The week in social: Notify, FotoSwipe, and Pinterest visual search

FotoSwipe app launched for Android and iOS

The latest in photo sharing apps to hit the market, FotoSwipe takes photo sharing and makes it more personal, but without having to share any specific information. The app works by having both users be within a close distance to each other, or in the same room, having the app open. From there, each user can choose photos that they want to send, and then “swipe” them to the other device and user. Accepting users have 60 seconds to choose to receive the photos. If users are not in the same room but still want to share photos with someone, they can send a pairing code that will enable photo transfer over wider networks.

More information on Social Times.

Facebook testing auto-delete messages

It was revealed earlier this week that Facebook is testing ephemeral Snapchat-style messaging within its stand-alone Messenger app, the latest by Facebook to bring features to its service to compete with other popular social networks. The test is said to be only taking place in France according to a Facebook rep, and users can tap an hourglass icon before they send a message, and if they do, the message will disappear after an hour. The test is also only available on the iOS and Android versions of Messenger.

More information on Mashable.

President Obama launches Facebook Page

One political figure who has held out longer than others, Barack Obama’s administration has finally launched a Facebook Page for the current president. The goal of the Page is to be a forum for discussions about political issues. Earlier in 2015, a specific Twitter account was also launched for the President. According to a representative for the White House, the Page will be not for an individual person, but for each person who becomes President, with the Page to be handed over to the next electee. This is not to be confused with Barack Obama’s individual Facebook Page, which already has an established presence.

Instagram introduces partner program

Earlier this week, Instagram announced a new program to help advertisers find the right partners to enhance the results of their efforts using Instagram Ads, called Instagram Partners. Starting with a roster of about 40 companies, categories range from Ad Tech, to Community Management, to Content Marketing. The announcement came from a blog post which went on to cite examples of best-in-class content, and ads execution.

Facebook adds subscribe option to Live for Facebook Mentions

Live, the feature in August introduced as part of Facebook Mentions, has had a subscribe feature added to it which allows users to get notifications when their favorite public figures, celebrities, athletes, and more are live-streaming through the stand-alone Facebook app. As part of the Facebook Media post that announced this update, Facebook also noted that some broadcasters including Vin Diesel have had view counts as high as 1 million, with 60% of all broadcasters coming from outside of the United States.

Tumblr launches new messaging feature

Tumblr has this week announced the introduction of a messaging feature, following the trend of many social networks who are picking up the feature. Tumblr’s plans are to roll out messaging slowly over the next several weeks, where some users initially received the update, and can “pass it on” by messaging users that do not currently have it. The announcement blog post stated the reason for this was so Tumblr could work out any bugs or issues in a timely manner, instead of dealing with issues from a network-wide release. All public and connected blogs can message each other, but private or group blogs cannot receive messages currently.

More information on Tumblr Support Blog.

Facebook officially debuts Notify app

A long rumored stand-alone application in progress from Facebook, the Notify app has officially launched. With the aim of helping users receive notifications and updates from several aggregated sources in a single format, Notify allows users to choose categories of news they are interested in, and sources of information from where they want to receive notifications. The rationale behind creation of this app is that the average user would not want to have to open several different apps to get news on sports, politics, tech, or a range of other subjects. Each news publisher partnered with Facebook for this is referred to as a station, and notifications sent from each station are sent to a user’s lock screen, and notifications can be shared or saved for later viewing. the Notify app is currently only available for iPhone users in the United States.

Periscope announces new features for mobile apps

In a bid to continue securing its dominance in the mobile live-streaming space, Periscope has announced several new features; an updated global map, and the ability to skip ahead on stream replays. The updated global map now shows the difference between live broadcasts and replays, denoted respectively by red and blue dots, with only replays from the last 24 hours popping up on the map. The other addition, the ability to skip forward in replays, has also debuted, with the ability to preview where the replay will start back from, as well as the ability to change the speed of forwarding or rewinding through the replay.

YouTube launches streaming music service

Still considered the second most popular search engine behind its parent company Google, YouTube has launched a music streaming service to take advantage of the fact that one its largest contingencies of consumed videos is music, called YouTube music. The service has licensed approximately 30 million audio tracks, but the app experience differs because it also provides access to live streaming music content, instructions on how to play music tracks on instruments, and lyric content for videos. The search experience is also tailored on the app so that when common words are placed in the search bar, only the music related results will come up, as opposed to general results a user may see in standard YouTube search. If users have a YouTube Red subscription, the company’s paid model, they can experience all content in an ad-free environment.

More information on The Verge.

Pinterest updates search with a new visual component

Pinterest has updated its search capability to help users dig deeper into individual components of pings they are interested in with the introduction of visual search. When a user sees a pin, they can now use a search tool to highlight a specific portion of that pin (such as a lamp in a pin of a living room), and Pinterest will surface other pings that match the content of the cropped area. This presents opportunities for brands and individual alike as it will make it easier for users to find exactly what they are looking for on the service, and it will allow brands to link specific items to bigger picture pings they post online. The new search capability is available both on the web on on mobile apps starting now.