Week in social: Snapchat filters, YouTube Reels, and new Instagram features

Periscope taking its cha-ching potential to the world

Twitter’s got its eyes on the live video prize, expanding its Periscope earning capabilities beyond the US to Canada, Ireland, and the UK, with other countries to follow. First introduced this summer, the Periscope Super Broadcaster program lets users earn revenue from their streams through a virtual tipping mechanism, Super Hearts, while also allowing Periscope to keep in competition with other live video platforms like Facebook Live, Twitch, and YouTube. Broadcasters are able to keep all their earnings from the platform, minus a $1 administration fee.

Read more at TechCrunch

Aaaaaand YouTube gets Stories, too

Snapchat must be feeling pre-tty popular right now, with yet another platform borrowing its singature Stories offering. YouTube announced on Wednesday that it’s launching Reels, a feature that will allow its creators to cut together up to 30 seconds of video clips with stickers, filters, music, text, and other design options. Unlike its contemporary’s versions though, Reels won’t expire and users can host more than one at a time. Google said the idea is to encourage casual posting for when creators want to share on the run without uploading a full vid.

Read more at Mashable

Instagram is testing a bunch of new features

Looks like the folks over at Instagram are getting a head start on all of our holiday gifts because peeps in the know are reporting a host of new and exciting features are being tested. No guarantees as to which ones will make it to us all, but here’s what’s popping up: a native regram feature (finally, please make it happen!), a GIF search for Stories and regular posts (amazing and terrifying all at once), a brand new Android beta app, archive stories letting users save their stories to a personal archive (and we soon might be able to keep our Stories for longer than 24 hours), a closest friends list, a share to WhatsApp button, and a top emoji and hashtag search option.

Read more at TNW

Facebook is fixing to turn selfies into security

To add to a list of interesting ways we’re are asked to prove that we’re aren’t bots, Facebook recently confirmed it’s testing a photo-based identity test after screenshots of it leaked on Twitter. The social giant says the feature is intended to catch suspicious activity and could be used at a number of different points if the platform wants to verify users are who they say they are. While Facebook didn’t give too much info on the safeguards to prevent the potential captcha tool from misuse, the software does make sure the image is unique and not a random photo pulled off the internet.

Read more at Digital Trends

Snapchat is fighting back with algorithm-personalized redesign

In an attempt to conquer Instagram and revive its own growth, Snapchat is putting friends first and dividing them from professional publishers. Its latest redesign began rolling out on Friday, and will sort content by what each person watches most, rather than how popular it is with everyone else like Facebook, or reverse chronological order like the platform used to. CEO of SnapInc Evan Spiegel commented on the changes: “We are separating the social from the media, and taking an important step forward towards strengthening our relationships with our friends and our relationships with the media.”

Read more at TechCrunch

Facebook prototypes Messenger Broadcast for businesses

Businesses may be about to get more bang for their social buck thanks to Facebook’s latest Messenger development. The company has internally developed “Messenger Broadcast,” a self-serve mass-messaging interface that lets businesses send marketing messages to its users. Facebook confirmed that it’s testing the feature internally but hasn’t yet trialled it with the public or businesses. As for who the message can reach, the interface outlines that a certain number of users will receive it at no cost to the business. It is also unclear whether businesses will be able to pay for more reach, but that does seem like a viable direction for the product going forward.

Read more at TechCrunch

New Snapchat filters set to be game changers

Snapchat continues to strive forward with its ever-strong filter game. Its latest offering is object recognition filters that automatically recognize things in users images and create filters specifically tailored to them. This is something that advertisers will no doubt be able to have fun with, especially if they can be made to recognize individual products and businesses.

Read more at TNW