Social

Facebook testing Explore feed which surfaces content you haven’t connected with yet

Christian Zibreg ∙ April 3, 2017

Facebook has been caught testing a new kind of feed on its mainland mobile app, designed to surface relevant posts from people and pages that you haven't befriended or liked. According to Mashable and Wired, some users noticed a new rocket-shaped icon at the bottom of their News Feed. Tapping it displays content from an alternative News Feed.

Labeled Explore, it's focused on posts, articles, photos, videos and other content from people, media organizations and pages you're not following.

Facebook is currently testing this feature with a small subset of users and could pull it any time it wants. We'll be making sure you're among the first to know when, and if the new Explore tab launches to everybody.

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Check out Twitter’s new default profile image replacing the infamous egg avatar

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 31, 2017

In a blog post today titled “Rethinking our default profile photo”, Twitter announced that accounts without a profile image will now show a new, more generic avatar rather than the old icon resembling an egg. Twitter recently added new features to its mobile app in the form of notification filters that let you filter out “egg” accounts, as well as mute words, phrases and more in your timelines. The original egg profile image has lasted on the service for full seven years, but it's now run its course.

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Twitter stops counting @usernames toward the 140-character limit

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 30, 2017

Twitter announced Thursday that it's no longer counting user names in tweets, such as @idownloadblog, toward its 140-character limit. With this change, any user names for mentions and replies will no longer shorten the amount of characters you could include in a tweet.

Last year, the micro-blogging service began allowing users to attach photos, animated GIFs, videos, polls, quoted tweets and direct messages to tweets without the links counting against the 140-character limit.

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Facebook adds Snapchat-style effects and auto vanishing Stories to its mainland app

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 28, 2017

As expected, Facebook on Tuesday announced that the camera feature in its mobile app for iPhone and iPad has been totally revamped with Snapchat-style filters and effects. Yes, they also added auto-vanishing Stories. Facebook's already cloned these Snapchat-esque features on the Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps, all of which include similar creative tools for your photos and videos.

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Facebook kicks off global rollout of Snapchat-like Stories feature in its mainland app

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 15, 2017

Facebook has infamously ripped off Snapchat’s Stories feature wholesale with auto-vanishing slideshows on Instagram and WhatsApp, in addition to the similar recently introduced feature on Messenger, called Messenger Day.  The social networking behemoth was recently caught testing Snapchat-like Stories feature in its mobile app. According to TechCrunch, the company has now begun a staggered rollout of Facebook Stories to all users worldwide.

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Twitter starts censoring profiles that publish potentially sensitive content

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Twitter recently introduced several features in its mobile app that give users the option to filter out anonymous and “egg” accounts, as well as mute words, phrases, mentions and hashtags in their timelines (be sure to read our tutorial for step-by-step instructions on the new filtering options).

In its continuing mission to fight trolls on the service, the company is taking additional steps to make the platform a safer place, as Mashable reported Friday.

In a nutshell, the service has now begun censoring profiles that post “potentially sensitive” content even if the implementation seems a bit heavy-handed at the moment.

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Facebook Messenger now lets everyone post status updates that disappear after 24 hours

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 9, 2017

Facebook announced Thursday that a feature in its mobile Messenger app that allows people to post auto-disappearing photos and videos has now begun rolling out globally following a previous soft launch in select countries like Poland and Australia. They're calling it Messenger Day because anything you post there disappears automatically after 24 hours, just like with Instagram Stories or those auto-vanishing status updates on WhatsApp.

You're in full control of the scope of your Messenger Day and can choose to share it with everyone on the service, people you're friends with or cherry-picked contacts.

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Facebook is testing Reactions and all-new Dislike button in chats on Messenger

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 6, 2017

Some users of the mobile Facebook Messenger app have noticed that the empathetic Reaction emojis, which launched in the company's mainland mobile app in February 2016, are now available to them inside the standalone messaging app, along with a brand now iMessage-like Dislike button that's yet to launch in the main Facebook app.

Facebook's confirmed this new feature to TechCrunch.

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