This year in social media has really been exciting and we’re looking forward to more exciting surprises next year; for instance – WhatsApp bringing the feature ability for editing, revoke sent messages. At least we’ve seen, heard, helped, to see that every social media platform is doing it’s best to have more users on it’s platform. This year’s social media reviews, we see the likes of Facebook Messenger, and Instagram growing more users on their platform, Facebook now available in more than 100 languages, WhatsApp being the most used social media app on Android in the world, SnapChat Re-branding, Twitter works on it’s 140-Character limit, and so forth.
However, one of the bad news we shall have on this list, was Vine’s three service brought to rest.
There was a lot in social media this year, but we can’t list everything here. On our social media panel, you will definitely find everything there.
1. Facebook plans to grow its African Ecosystem at AfricaCom 2016
Facebook CEO and Co-Founder; Mark Zuckerberg posted an announcement in a Facebook post. “The social networking platform is now available in more than 100 languages with more than one billion people using a language other than English,” he said. Among the languages that were added included; Fula, Maltese and Corsican.
2. Twitter get’s rid of Media Attachments in the 140-character Limit
Twitter is one of those social media platforms that have had a rough 2016. Top executives leaving, being sued multiple times, being hacked multiple times, blocked in various countries for several reasons, twitter servers shutting down, and so forth. But one thing we really loved about Twitter this year, was removing media attachments off the 140-character limit.
On September 19th, 2016, the San Francisco-based Micro blogging website finally announced that media attachments such as photos, GIFs, and videos along with quoted tweets and user polls would no longer be part of the 140-character limit per tweet.
Say more about what’s happening! Rolling out now: photos, videos, GIFs, polls, and Quote Tweets no longer count toward your 140 characters. pic.twitter.com/I9pUC0NdZC
— Twitter (@twitter) September 19, 2016
One other exicting story, was Twitter giving a chance for tweeps request for Twitter accounts verified. According to Twitter, the purpose was to help more people find great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for creators and influencers no matter where they are in the world to easily connect with a broader audience.
3. WhatsApp world’s most popular messaging app on Android
This year was really a year for WhatsApp in the bad and good times; from being blocked several times in countries around the world, to introducing new updates such as; the End-to-End encryption, Video calls, Quoting messages, Document Sharing, Bold/Italics/StrikeThrough of messages, Gif support, and soon iOS Users’ will be able to Edit, Revoke Sent Messages. But the story we’re looking at this 2016 review, is the app being ranked the most popular messaging app on Android.
Research from analytics firm SimilarWeb showed that WhatsApp is currently the world leader, being the most popular messaging app in 109 countries.
Messenger app came second, topping the charts in 49 countries while Viber, Line, WeChat and Telegram came in 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th positions repectively, though Viber is the only one of the four [Viber, Line, WeChat and Telegram] to claim more than ten countries.
4. Instagram 500 million users, with 300 million being daily users
Since nine months the photo-sharing app hit a notable milestone of 400 million users, the company on June 21st, 2016 announced a new milestone of 500 million Instagrammers — more than 300 million of whom use Instagram every single day and Instagram community continued to become even more global, with more than 80% living outside of the United States.
One other Instagram story we loved this year was; the new algorithm to display your best posts first becoming more like Facebook‘s News Feed.
5. SnapChat re-branding to Snap Inc.
September 24, 2016, Image messaging app; SnapChat underwent a major re-branding this year, to Snap Inc. According to CEO Evan Spiegel, The change in name was because SnapChat is bigger than just an app on your phone.
Breaking: Introducing Spectacles. Snapchat launches camera company called Snap Inc.? #Snapchat #spectacles https://t.co/sMzZ8Ztk6g
— Justin Odisho (@JustinOdisho) September 24, 2016
One other SnapChat story that caught our attention this year, was it’s daily usage passing Twitter’s. Reports showed that the app had 150 million people using the service each day, making it more popular than Twitter Inc. in terms of daily active users. Bloomberg calculated finding out that Twitter has fewer than 140 million daily users, which means SnapChat is the latest app to overtake Twitter following the likes of Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp.
And one last story was SnapChat hitting eight (8) billion video views every day. This is an awesome milestone for the company.
6. Facebook Messenger reaches a milestone of one billion active users
Facebook Messenger team on July 20th, 2016 announced that more than one billion people now use Facebook Messenger every month, making Messenger one of only a handful of apps worldwide that touch so many lives.
Messenger has grown rapidly this year, gaining around 100 million active users every three months. The service hit 800 million users in January and 900 million in April.
7. Periscope comes to Twitter Android and iOS apps
On June 15th, 2016, Twitter Inc. a tweet mentioned that they had placed a Periscope button in its app for both iOS and Android phones, after a limited test in May and June. The Periscope “Live” button shows up on the screen for posting a new tweet, alongside buttons for posting a photo or posting a video.
Ready to go live? Now everyone can tap a new button on iOS & Android to easily broadcast on #Periscope from Twitter! pic.twitter.com/tedpUN1QMA
— Twitter (@twitter) June 15, 2016
Users now have the ability to create live videos via their Android and iOS apps with the help of Periscope, allowing tweeps to live stream videos through the platform via a single tweet.
On tapping that Periscope button simply opens the app. However, if you haven’t downloaded Periscope, Twitter will prompt you to do so. After signing up on Periscope, head back to Twitter to use the ‘Live Video’ feature.
Once you click on Live Video, you are directed to Periscope to start the live video and also live streamed simultaneously on Twitter as well.
By default, the Tweet will read live on #Periscope, and all the users on your timeline can watch it.
8. Vine shut down
After three years of service, Twitter Inc. on 27th October, 2016 announced that their video-sharing app, Vine would be brought to rest. The announced was made in a post to Medium.
We have some important news to share about Vine. Read more here: https://t.co/jPveGelXgS
— Vine (@vine) October 27, 2016
Millions of people who have shared their 6 second videos were reassured that their previously posted clips won’t be deleted, though the creation of new ones seems less likely in coming months.
According to the company, this was made as a part of the restructuring process of the employees in order to become profitable in 2017.
After the shut down of the service (Vine), Colin Kroll and Rus Yusupov previsouly the Co-Founders of the app unveiled their new live video broadcasting app, dubbed HYPE, which might act as a direct competitor to Facebook’s live videos. Launched first in the beta phase, the HYPE app is now available for download via the App Store.
Happy Holidays!!!
Just a reminder that it’s still not safe to use WhatsApp even though the service has introduced end-to-end encryption this year. Facebook might have access to users’ private keys. Messengers like Threema make sure the private key never leaves the user’s device, but how are private keys in WhatsApp even generated?
How could I miss that Vine was shut down?!