Instagram has confirmed plans to kill its standalone Direct app for Android and iOS.
The Snapchat clone made its debut in December 2017, but is being axed as part of Facebook’s mission to consolidate its services into a single platform. Users will see their conversations automatically moved to the regular Instagram app.
You no longer have to expose your Instagram Stories to every single follower. A new feature, which goes live today after 17 months of testing, lets users share only with their closest friends.
Here’s how the Close Friends list works on iOS.
Snapchat isn’t having a good time right now. The company just released its third quarter results, and once again suffered a decline in daily active users.
That number fell by 2 million to 186 million people, marking the third straight quarter of user declines. However, Snap seems confident it can break the losing streak in 2019.
Apple’s not the only tech company hopping on the original content bandwagon in 2018. Snapchat company Snap is launching new shows in partnership with Hollywood production companies. And they’re coming as soon as today.
Called “Snap Originals,” they won’t be full-length shows like Apple is busy commissioning, though. In keeping with the short-term hook that made Snapchat popular, the company is cranking out five-minute episodes shot vertically for viewing on mobile devices.
Facebook is taking another crack at providing a way to help us meet up with friends offline. Having seen its “Facebook Nearby Friends” feature fail to gain much traction, the social media giant is now supposedly planning on a Snapchat-inspired redo to try and change its fortunes.
According to TechCrunch, Facebook is testing a redesign of its “Nearby Friends” that looks a whole lot like Snap Map. This feature will replace the list view of “Nearby Friends” with a map that shows friends grouped according to their city.
Spectacles by Snap are now a little easier on the eyes thanks to two new styles that add a fashionable flair to the wearable video camera.
The new Spectacles couldn’t look more different. Each has straighter lines and sharp corners, looking more like classic Ray-Ban Wayfarer frames, and should appeal to those turned off by the circular frames.
Snapchat has blamed the lingering effects of its disastrous redesign for a decline in its number of daily active users.
The messaging company reported its Q2 earnings yesterday. One of the key takeaways was that the number of people using Snapchat daily shrank from 191 million last quarter to 188 million this quarter. CEO Evan Spiegel blamed the 1.5 percent decrease on, “disruption caused by our redesign.”
Some Snapchat users are requesting to go under the knife to get a face that resembles their filtered selfies, according to a cosmetic surgeon who calls the new phenomena “Snapchat dysmorphia.”
These patients are seeking bigger eyes and fuller lips that often come with some of the filters in social media apps, like Snapchat and Facetune, creating a fresh warping of already unrealistic standards of beauty.
Snapchat is shutting down its Snapcash peer-to-peer payment service, which allowed users to send money to one another.
With other services like Venmo, PayPal, Zelle, and Apple Pay Cash offering the same functionality, there was no room for another service on the market.
Snapchat is building its focus on augmented reality Lenses, by giving users the ability to download those created by other users. This follows on from a feature Snap added at the end of last year, giving users the ability to build their own Lenses.
