The week in social: Doodle Draw, Dick Costolo, and Ello on iOS

Over 8000 photos are uploaded on Snapchat every second

As one of the most popular up and coming social networks, Snapchat users send a wealth of photos to each other everyday. The actual number of content uploaded by users on the network has been unclear however until earlier this week, when PhotoWorld.com released stats around images shared by popular social and messaging networks. According to the data, Snapchat users are sharing an average of 8,796 photos every second. WhatsApp follows closely behind with 8,102 per second, and Facebook comes in third with 810 per second.

Facebook Messenger on Android hits 1 billion downloads

Facebook Messenger, the increasingly popular stand-alone app from Facebook, has just reached a new milestone with Android users, with 1 billion total downloads. The only other company to reach this number on the Google Play Store is Google itself (with various application such as YouTube), showing just how much of an impact the messaging service has for mobile users. Recently to hitting this milestone, Facebook updated the app with a host of new location based services, including enhancing the location-sharing functionality.

More information on TechCrunch.

Ello planning to launch an iOS application

A minimalist social network for those who dislike advertisements, Ello launched in 2014 to much fan-fare, however its popularity faded over time. Now, in an attempt to reach a wider audience, the company announced it would be launching a new mobile app specifically for iOS, on June 18th. It remains to be seen if the new update will spur additional interest, as it is suspected that the service has a dwindling user-base.

Duncan Hines is the top CPG brand on Facebook in the United States

According to research from Socialbakers, a social media analytics company, Duncan Hines is the top CPG brand on Facebook for all of the United States, as a function of total interactions on Page content. When looking at other parameters, such as total number of fans, brands such as Coca-Cola come out on top, with over 12.5 million. Simply Orange is also a surprise winner of most interactions on content per 1,000 fans. Lastly, Duncan Hines again won with the most interactions for a single Facebook post, with the leading number of 255,094. Data for this report was aggregated since the start of 2015.

Facebook Messenger debuts games with Doodle Draw

Facebook has just released its first game for the standalone mobile messaging app, Facebook Messenger, called Doodle Draw. The game functions as a virtual version of Pictionary, where a user draws an image, and the other user has to guess what that image is. There is speculation that Doodle Draw is the first attempt by Facebook to see if third party apps built into the main experience will take off and be seen as a positive addition, or pave the way for a host of spam and unwanted content in the user experience. During Facebook’s yearly developers conference (F8), Mark Zuckerberg pointed out that Facebook Messenger is one of the most important apps in its family, as well as one of the most quickly growing.

More information on Inquisitr.

Instagram redesigns website with new layout for user profiles

Instagram last week debuted a new design for both its desktop and mobile web experience that includes larger thumbnail images and a new look for profile pictures. The new design places an emphasis on the images themselves, and reduces the number of images per row to three, from an original five. The cover photo collage that was previously featured on web user profiles has also been removed. The layout of user profiles will extend to hashtag search results as well, and should now be visible to all users as it rolled out slowly over the course of the last week.

Spotify reaches new milestone with 20 million streaming subscribers

Spotify hit a major milestone last week when it reached 20 million paying subscribers to its music streaming service. Within the first five and a half years of it being in business, the service reached 10 million paying users, and doubled that amount in just one year more after gaining additional mainstream popularity. In addition, total active usage on the platform is at a larger 75 million. In a blog post announcing the news, Spotify also cited that over $3 billion USD had been paid out to artists as royalties for the licensing of their music. Due to the increase in subscriber numbers, payouts to artists have also increased, potentially making Spotify an even more popular source for artists to put their music on.

Facebook and Shopify expand partnership for beta-test of Buy Now button

A small number of businesses have been testing the “Buy Now” call to action button with Facebook advertisements, but that test is set to expand as the partnership between Shopify and Facebook develops further. United States based Shopify merchants will be set to test the button as part of an expanded beta, and other selected businesses will be invited in to test the ad unit feature. Interested merchants can also apply to be part of the test, as the companies are seeking to understand the performance across a number of different business types.

Dick Costolo is replaced by Jack Dorsey as interim Twitter CEO

As the climax to conversations that started with Twitter’s board of directors as early as late last year, the decision has been made that Dick Costolo will step down as the company’s Chief Executive Officer. Jack Dorsey, co-founder of the company, will take the role of interim CEO, at a time while he is also the Chief Executive of Square Inc. The search committee for a new CEO will not include Dorsey, however the search will be under heavy scrutiny form the tech industry and investors as the company searches for new ways to monetize and grow revenue.

More information on Wall Street Journal.

Twitter to remove 140 character limit for direct messages

Announced by the Twitter staff on the official community website, Sachin Agarwal, product manager of direct messages said that the character limit on direct messages of 140 characters would be lifted come July. Agarwal goes on to recommend that app developers and other users of the Twitter API review new API additions, and update app user interfaces to account for the new change. This is likely a welcome addition for users, as direct messages tend to be more private in nature, and users would be willing to receive longer form messages in these cases.

More information on Twitter Community.