The week in social: Twitter on Yahoo, Spotlight Stories, and Boomerang

Periscope adds seasonally themed hearts for the Holidays

During the Holiday period, Periscope users can now activate seasonally themed hearts that show off Christmas, the New Year, and more, when adding specific hashtags to the name of their stream. When users watch a stream that has one of these tags, the holiday themed “hearts” will show up with regular hearts from time to time. Tyler Hansen, a designer at Periscope, explained to Social Times that the company has been considering and experimenting with themed hearts for awhile, and that one of their first successful forays into the new feature was a Halloween-themed bat “heart”, which was popular among users. Hansen went on to note that there are hidden hashtags that users are likely to uncover moving into 2016.

More information on Social Times.

Facebook testing Page search feature

With the search capabilities within Facebook improving rapidly over the last several years, the latest in new features quietly being tested is the ability to search the posts within a specific Page. The test is said to be an extension to a small program that lets users search each other’s individual Pages. The test is currently taking place on mobile and on desktop for a small set of United States-based English speaking users. There is no official word on time-frame for the feature to be available to all users.

More information on Marketing Land.

Yahoo updates mobile search to include Twitter results

As part of a host of improvements to its mobile web search offering, Yahoo is incorporating relevant Twitter results alongside other sources. The Twitter results are largely related to celebrity searches, and will surface tweets from the given person searched for. Image search for celebrities has also been overhauled to show trending results based on images other users have interacted with.

Twitter partners with local on demand service in India

Twitter has made an official partnership with the service Lookup in India, which allows users to connect with local businesses to purchase products and services directly through the social network. Users can send a tweet or a direct message to the account @lookuplite to set appointments, complete transactions, and find out more information about local businesses. In the same blog post, Twitter also announced that subscribers to Reliance Mobile can now manage their accounts directly through Twitter by tweeting at @RelianceMobile using one of around 60 compatible hashtags. India is one of Twitter’s fastest growing markets, which in part accounts for the growth in new capabilities and services on the platform.

Vine launches personalized channels for users

Vine is introducing a new personalized feed for users that is separate from the home feed of accounts and individuals followed. Vine announced the new feature in an official blog post, but there are few details available on exactly how the channel is curated, and what content it will feature, short of it being tailored to each individual user. The channel is officially called “For You”, and it is currently available on the iOS version of the app, with a rollout for Android said to be coming in the near future.

Google unveils Spotlight Stories

As a way to leverage 360 degree video capture and content, YouTube has debuted Spotlight Stories, an interactive way to experience stories, where the user can follow a story and subplots from different visual angles, allowing them to choose unique outcomes for a story. YouTube is showcasing this new feature with a story called #SpecialDelivery, made available through Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects group. Spotlight Stories are currently available in their intended incarnation with the YouTube app on Android devices, with a YouTube 360 simplified version being available on other devices and platforms.

More information on YouTube Blog.

Facebook launches support for Apple Live Photos on iOS app

A few feature specific to the iPhone 6s model, users are able to take what are called “live photos”, photos that capture the moment of action before and after the photo was taken, in an effort to capture more of the story of the photo itself. Facebook’s iOS app now supports upload and viewing of this format of photos, but since it is an Apple device exclusive feature, users on Android, desktop, and web versions of Facebook will not be able to view the photos. The feature is still currently only available to a small set of users, with a global rollout planned to last until next year.

Instagram adds improvements to the Boomerang app

Instagram has made some key changes to its Boomerang app to help video creation and overall app use become easier. First, videos are no longer automatically saved to a user’s camera roll, but instead when a video is taken, the user can choose if they are saved locally. In addition, sharing directly to Instagram has become more seamless, and when making a video on iPad or iPhone, the device can use flash to help a user take a video in the dark. Lastly, users can now control how long a video goes, for up to twenty frames using new controls.

More information on Instagram Help Page.

New Star Wars film creates unprecedented social buzz

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, is one of the most buzzed about movies of the year, but much of the conversation surrounding the film has taken place on social, where an astounding 5 million tweets have been sent, and 140 million Facebook interactions have taken place as of last Sunday night. Facebook specifically announced that 64 million people were talking about Star Wars around the premiere of the film, leading to the huge amount of interactions. An infographic from SocialFlow showed that social impressions for Star Wars eclipsed other large movie franchises with movies this year including The Avengers and Jurassic World.