The continued growth of social media is the result of regular innovation and planning through the introduction of new features and updated formats of the existing features of the social media apps. The social media freaks are going gaga over the introduction of new features in the most popular social media platforms.
Latest data shows that more than half of total population on Earth use social media to connect to each other. Around 3.96 billion people across the planet, i.e. 51% of total global population use social media.
In this time of COVID-19 pandemic, when everything was getting out of hand, social media played a much needed role, to get everything to almost normal. From helping to spread minute by minute updates to the users, to introducing new and efficient features to keep everyone entertained during low times, many new ideas came up. Some of these new features are:
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Rooms (Facebook):
Facebook launched its latest video conferencing feature, Messenger Rooms. This feature was announced by Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg in April 2020. Messenger rooms is basically a platform to create video group calls and invite upto 50 people to join the room. With no such time limit for the meeting termination, it gives a direct competition to platforms such as ‘Zoom’ which have grown much in popularity in last few months. This feature is open for all, which means that you don’t need to create a facebook account to use it. It is limited to Facebook as of now, but soon, this feature will be accessible via other applications like Instagram and WhatsApp. While in a room, you can use 360-degree views of exotic locations for backgrounds, and work with beauty filters too. You can use your rooms from your phone or computer.
Fleets (Twitter):
Twitter fleets were first introduced in Brazil. This feature is now available in India. Similar to Instagram stories, these tweets, known as ‘fleets’ will disappear after 24 hours. Also, likes, retweets and public replies are restricted in this feature. This feature was introduced, because many people felt insecure to tweet, because they felt that tweets are permanent, and all the people can like and retweet them, which are displayed permanently. Fleets will inspire more and more people to express themselves and tweet freely. This feature is available for both android and iOS.
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Reels (Instagram):
Instagram Reels was started in India in June, 2020, after Tik-Tok was banned. This was the biggest chance for Instagram to gain more popularity in India. Instagram reels let users shoot video, apply filters, add music to it from Instagram albums and share them beyond Instagram platform. It allows users to create 15 seconds video and share the reels in explore section and even to non-followers. Instagram has partnered with prominent music labels to provide the best and wide collection on songs to its users.
With the introduction of these features, all these apps have become more inclusive and more interactive. the users are showing the expected enthusiasm and this opens the door to more such experiments by established social media giants.
A report by Muskan Dahiya for IHOIK Technical desk