The week in social: Blume, Friendsgiving, and Twitter Kit video

Vine debuts for Apple Watch and improves discovery function

Vine has made two big announcements to the ways and places users can discover content. Firstly, Vine is now available on the Apple Watch for all users that have the latest version of the app installed on their iPhones. Vine on the Apple Watch will show users content from accounts they have favorited or other popular Vines. In addition, the discovery feature on the core app has been updated to allow for swiping left on any Vine to see additional suggested Vines from similar accounts.

Facebook is testing a button to undo friend requests

A new report from Social Times suggests that Facebook is testing a new option for friend requests that a user no longer wants to make. Within a people search or a suggested friends list, if a user sends a friend request, an option has appeared for some users to undo this before it is accepted. There has been no official word from Facebook on the option, but it is likely that this is a small test being sent to a subset of users that may see wider adoption later on if heavily used.

Facebook introduces additional accessibility features for developers

Through Facebook’s coding blog earlier this week, Rayma Sethuraman, part of the Facebook Accessibility team, announced a new API for React and React native, systems and frameworks for building applications, as well as its “HIKE” primer for developing coding skills. The HIKE methodology associates each letter with a behavior or category of required skills. The blog post goes on to say that the methodology does not encompass all the required skills of the accessibility field, but anyone with basic HTML, CSS and general coding knowledge can learn the approach. The new API allows users to make React-powered experiences functional for people who used technology assistance. An example given was a screen reader that could be developed for blind individuals. These efforts are Facebook’s push to make its app, and the Internet as a whole more widely available to those with disabilities.

More information on Business Insider.

New dating app Blume verifies users with selfies

A new dating app has hit the market that hopes to avoid the problem of catfishing, or users pretending to be someone they are not on a dating app. The new app, named Blume, has just been released for iOS, requires users to take a selfie before chatting with someone else they match with, so that the accepting user can verify that the selfie looks like other posted photos. Selfies can also have text added to them for context.

Breaking down food emoji use during Thanksgiving

SwiftKey, makers of keyboard applications for iOS and Android, released a report on what food emojis are most used by state in the USA, specifically during the Thanksgiving period. Some of the general top food emoji use by state was unsurprising, with Washington using coffee the most, Hawaii using pineapple, and Iowa with the earn of corn emoji. In terms of most use of Thanksgiving or fall related emoji (such as leaves, turkey leg, football, and sweet potato, Delaware came in first, followed by New Hampshire and Maine.

Facebook users created over 75,000 Friendsgiving events

As Thanksgiving has come and gone, another popular type of event took place over the Holiday weekend, a tradition for many called Friendsgiving, where friends get together and share a potluck meal. Many of these events have been planned on Facebook, as data released by the company to Social Times shows that over 75,000 events were created that had either “Friendsgiving” or “Friendgiving” in the title prior to November 25th. Facebook additionally went on to highlight features of the service that would be useful over the holidays, such as turning on the “Nearby Friends” feature, and doing a 2015 recap of posts, as well as the introduction of new sticker packs for Messenger.

More information on Social Times.

Snapchat debuts Story Explorer

Snapchat is expanding its Story feature by allowing people to experience popular stories from multiple angles, with the new feature being called Story Explorer. Developed through the Snapchat research team, when a user sees a Snapchat Story moment they like, they can swipe to see additional snaps of the same moment, tapping into all the users on the network who have shared that same moment. Currently Story Explorer is available with New York and Los Angeles Live Stories, and the company plans to roll is out widely in the near future.

More information on Snapchat Blog.

Twitter debuts native support for Twitter Kit video

Announced through a blog post earlier this week, users with the latest version of the Twitter mobile app for iOS will be able to view videos and GIFs in full screen without leaving the Twitter app if the video is content that’s part of an app built using Twitter Kit. Support for this new feature is live for iOS only, and will be coming to Android soon, according to the post. Twitter has confirmed that any app running Twitter Kit on iOS8 and above will automatically support the native viewing.

Instagram testing support for multiple accounts on a single device

A long-requested feature that is available for many other social apps, Instagram is now starting to test multiple-account access on a single mobile device, specifically for Android. News broke after the Thanksgiving holiday, and it only appears to be available for some users running version 7.12.0, which is a beta tester version of Android. There is additional speculation that the availability of this feature is coming because of Instagram cracking down on 3rd party applications that originally have provided features such as this.

More information on The Verge.

Pinterest drives purchase interest in 87% of users

According to data recently released by Shopify, Pinterest is continuing its dominance as the social network of choice for users who are seeking ideas on what to purchase. Out of approximately 2,000 users surveyed, 87% said that Pinterest helped them to decide exactly what to purchase, while 96% use the service to gather information about a product. Looking at the network overall, two million users are posting product pins each day, fodder for users who may be inclined to make a purchase based off what they see on the network. Pinterest has long been considered a network best suited for the developing social commerce industry.