Social Networks

This week in social media news, Facebook launches reels in the US, a new report finds users are more open to TikTok’s advertising options, Twitch tests a feature letting viewers pay to promote streamers, WPP and Snapchat launch an augmented reality partnership, Pinterest announces its second ‘Creators Festival’ event and more. Facebook Launches Reels In The US Reels has launched on Facebook for all of its US-based users after having tested the feature in India since March. Why it matters: TikTok recently celebrated reaching 1 billion monthly active users—news that further incentivized Facebook to launch its short-form video competitor in the US where it boasts 250 million users on Facebook and more than 1.8 billion monthly users of Groups. The details: Given that TikTok is banned in India, Facebook took the opportunity to capitalize on the popularity of short-form video there first, before determining whether it would be a viable competitor in other markets. Reels on Facebook allow for music, audio, effects and features like following a creator directly from the video. Sharing themed Reels in Groups allows group members to create the same, similar, or reaction videos that could spark a new trend within the group. With the allure…

Africans are embracing technology in various ways, and this article is about the impact of the internet and big data in Africa. This article isn’t an academic exercise at all. After reading it, you will get several pointers to how you can use the internet to improve your life.  Online entertainment Millions of people are consuming online entertainment in various ways. Some have become creators as well and now have an enviable fan following. The main platforms to consume content are, of course, YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch, and TikTok. YouTube remains the primary source of digital entertainment in Africa. Currently, there are more than 154 million YouTube subscribers in Nigeria alone. Lately, TikTok too has gained traction in that region. Read this article on how this medium is making waves in Nigeria and elsewhere.  Of course, it is not just video platforms that keep people entertained anymore. In countries and continents worldwide, from Canada to Africa, where it is legalised, many like playing casino games on sites like Jackpotcitycasino.com. This helps keep boredom at bay, providing a fun few minutes on the slots without the need to head to a physical casino. This accessibility is transforming the industry, as it is…

The massive global outage that plunged Facebook, its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms and many people who rely heavily on these services — including Facebook’s own workforce — into chaos Monday is gradually dissipating.Facebook said late Monday that it’s been working to restore access to its services and is “happy to report they are coming back online now.” The company apologized and thanked its users for bearing with it. But fixing it wasn’t as simple as flipping a proverbial switch. For some users, WhatsApp was working for a time, then not. For others, Instagram was working but not Facebook, and so on.Facebook did not say what might have caused the outage, which began around 11:40 a.m. ET and was still not fixed more than six hours later.“This is epic,” said Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik Inc, a network monitoring and intelligence company. The last major internet outage, which knocked many of the world’s top websites offline in June, lasted less than an hour. The stricken content-delivery company in that case, Fastly, blamed it on a software bug triggered by a customer who changed a setting.For hours, Facebook’s only public comment was a tweet in which it acknowledged that…

EditMarketingChain social marketers from Dunkin’ to Cava delivered some humor to Twitter Monday to engage with customers during the outage. By Heather Lalley on Oct. 04, 2021 Photo: ShutterstockA global outage of Facebook and the other social media platforms it owns, Instagram and WhatsApp, sent restaurant marketers scrambling Monday. The tracking site Downdetector showed a massive spike in Facebook and Instagram outage reports beginning around noon Eastern time. The outages continued throughout the day, prompting Facebook to take to Twitter to say the platform was experiencing “networking issues” and that its teams were working to “debug and restore” as quickly as possible. But the widespread outages put a crimp in the marketing plans of many restaurants, particularly since Monday was National Taco Day. “On big days like National Taco Day, social media is critical to talk about a promotion,” said EdithAnn Ramey, CMO at Tex-Mex casual dining chain On The Border. “Without those channels, it hurts our ability to amplify the message and drive people in to the restaurants.”Perhaps Taco Bell had a crystal ball, providing a look at the impending chaos. Even before the outage, the quick-service chain was promoting its National Taco Day trivia contest to be held…

US Construction Zone, The Peer Network for Construction Executives for Digital Collaboration and Mentorship Launches. COVID-19 certainly had an impact on the economy and society, impacting some industries more than others. The world as we know it changed in many ways, including how we now go about our day-to-day routines and how we prioritize in this new environment. The construction industry experienced its fair share of impacts. 2021 has rejuvenated a housing market boom; the construction industry added 110,000 jobs in March, recovering over 80% of the jobs lost during the pandemic.  There is a newfound optimism for the sector emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic is on the horizon but not without its own struggles, from material shortages to labor shortages, and the unpredictability of COVID-19 variants can leave construction executives in limbo.   US Construction Zone (USCZ) is a digital networking platform that is designed for business management, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, executives, leaders in the industry, and all those who aim to improve the field of construction. By offering a platform where pertinent information is carefully curated and available, expert knowledge and innovative ideas are shared. Networking with those in specific and broad areas of the construction industry offers value, USCZ…

