The Week in Social: Instagram departures, Snapchat partners with Amazon, and Facebook passwords

Instagram co-founders announce resignation from company

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger announced they are stepping down from their roles at Instagram early last week. Their departure comes at a tough time for parent company, Facebook, who is dealing with data breaches and fake news running amok on its platform. This is the second high profile exit at the company following WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum’s resignation in April. It seems that simmering tensions between the Instagram founders and Facebook boiled over following a recent decision to remove Instagram branding from photos that are shared to Facebook. While Instagram’s success as a platform remains a bright spot among all the bad news Facebook has experienced recently, the founders’ departure adds a high level of uncertainty to its future.

Microsoft to integrate LinkedIn with Outlook and Office

Microsoft is planning a deeper integration of LinkedIn with Outlook and the rest of Microsoft’s Office 365 apps. Some key features include the ability to co-author documents through LinkedIn as well the integration of contact information for meeting invitations. Microsoft has slowly released integrations since it finalized the acquisition of LinkedIn in December 2016.

You can now shop on Amazon while you Snapchat

Amazon and Snapchat have announced a partnership that lets users search Amazon by aiming their Snapchat camera at physical products and barcodes. If the product is available on Amazon, a card will appear that will direct the user to Amazon to purchase the product. This is Snapchat’s latest attempt to add some functionality to its camera; previously, it allowed users to identify songs through a Shazam integration. We’ll see if this move adds value to users; Snapchat really needs a win as its stock is currently trading at single digits and reached a historic low earlier this month.

As we approach the Midterm elections, companies are making it easier to vote

Snapchat, Lyft, and Instagram are among several companies gearing up for the Midterms with initiatives to encourage their users to get out and vote. Snapchat will provide all users over the age of 18 with a link to register to vote as well multiple messages and in-app alerts. Snapchat is also planning to release a filter to promote National Voter Registration Day. Lyft plans to offer 50% off rides to the polls as well as free rides to underserved communities. Instagram will launch a campaign via Stories to help users vote by providing information on registering to vote. It will interesting to see if these efforts have an impact on their target audience, young voters; a demographic that historically isn’t the most engaged and active during elections.

Facebook reveals security flaw and hack, faces lawsuit

Roughly 50 million people were affected by a security flaw that allowed hackers and malicious third part applications to access users’ accounts, Facebook announced last week. Facebook also stated that the issue has been fixed. Following the announcement, a class action lawsuit was filed in California alleging that Facebook’s lack of proper security exposed users to identity theft due to the data breach. Criticism of Facebook’s user data practices will only intensify following this news.

People are increasingly watching TV with their mobile devices in hand, according to recent Facebook report

According to the latest report from Facebook’s research team, TV viewers pay attention to their mobile devices 28% of the time while watching TV shows. That number increases to 50% during ad breaks. The research team also found that younger age groups are becoming increasingly blind to traditional advertising with “participants ages 18-24 looked at their smartphones 60% of the time during TV ads, and people ages 45 and over did so 41% of the time”. The trend of increased multi-screen usage during TV viewing will, in all likelihood, change how companies advertise to TV viewers. Mobile advertising looks to become increasingly important in the marketing world in the near term.