In an effort to prevent users from permanently deleting a photo, Instagram has launched their new “Archive” option.
Archive allows users of the photo sharing service to save publish photos, then privatize one photo at a time by sending it into the archive. This means if you’ve already posted a photo but you later decide you don’t want people to see it, you can simply archive so that you can keep it on your account.
To archive a photo, users only need to open the photo that they want to archive, and click the ellipses (… on iOS, vertical on Android) on the top right corner, which also contains the options to Turn Off Commenting, Edit, Share, and Delete. The Archive option will be the first of the options.
The photo is then removed from the user’s page and stored in the new “Archive” page which can be accessed by tapping the counter-clockwise arrow image on the top right corner of the app.
If the user changes their mind and wants to publish the photo on their page again,
Instagram says that the new feature allows users to be more flexible as their evolving profile reflects the user over time, and newly unwanted photos can then be relegated to private viewing.
What has been the face of Twitter trolls and newbies alike for 7 years is now a thing of the past, as Twitter drops the egg as their default profile photo and replaces it with a generic portrait figure, as many other sites use.
In a blog post, Twitter shared a brief history on the design of the image, relating the egg photo given to new users who go on to become regular Twitter users and an egg hatching into a bird. The image, a white egg against a colorful background, was first introduced in 2010 and succeeded 3 other default profile photos.
The microblogging site’s design team also explained their reasoning for the change, including highlighting the company’s commitment to recognizing different groups of users around the world by prompting self-expression among users through their profile photos. Some users also chose to keep the previous egg image because they liked the look of it, so the new default photo is meant to more apparently serve as a placeholder as encouragement to replace it. Twitter also briefly addressed the fact that accounts are often solely made to harass users, so a correlation between anonymous harassment from “egg” users negatively affects new users who have not yet uploaded a profile photo.
Several iterations of the design were considered after key traits were identified. A grey figure was chosen for being generic, universal, and temporary so that users would want to change it. A high color contrast was used to aid visually impaired users in seeing the image. The coloring also serves to give profiles with the default image less prominence than users with unique profile photos.
The figure is reminiscent of the iconography plastered on restroom doors indicating male and female restrooms. To avoid users associating the new avatar with a specific gender, the head, shoulders, and height were altered.
Avatar revisions can be seen from start to finish below:
With a new update, Twitter will now allow users to reply to other users’ tweets without the person’s @ username taking characters away from the 140-character limit.
Tweets are limited to 140 characters, and previously, when a user replied to a tweet to say, @Twitter, the tweet would be reduced to 132 characters before beginning to write the tweet. Now, the username or usernames that are being replied to will appear above a tweet and be displayed as, “Replying to @Twitter”.
This will only be the case if users click the “Reply” option on a tweet, not if users “Mention” a user by composing a tweet on someone’s profile, or composing a tweet then adding the username. Replies to a tweet will appear in a user’s reply notifications, and mentions will continue to appear in mentions notifications.
Threaded tweets and conversations, will display “Replying to” when viewing an individual tweet from a browser or app but opening the thread will lose the “Replying to” text and can be identified by a line connecting the replier’s avatar to the original tweet’s avatar. The difference can be seen in the examples below:
Embedded tweets are absent of both the text and connecting line, showing the original tweet and reply together; it also does not display the number of replies:
Edit who’s in the conversation by removing existing participants or by manually adding usernames to your reply: https://t.co/7BToqSVp1s
Mobile Twitter apps must be updated before the change in replies will be applied.
When replying to a tweet, users have the option of removing certain users from the conversation by de-ticking the check mark next to their name, blocked accounts will appear in the list of users in the conversation but replies will not be sent to them. These names can be accessed by clicking the “Replying to” text.
To add a new username into the conversation, users must swipe the username list down, and manually write the @ username in, which will affect the character limit. Up to 50 usernames may be included in a conversation, but only when cumulatively added through replies, not counting additional usernames that fit in the character limit when written in.
We're changing replies so that you have all 140 characters to express yourself.
According to Twitter, the replies to a tweet are ranked. This means users are shown Tweets from the original poster, or from people you follow first, not in chronological order.
On Friday, March 15, social media star Jérôme Jarre took to Twitter in an impassioned video highlighting the devastating food shortages in Somalia that the United Nations has officially classified as being on the brink of famine.
Jarre asked his 1.2 million followers to tweet “#TurkishAirlinesHelpSomalia” since it’s one of the few Airlines that operates flights into the impoverished nation. Jarre said the flights would be filled with food and water and shall be distributed in Somalia.
Others also leveraged their social media followings to amplify Jarre’s message by posting their own videos, including social media stars Juanpa Zurita, Gabriel Conte, and Chakabars, along with actor Ben Stiller. The videos spread quickly on Twitter and were reposted on Instagram and Facebook.
Turkish Airlines soon responded, stating in a series of tweets that they were discussing the details of providing support with Jerome and those involved and were committed to continuing flights throughout Africa. Jèrôme made a follow-up video stating that the airline company will be offering a cargo flight to carry 6o tons (120,000 pounds) of food on March 27th.