Facebook, along with its subsidiaries Instagram and Whatsapp, went down at from roughly 11:45 a.m, until 6 p.m. and there has been no official comment from the tech giant as to why this is.Users have reported being unable to access Facebook across North and South America, Europe and Asia.Many have theorized as to why this has happened. A problem with its Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) being one of the most prevalent.Cloudflare Vice President Dane Knecht was one of the first to voice this hypothesis.“It appears their BGP routes have been withdrawn from the internet,” she tweeted Monday.Rather than using a third-party BGP like Cloudflare, Facebook started using its own BGP with all its social media companies, Whatsapp, Messenger and Instagram.The issue came from an update of Facebook’s BGP. however, the company failed to secure its addresses, or routes back to its pages. Large sections of the routing codes have been deleted.Simply put,  » Read More

___‘Pandora Papers’ bring renewed calls for tax haven scrutinyWASHINGTON (AP) — Calls are growing for an end to the financial secrecy and shell companies that have allowed many of the world’s richest and most powerful people to hide their wealth from tax collectors. The outcry came after a report published Sunday revealed the way that world leaders, billionaires and others have used offshore accounts to keep trillions of dollars out of government treasuries over the past quarter-century, limiting the resources for helping the poor or combating climate change. The report is being dubbed the “Pandora Papers.” Many of the tax dodges are legal, and analysts say one solution is to ban shell companies that help investors avoid paying taxes.___Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram suffer worldwide outageSAN FRANCISCO (AP) Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms have suffered a worldwide outage. The company says it is aware that some people are having trouble accessing the Facebook app and that it is working on restoring access. The company did not say what might be causing the outage,  » Read More

Are you wasting time sharing content to company pages? Maybe. Company pages just aren’t very effective. LinkedIn is all about the users. LinkedIn users care most about other users. It’s time you do, too. Nobody Looks at Company Pages When was the last time you woke up in the morning, opened up LinkedIn, and thought, “what did X company say on LinkedIn today?” Never. You have never done that. Unless maybe you work in PR? LinkedIn is all about connecting with your peers, people with shared interest, skills, or work experience, and having a conversation. Companies on LinkedIn are simply a vehicle to make the work history on individuals profiles a bit more enhanced. The idea that a company page (and this is excluding incredibly large and famous companies, like Apple or Microsoft) will garner a loyal and interested enough audience to make your content successful is dangerously ignorant. What you’re really doing is giving your content a place to die. Secondly, we have to look at the LinkedIn algorithm. When you share on a company page, LinkedIn de-prioritizes your post on other users feeds, meaning they are less likely to be seen on someone else’s feed. Employees Get…

Oct 4, 2021By: Marcia SekhoseEveryone’s on the internetDomo, a company that specialises in business intelligence tools and data visualisation, has released data that shows what’s happening on the internet every one minute of the day.Credit: UnsplashTwitterAccording to Domo, there are 575,000 tweets posted every minute. Twitter has 206 million monthly active users.Credit: UnsplashInstagramOn Instagram, users share 65,000 photos every minute of the day.Credit: UnsplashFacebookFacebook users share 240,000 photos every minute, and live videos receive 44 million views.Credit: UnsplashYouTubeYouTube is possibly the biggest video streaming platform with over 2.3 billion using it once a month. On YouTube, users stream 694,000 hours worth of video every minute. Credit: UnsplashNetflixAnother video giant but for movies and shows, Domo’s data shows Netflix users stream 452,000 hours of content every minute.Credit: UnsplashAmazonAccording to Domo, 6 million people shop online and on Amazon customers spend $283,000 every minute.  » Read More

Social media news 02 Oct - 08 Oct, 2021 Mag The Weekly Tic Tech Toe Twitter’s poor video quality has been a long-running frustration for users on the platform, but the company recently shared some potentially promising news: videos uploaded to the service will now “appear less pixilated for a better watching experience,” Twitter said in a tweet from its support account. Twitter removed a pre-processing step in its video pipeline when you upload. App researcher Jane Manchun Wong uploaded a video intended to put the supposed improvements to the test. While it might appear better – Twitter told that the changes aren’t yet supported in Twitter Media Studio, which is what Wong used to upload the video. If you want to see a video that Twitter says does use the improved video quality, check out the video in this reply to Wong. The second video does seem somewhat improved, but it’s hard to tell exactly by how much with the mostly-black background.  » Read More