Google I/O Conference Announces G+ Changes

The Google I/O Conference is basically the big event for Google to announce its latest works. Many are excited to see news on the Spotify-challenger Google Play Music All Access, fantastic Google Maps update and intuitive conversational search engine. On the social media platform, Google+ is also receiving a good chunk of saucy updates.

With this update, photos in Google+ will be edited automatically with the skin being smoothed out and levels evening out. Google will even create HDR photos for users, so expect to see the general quality of photos there go up. Photos can also be up to 15 GB in size, so highest quality photos can be uploaded to the server. But perhaps what sounds most exciting is that sequential photos can be made into GIFs easily as well, which will be an awesome addition of meme-worthy content onto the social network.

So anything in particular that piqued your interest in particular at the Google I/O Conference? Tell us in the comments below!

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Snoopy Takes on Vine

It’s now been a while that brands have really taken in the importance of what good social media activity can do for business and relevance. And now that new mediums are popping up and becoming widely popular, brands have to keep up to speed. Instagram has really hit it big, and it’s no wonder that it is being taken advantage of by all smart brands. But Vine is a rather new one, and perhaps a more challenging one for companies to approach.

But if you can’t do it yourself, get someone to do it for you! With Vine users beginning to explore the potential behind these fantastic six-second clips, there’s bound to be someone out there that has that magic touch. Enter Khoa Phan:

Khoa’s stop-motion flicks utlising construction paper and his now infamous tagline “Have a Good Day!” have risen to a Vine sensation, and even bagged him an award. So much so that Peanuts Worldwide (the company now behind the classic Peanuts comics featuring Snoopy and the gang) have picked him up for a deal. As an effort to boost the Peanuts gang’s social media presence (mind you – their Instagram profile, Snoopygrams, is quite the popular hotspot!), they’ve contracted with Khoa to produce twelve Vines for them, each about a different element or character of the Peanuts comics. This is in line with its multiplatform social media campaign to generate buzz for its upcoming 3D animated movie, set to release in 2015. Cory Cole, the social media director for Peanuts, says this is a step in a bigger picture to keep Snoopy and his friends relevant and hip with the younger crowd that may not have grown up with the classic.

Regardless, we’re definitely looking forward to these twelve Vines. A six-second, stop-motion, looping clip with a paper Charlie Brown continually missing his kick? Yes please.

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A Facebook Update In Real Life

Do Facebook updates annoy you to no end? Of course it does. It annoys everyone! As perfectly depicted in this hilarious sketch by Extremely Decent Films:

What’s missing is a person standing in the corner of the room, whispering to your right ear what everyone else is doing in their home. Or friends constantly knocking at your door asking for extra lives to use in Candy Crush. No matter what, no one likes it when Facebook comes in and changes everything up every now and then. Well, that is until we all forget about it the next day.

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Conversing on Facebook with Tiered Replies

It has been a while now since Facebook has introduced tiered replies to its commenting system. Whilst the obvious question is to ask what you think of it, I guess the better question is: have you tried it out?

Finally, Facebook made the leap to implement the system that allows users to reply directly to any comment. It really has been long overdue, considering this being a core function of many social networks. At Twitter’s centre is the ability to reply to tweets directly at users to converse in short messages, and tiered responses is crucial in the operation of forums such as Reddit, otherwise it would just be a long string of incomprehensible responses out of context (which, arguably, has been the status of Facebook comments before the new tiered replies were introduced). How many times have you been confused as to how to reply to several comments on that new photo you posted onto Facebook? Sure, tagging names made it slightly easier, but it was far from perfect, especially when the solution seemed to be present everywhere else.

Perhaps this may just be something minor to moan about for the average personal Facebook user, but for those with a business or fan page, not being able to directly reply to each commenter, especially for very popular or hot posts, can be frustrating for both the owner and the audience. Businesses that get asked customer support questions can’t direct their reply to a particular person and often won’t be able to do it in time before other comments flood in, and owners of fan pages will find discussions hard to keep track of. In general, you get lost in a stream of comments that are all out of context in regards to each other. However, with Facebook’s new tiered replies, answering questions and discussing becomes clear and organised.

But to jump back to the opening question, not everyone will have actually had a hand at tiered replies. Currently, Facebook has only allowed Pages with 10,000 followers or more to use their new tiered replies. It’s certainly appreciated by those with access to it, but I’m sure everyone else is eagerly waiting for Facebook to globally implement the new system.

So what do you think? Is this tiered reply system much needed, or do you not care too much for it? Have you had a chance to try it out? Leave your comments below!

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Hashtagging is the way forward!

Twitter has successfully made hashtagging a social networking essential. If you missed our blog post explaining this prominent feature of Twitter, hashtagging is basically the placing of ‘#’ before terms, which allows all similarly tagged terms to be grouped and searchable together. The reason it has become such an integral part of tweeting is because hashtags can become trends when lost of users implement the same hashtag, and thus can form conversations over a relevant topic, such as the Super Bowl or the Oscars.

Whilst Twitter weren’t the ones to invent tagging and categorisation, they were the ones to incorporate it so well into the social network aspect, that it has become a fundamental tool for other social networks. Instagram caught onto this straight away, allowing for pictures to be hashtagged together, and Pinterest followed suit. And not only are topics and events hashtagged together, but social network-specific trends such as “#followfriday” (for Twitter) and “#latergram” (for Instagram) have become distinguishable characteristics of each medium.

So perhaps it is not surprising that Flickr and Facebook may be finally joining the cool kids with hashtagging. In an effort to catch up with the Instagram powerhouse and to fully integrate itself into Twitter, the iOS app for Flickr now features hashtags (as well as using ‘@’ for usernames – and don’t even get me started on their retro-styled filters). Flickr has even instigated #flickrfridays as a way to invite users to participate in a weekly challenge. Sound like something you might join?

Alongside Facebook’s graph search update, perhaps hashtags are the right step forward to increasing searchable terms. Whilst it is still an unconfirmed rumour, it seems like Facebook is ready to implement such a feature, and could provide much more topic-centred social networking. It would certainly help categorise and group together status updates and photos, whether it may be from one person (e.g. status updates during a concert), or a group of people (e.g. hashtags from everyone that was at your birthday party). There is definitely a lack of such an option currently, and this could be the answer.

How many times have you seen someone mistakenly use a hashtag on Facebook? Perhaps now, publishing posts on multiple platforms at the same time (using services such as Hootsuite) will also be more convenient, with the hashtag being applicable across the board. What do you think? Are hashtags the right feature for Flickr and Facebook? Or do you think they should stick with their current system and not induce the hashtagging frenzy that will inevitably occur?

“John Hardy went from being ‘in a relationship’ to ‘single’.

John Hardy commented on this post: #YOLO”

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