number of publishers with the news that it has appointed a new manager of media partnerships. The company will also be hosting a publisher summit.
According to Digiday, Snapchat’s new platform content head Mike Su wrote the following in an email to publishers: “… we’re going to push harder and be more proactive with helping you succeed on Snapchat. This means finding more ways we can work together, more ways to support your business goals, and being more proactive with sharing insights and best practices to help your teams improve content quality and reach more of your audience.”
Facebook plans to share data on its effort to stop the spread of fake news on the platform. Read more in our article, How effective is Facebook’s fight against fake news?