Facebook's standalone Events app has received a significant update, including a complete rebranding and more opportunities to discover local highlights. The app is now called "Local" and extends its focus beyond events to help users find restaurants, bars, and other local businesses.
Instagram introduced a feature called "remixing" to encourage users to privately message each other. This feature allows users to edit a friend's photo sent via direct message with stickers, custom text, and doodles, and then send it back as another photo of themselves.
Instagram made adjustments to its direct messaging features, enabling automatic capture and remixing of photos sent in replies. Additionally, photo and video replays can now be viewed multiple times.
Instagram is testing several new features, including the ability to search for GIFs to add to your stories. Other features being tested include creating a detailed friends list for a small group, automatic archiving of stories, hashtag and emoji search options, and following hashtags for top posts and stories.
LinkedIn is sharing users' posting habits with their employers by analyzing the content they share online. This includes the amount of content posted and its impact on "content engagement."
Snapchat
Snapchat is now using object recognition to identify objects in users' photos and provide relevant filters. For example, if you take a picture of food, Snapchat may suggest filters with slogans like "get in my belly" and "what diet?"
Snapchat is introducing a new ad format called Promoted Stories, allowing advertisers to push their stories to a broader audience. Promoted Stories are visible to all Snapchat users in the United States.
Snapchat is undergoing a major redesign aimed at personalizing content, highlighting the most relevant content for users, and improving the overall user experience.
Twitter officially doubled its character limit from 140 to 280, following a successful test that showed longer tweets receive more engagement. This change is being implemented in countries where "cramming" was a concern.
Twitter's data-saving application, Twitter Lite, has expanded its availability to 24 new countries, making it accessible to more users worldwide.
YouTube
YouTube is introducing a new feature called "Reels," which resembles Stories on other platforms. Creators can express themselves and interact with fans by creating short video clips of up to 30 seconds, adding filters, music, text, and YouTube-specific stickers.
