Social Media Makeovers

Some of the most popular social media giants – Facebook, Instagram and Twitter – have recently rolled out changes to both design and functionality. Social media revamps and rollouts are literally appearing on a weekly basis – here are some of the latest and most relevant updates to discover.
Facebook’s newest backend changes mean that it is now no longer integrated with mobile phones running a Windows operating system using Facebook Connect. Users were previously able to link their Microsoft and Facebook accounts via Facebook Connect. After much criticism and concern, Facebook has also made changes to Facebook Messenger. It was previously possible to pinpoint the locations of users without their knowledge creating serious security and privacy concerns. Now continuous location tracking has been disabled. Users are able to opt to share their locations with others by sending a map message via the application and by displaying their location via a pin on the map. It can also be used to share other locations such as specific business addresses with friends.
Instagram’s mobile and desktop websites have received an upgrade with regards to aesthetics. The changes have already been put into effect for many users and will appear on all accounts within the next few days. The desktop changes are particularly being celebrated as it has been long neglected with an entirely different look and feel than it’s modern and user-friendly app. The photos and comments are much larger and everything is set on a clean light gray background with a white header. Even the fonts in the bio have been given a much more attractive upgrade and it also lends to a minimal aesthetic. Both the desktop and application feature new comment and heart symbols that feature modern designs. They are also larger symbols adding to the user-friendliness of the Instagram experience. The new changes are likely to inspire users to spend more time on instagram.com than in previous years. The changes on both the desktop site and the mobile app should also make it possible for Instagram to keep things more organized and clean when their newest advertising rollouts debut.
Twitter has announced they will be updating private messages in July so that they will no longer have 140 character limits. This is significant for private users as well as businesses. It definitely removes a lot of the restrictions and challenges to being able to effectively network using Twitter.