Social Media Round-up – Facebook creates USB security and turns 13, New Instagram posts and Twitter introduce explore.

Facebook celebrates turning 13!

Tomorrow, February 4^th, marks Facebook’s 13^th birthday! To celebrate the people at Facebook have decided to make up their own day, ‘Friendship Day’. I’m sure many of you this week will have seen the option to create friendship videos that celebrate all the online connections you have made though the platform. You will be able to edit these and share them on your page if you want to. Facebook have also added a prompt button in the messenger app for people to send friendship themed gifs to each other and spread a little love.

Instagram test multiple image posts

Instagram users may soon be able to post multiple images in a single post. Similar to uploading an album on Facebook, users will be able to post a holiday collection for example, in one go. Currently the feature is being tested by selected users on Instagram’s beta app on android before the decision whether to roll it out to everyone.

It’s unknown at the moment how these posts will actually appear in users’ news feeds, as those users who are able to test the new feature can only construct them and can’t actually post. It is likely that users will be able to swipe through/ auto-play the pictures from the posts and each will have its own set of likes and comments, saving users from having to upload multiple pictures and allowing them to organise their page more.

Facebook USB security Key

In recent years, hacking has become a problem for people using Facebook. Security has been increased by using double verification methods rather than just one password, although this is impractical as it means always having to use a mobile phone when logging in from a new device. This has even further drawbacks as you will not be able to log in if you don’t have any signal or battery on your phone.

To combat this, Facebook is now making it possible for users to register a security key in the form of a USB stick. These will insert into the USB slot on your computer and users will no longer need mobile phone verification in order to login. The USB’s can be ordered online from companies such as Yubico, and the feature can be added via your Facebook security setting page.

Twitter rolls out explore feature

Twitter has begun to roll out its explore feature to all users so that they can search, find moments, trending topics, as well as live videos, all from one place in their iOS and android apps. Previously, users had to search for all of these things in different areas of the app. This feature will make it much easier for people to find news and things that are happening live, all you need to do is update the application to the latest version to get it.