Annoyed with pictures appearing in your Twitter timeline? Get over it (...unless they're Bitstrips)
Yeah, yeah you don't like Twitter's new layout. We get it...
This week's social media gripes: Bitstrips and Twitter pics
Twitter fans will have noticed that the social network sneakily rolled out some changes on Tuesday night, chief among them being that pictures now appear in your timeline as thumbnails, as opposed to a link.
That’s it. Some pictures appearing in your timeline.
You’d think a member of One Direction had died with the reaction. To many, the idea that pictures appear in your timeline (on a service that you use FOR FREE) is abhorrent.
Get over it. Right now.
Facebook ‘fun’
A couple of things that are worth whinging about this week are on Facebook. You can probably already guess what I’m talking about, but it’s giraffes and Bitstrips that are getting on everyone’s nerves.
Sure, creating a cartoon version of yourself is a ‘fun’ thing to do, but you’re forgetting to ask yourself the key question surrounding every item that’s posted on Facebook: ‘does anybody care?’
The answer is a resounding no. Don’t even bother checking, I’ve answered it for you. If you think it’s fun to do, create an album for yourself so you can show your significant other and your mum. You’ll be lucky if they’re even bothered.
I’m not even going to get started on the giraffe profile picture situation…
G+ overhauls photo and video features
Google+ announced a whopping 18 new features to the site on Tuesday, including updates to Hangouts and additional tools for those that use the site for photos.
It has also added a snazzy SMS service, meaning users can message others using text. However, the main addition that we should all be getting excited about is the fact that Hangouts now support animated GIFs. Technology eh?
Pinterest introduces related pins
Pinterest is going to be adding a new recommendations feature known as ‘Related Pins’ to people’s newsfeeds in order to try and improve discovery on the site.
When the feature is rolled out across all accounts, users will be able to control what kinds of suggestions they will see by giving the related pins a thumbs up or a thumbs down.
It looks like it will be great way to discover new content on the site, and find new users that you might not have necessarily stumbled across before.
Users login with Facebook
A social login provider has released data which reveals that more and more people are using their social accounts to log in to sites and apps. This is apparently down to convenience, which I can believe because creating a new account is a giant pain in the ass.
On the other hand, I was quite surprised that so many people were willing to allow so many different sites and apps to access their Facebook accounts, especially due to the ruckus that users have created surrounding privacy.
Logging in through Facebook is all well and good – until Spotify ‘accidentally’ posts that you’re listening to a musicals playlist. Again.
NHS uses YouTube to recruit new staff
NHS Highland has been using YouTube in order to try and recruit new staff. The health service uploaded a short film promoting vacancies in NHS Highland’s cancer treatment services, which is the first in a series of videos to drive recruitment.
The six-minute video aims to dismiss misconceptions about the Highlands, and talks about what both the NHS and the Highlands have to offer.
While the video itself is nothing groundbreaking, it’s good to see recruiters taking to video as a new way to try and attract more employees.