video lately. With muted, autoplaying video the
social network has cracked the code to
increasing their online video impressions—
skyrocketing from one billion to four times
that,according to News.com.au. Last
week, Facebook introduced 360—degree
videos that let you spin around and control
what you're looking at while a video clip plays.
Now, the world's largest social networking
website will let you use a short video as your
Facebook profile picture.
The video clip can only be a few seconds long,
and it will play on loop, similar to Vine (which is owned by rival Twitter). And in a sign of our
smartphone-addicted times, you'll need to be
on Facebook's mobile app for iOS or Android in
order to use the feature.
These changes arejust the latest and most
noticeable to come to Facebook's mobile app.
The company has actually continually
improved its apps with less flashy, but still
useful features, When friends have liked a post,
for example, a slide—in transition shows who of
your favorite people have liked or commented
on the status. Other updates can be seen when
browsing video within Facebook — after
tapping one video, a list of related videos
appears underneath, for example.
With Facebook's overall greater emphasis on
video across the site, Profile Videos could
prove hugely popular. Facebook's new Profile
Video can be recorded within the iOS or
Android app by tapping on the video camera
icon on the bottom right of your picture, though
still images will be supported.
Facebook's new feature comes at a time when
other tech companies are increasingly looking
to offer users the ability to upload short,
looping moving images that are somewhere
between still images and movies. Earlier this
month at Apple's fall event, for instance, the
company introduced many new improvements
included in the iPhone 68 and iPhone 68 Plus.
Among them were "Live Photos,” a feature that
records the moments before and after a photo
is taken, then turns them into a moving image
you can use on your iPhone’s home screen and
lock screen. While Apple claimed that live
photos will be shareable on Facebook, it's still
unclear at the moment whether Facebook's
new addition of moving profile images will let
you upload iPhone Live Photos directly, in
place of short movie clips.
But we've reached out to Facebook to ask
about support for Apple Live Photos as well as
the vintage moving image format that has had
a massive revival online in recent years: the
GIF.
In another update to its mobile apps today,
Facebook is also adding the ability to add
Temporary Profile Images. Knowing that many
users change their profile pictures based on
occasions such as birthdays, anniversaries, or,
in Facebook's video example, the new feature
lets users schedule a profile image to last a
certain dedicated period of time before
disappearing and reverting back to a dedicated
profile image (from one day to one week,
though Facebook also offers a custom time
option as well).
Those who changed their profile picture for
Celebrate Pride, for example, could now set a
timer for how long they would want rainbow
colors as part of their image.
Facebook already has over a billion users, over
half of whom primarily access the site on
mobile devices, but the company clearly does
not want to stop there. With Zuck and Google
both racing to snag the next billion, features
like the new Profile Videos and Temporary
Profile Images will help keep people coming
back to Facebook, and should only further
cement its dominance as the world's largest
social network.
No comments:
Post a Comment