The effort to focus attention to the famine and to get the company to provide planes for the food packages were featured on Twitter Moments.
Once the use of the airplanes was permitted, a GoFundMe account was created to raise the funds needed to obtain the food shipments. According to the GoFundMe page, the food will first be purchased in Turkey as a thank you to the company, then will reportedly be purchased from markets in Somalia.
With videos from Jarre, online personality Amanda Cerny, and NFL player Colin Kaepenick, among many more, the #LoveArmyforSomalia hashtag garnered strong support for the plan. Initially intended to raise $1,000,000 in 10 days, when the plane was set to leave, the $1,000,000 goal was swiftly raised roughly 21 hours after launching the crowdfunding campaign, and now sits at a comfortable 1.4 million from 50,168 donors.
Somalia, the small nation with a population of 10.5 million in East Africa, has been battling food shortages after a two-year long drought has severely affected local crop production and cattle population. 2.9 million Somalia face the risk of famine The situation has been worsened as warring rebel groups have at times been successful in blocking humanitarian aid workers from delivering food.
Famine has been declared in parts of South Sudan, and Somalia, Nigeria, and Yemen are at risk of famine. The United Nations outlines the criteria for officially declaring a famine:
“[W]hen certain measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met … [A]t least 20 per cent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 per cent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons.”
Famine was previously declared in Somalia in July, 2011, when 260,000 people died as a result in just two months. The country is also currently facing a cholera outbreak, which is an “acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of (contaminated) food or water,” with 7,731 cases of cholera and 183 deaths. There are also “330,000 acutely malnourished children,” according to the New York Times.
While online donors provided the funding and Turkish Airlines will be providing the transport, the American Refugee Committee, an international non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian training and assistance will be responsible for distributing the food.
Jérôme Jarre rose to online prominence with Vine, the now defunct six-second video app, and is a popular user on Snapchat. He has been been spearheading the effort to raise awareness on the conditions facing the Somali people and including others on his mission. In a video from Casey Neistat (below) he says he read news articles on the crisis and enlisted his friends to assist in finding a way to help.
Actor Ben Stiller contributed to the mission of private parties seeking funding to aid Somalian famine by offering up his charity, The Stiller Foundation, to process the donations so thatthose interested to make tax-deductible donations. The charity has participated in the rebuilding Haitian schools and was inspired after the actor’s trips to Africa and Haiti personally exposed him to the difficult conditions the countries’ people were living in.
Casey Neistat uploaded a YouTube video chronicling the behind the scenes action that brought together the key figures who created the plan to launch the mission to recruit Turkish Airlines for their humanitarian aid. The video shows the phone call with Turkish Airlines representatives who finalized the deal. According to Neistat, the company will contribute “140 tons” on other available planes in addition to the original 60 tons.
UPDATE: The GoFundMe goal has been increased to $3 million, and is currently at $1.6 million. The first $1 million initially raised will be used to purchase food, everything after the first million will be used for water. According to Jarre, $250 is enough to use a truck carrying 2000 liters of water that can feed 200 families for one day. The hashtag #NominatedForSomalia has been created where users can nominate others to donate. Ben Stiller is filming a documentary about the fundraising efforts and may feature videos of people nominating others.
Snapchat has been a popular social media app since its initial release in 2011, and has seen its membership ranks swell over the years as users sought out a new way to share video and picture updates. The Venice, California based company allows users to sendselect users photos or short videos which can only be viewed once, or to post photos and videos on their Stories page, which are available to view by all of the user’s friends or a chosen few for 24 hours.
Competitors, though, have taken note and have been capitalizing on Snapchats innovative features.
Facebook Messenger launched “Messenger Day” earlier this month, and much like Snapchat Stories, users can post photos and videos that can be viewed by approved for 24 hours.
WhatsApp for a short time removed a text Status that updated other users what they were up to (Available, Busy) and replaced it with similar GIF, image, and video updates similar to Snapchat Stories. The text-only Status update was restored after some backlash from users.
Most notable among the clones are the very similar Instagram Stories, which appear along the top of a user’s homepage in the Instagram app. Users tap to see a slideshow of images or videos from users they follow and can tap to continue onto the next item, or swipe between posters.
Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram are all owned by Facebook.
Facebook made an offer to buy Snapchat in 2013 for $3 billion when Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg personally met Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel to discuss the deal, but Spiegel rejected the offer, believing the company to be worth more. Snap, Inc.’s (Snapchat) recent IPO valued the company at $24 billion.
Facebook has long been asserting its online dominance of the social media market by buying potential competitors, like Instagram and WhatsApp. Or in, the Snapchat’s case, beating them at their own game to render them unnecessary.
By consolidating services under one corporate umbrella, Facebook may edge Snapchat out of the competition by enticing users to scale back how many social media accounts they maintain, and stick with Facebook-owned products.
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