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Week in Social: Kylie v Snapchat, GIFs all round, and Facebook 3D 2.0

26 Feb 2018 Cassandra Megraw

Oh snap… Kylie Jenner just lost Snapchat $1.3 billion

Snapchat has been copping an internetload of flack for its recent redesign (in fact, 1.2 million users have signed this petition to have it removed), but none has hurt more than this tweet from Kylie Jenner on Wednesday:

“Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me… ugh this is so sad.”

Sure, she followed it up with a “Still love you tho snap … my first love” but the damage was done. The next day, Snap Inc. stock closed down 6%, wiping out $1.3 billion off its market value. Who knows where to from here, but oof.

Snapchat adds Giphy GIFS and new tabs

The day before the snapstorm that was Kylie Jenner’s stock-slaughtering Tweet, Snapchat was lovingly working to launch new features to improve its product and help users feel more at home in their new Snapchat experience (and borrowing from Instagram, instead of the reverse, for a change). The effort saw the platform add Giphy GIFs to inspire users to jazz up their stories (and hopefully stay on the platform), as well as new tabs to the Discover and Friends sections to help them find the Stories they’re looking for. Seems like it’ll take more than a few additions and interface changes to quiet the crowds, but hey… everyone loves a GIF.

Facebook announces richer 3D posts

When Facebook launched 3D posts recently, it gave its almost 2 billion users the opportunity to see new sides of digital content. Now, it’s rolling out support for the industry-standard gITF 2.0 file format to go with them. This means artists and creators can easily share even richer, higher-quality 3D content on the platform with support for textures, lighting, and realistic rendering techniques. There are also even more ways to share content from more creation tools and platforms with just a click.

Messenger now lets you add pals to your calls without all the fuss

Messenger users can now add friends (up to 50, to be exact) to their ongoing audio and video chats without the headache of having to hang up and manually add people into the conversation before restarting the call. Not only does the feature let you build your group call as you go, but it also automatically creates a group chat that you can all keep the convo flowing in after the call is over. The feature is available on Android and iOS so get group callin’ (or, if you’re a raging millennial like me… continue ignoring calls and communicating exclusively through non-verbal means).

Twitter’s propaganda bot crackdown

After recently revealing that more than 50,000 Twitter accounts were linked to Russian propaganda efforts, Twitter last week announced major limits on how users and apps can automate tweets on its platform. In an effort to fight spam and political propaganda bots, Twitter has banned developers from using systems that post “identical or substantially similar” tweets from a number of accounts at the same time, or does things like liking, retweeting, or following across multiple accounts simultaneously. The platform is removing these options from its own app, and others have till March 23 to follow suit.

Instagram Direct adds replay privacy controls

Instagram may have been “heavily inspired” by Snapchat’s features, but now the photo sharing app is challenging Snapchat to its own game. In an effort to inspire even more intimate usage of Direct, Instagram is adding privacy controls not found on its counterpart’s platform. Now when a user sends an ephemeral photo or video from the Instagram Direct camera, they can decide how many times and for how long recipients can view it. A spokesperson said of the addition: “All these updates are designed to give people more control of what they share with friends in Direct.”