14th Oct 2016 by Helen Stirling

10 Yetis Insight - Snapchat puts publishers to the back of the queue, LinkedIn get sneaky, Geofeedia get denied & Periscope ups its game!

Here’s your weekly update in all that is social media coming from Rhodri, hope you enjoy the news!

Snapchat makes changes affecting advertisers and publishers

The Snapchat app has decided to stop shoving its ‘Discover’ section in people’s faces. This is where publishers can share their stories and content. Previously the discover section was featured above personal messages in the application, but now Snapchat has decided that personal messages should be the main focus.

Some publishers may be disappointed with this decision at first, but the idea is that users will spend less time in the app if their experience is flawed. The app is for sharing social content primarily and this is what the change in design represents, because it is what’s most important to the users. Publishers make their money through ads in their content and split the revenue with Snapchat. Snapchat believe the more enjoyable the app is for users the longer they will spend on it, which should also increase the number of visitors to the discovery section.


LinkedIn has a sneaky new feature

LinkedIn has introduced a new feature called ‘Open Candidates’ that allows users to let potential employers know they are open to new job opportunities without letting their current employer know.

The private function is available in the ‘Preferences’ tab on the LinkedIn Jobs page. Once the option has been selected, users can choose the types of roles and companies they are interested in and LinkedIn will share their details with relevant recruiters.

LinkedIn do not feel they are being overly devious in providing this option as it is something they believe there is a very high demand for. It is also seen as a positive from the recruiter’s side as they do not want to spend their time messaging people who are not interested in a move.


Facebook, Twitter and Instagram block Geofeedia

For those of you who don’t know, Geofeedia is a location based analytics platform that came out of Chicago. It works by analysing social media and is able to predict locally or globally what is occurring due to online activity. It uses social media to gather data coming from specific locations almost instantly. Geofeedia has been found gathering publicly available data from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as other sites and distributing it to police agencies for a fee in the US. The information is very appealing to police as it helps them combat unwanted public activity such as protests.

The American Civil Liberties Union have said that this violates privacy, and many have voiced their anger about this breaching their civil rights. As there are already concerns about what the government is doing with peoples’ personal data, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are in agreement that this is unacceptable and have revoked Geofeedia’s access to their analytics.

Periscope now has the ability to enable broadcast quality streams

Twitter’s live video streaming creation, Periscope, is at the forefront of their attempts to make the app more popular, they are hoping for live TV deals and keeping the ethos of instantly updating people as to what is happening around the world.

Twitter revealed that up to 85% of their users will tweet about television they are watching, so the idea is that users are now able to create their own live video content for people to see. The problem with this idea so far has been that the broadcast quality is often sub-standard and unreliable due to connectivity problems on mobile devices.

Periscope has now focused its attention to established broadcasters rather than individuals and announced a new option ‘Periscope Producer’, which enables broadcasters to stream video directly to Periscope using a wider range of devices. It can now be used with devices such as professional video cameras, satellites, desktop streaming software and many more. This move also means that Periscope can reach Television rather than just hand held devices.

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