This is your weekly round up of all things social media & all things new, knowledge you might want to arm yourself with as you gallivant social platforms boasting of expertise.
1. Facebook Messenger Update With Material Design Comes To Android
After many months of A/B testing, Facebook Inc. began rolling out a new, Material Design-styled version of Messenger on Android to all its users worldwide. The updated application now features a blue top bar and a floating action button, along with other visual tweaks.
2. Skype Cancels Support for Smart TVs
Microsoft-owned Skype is pulling its support from Smart TV software , owing to the public’s preference to communicate via mobile devices as opposed to the larger screens. Will the corporate users of the service suffer from this adjustment or not? That waits to be seen. Syke will however maintain the service until June this year.
3. Verified Google+ profiles now get early access to new features
A few months ago, Google pivoted Google+ away from being a basic social network and put a focus on content curation instead. To reward the most interesting and active users on its service, Google yesterday launched the Google+ Createprogram.
Google says that since it launched the redesigned Google+ on November 18th, 2015, the number of Collection follows has more than doubled, meaning more people on Google+ now use these new features though it doesn’t necessarily mean the number of Google+ users is also up.
4. Hackers Lock Apple Users Out of Files And Seek Ransom
This week, a bunch of notorious hackers attacked Apple devices with a virus called KeRanger which locks users out of their files until they pay one bitcoin, coming to about £280 ransom. They were reported to have infected a number of Mac products. The Tech giant has been reported to have resolved the issue.
5. Tanzania orders government employees to cut back on social media
Tanzania’s Transport and Communication minister issued a directive, warning government employees not to spend a lot of time on social media at work. Makame Mbarawa said the directive was aimed at boosting service delivery and getting workers to concentrate on their jobs. He has ordered his own staff to serve as an example.
6. Facebook Reactions can be transformed into customized faces now
On Feb 24, 2016, Facebook Inc. rolled out Reactions as a Like button alternative/extension that gives users six emojis; Like, Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad and Angry to express emotions by hovering over the like button on PCs or holding down on the like button on mobiles.
Now there’s a newly introduced browser extension that has made it possible for Facebook users to replace the regular Facebook reaction emoji with OTHER FACES of their choice.
7. Learn How to Swap Facebook Reactions With Your Reaction Pack
Thanks to a developer named Rodney Folz, there is now a more fun way to use Facebook’s emoji Reactions as you can now swap them with Donald Trump faces, Pokemon characters, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, or other icons of your own. Folz is calling it a Reaction Packs.
You can customize your own “Facebook Reactions” by simply uploading your own “Reaction Pack” by just following the guidelines in the website.
8. Make group calls on LINE for up to 200 users
Line Corporation also known as LINE, an instant messaging application rolled out a group voice calling update/feature to its Android and iOSapps with version 5.11. What’s more interesting, the feature will be coming to LINE app for Windows and Mac with versions 4.5 and later.
The new update/feature now let’s users voice call more than one person at a time within groups or multiple person chats.
9. German court rules against use of Facebook “Like” button
A German court has ruled against an online shopping site‘s use of Facebook’s “like” button on Wednesday, dealing a further legal blow to the world’s biggest social network in Germany. The Duesseldorf district court said that retailer Peek & Cloppenburg failed to obtain proper consent before transmitting its users’ computer identities to Facebook, violating Germany’s data protection law and giving the retailer a commercial advantage.
10. Facebook has partnered with WordPress to build a free plugin for Instant Articles
And last but not least, Facebook has partnered with Automattic, parent company of WordPress.com VIP, to build a free plugin for Instant Articles, which simplifies the process of generating and publishing Instant Articles from WordPress. WordPress publishing platform currently powers more than 25% of sites on the web, and Facebook expects the solution to help millions of publishers all over the world bring the Instant Articles experience to their readers.
