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Additional Video Support for Social Networks

Videos have been a major part of many social networks for quite some time now. At this point, Facebook is reaching over 3 billion video views a day. Over 50% of people in the United States that visit Facebook on a daily basis watch at least one video per day. Social networks that are focused purely on video, such as Vine, have continued to expand. Vine has recently launched Vine Kids, which is a kid-friendly version of the social network, which will allow children to share amusing videos with one another without running into potentially inappropriate content.

However, not every social network has excelled when it comes to videos. Surprisingly enough, Twitter has never had any direct video support, despite (or perhaps, because of) the fact that Vine is a Twitter acquisition. Recently though, Twitter finally got around to adding video support in the app itself. Not surprisingly, the interface looks quite similar to Vine, but videos that are shared can be up to 30 seconds long, instead of limited to 7 seconds, which is the case on Vine. It is likely that part of Twitter’s decision to add video support is to allow video ads to be shared on Twitter, to help generate income for the social network.

Not every social network is adding videos for the sake of advertisements though. The social network Ello was notoriously founded in response to Facebook, as a social network that vowed to never have any ads, instead generating money through paid-for features. Ello had a small surge in popularity when Facebook was under fire for cracking down on users that went by alternative names in their Facebook profiles. However, Ello’s time in the sun may have passed. Regardless, they recently added video support to the social network, in an effort to continue finding ways to make it better.

Facebook Lets Users Go Anonymous with Rooms

Facebook’s adamant refusal to allow people to create profiles with pseudonyms or alternate names is what led them to coming under fire recently. As I’ve mentioned before, rival social network Ello reaped the benefits of this incident, pulling in Facebook users looking for a social network with no ads where they could use whatever name they felt comfortable with. Interestingly enough, Facebook responded in turn earlier this month with rumblings that they would be launching a mobile application of their own that would allow for anonymous chatting, seemingly against their own established policies.

With other social media apps already existing to serve this purpose like Secret and Whisper, as well as the fact that Facebook had recently come under fire for their refusal to allow pseudonyms on their primary social network, a number of news blogs were skeptical about Facebook’s sudden half-baked changed of heart. What would draw new users in that they couldn’t get from other applications? However, Facebook pushed forward and proved that these rumors were true last week with the launch of an app called Rooms.

Rooms intends to separate itself from other anonymous chatting apps by allowing users to set up discussion spaces regarding any topic. Text, photos, videos, and comments can be shared with others who are using Rooms, which doesn’t require a Facebook account or even an email address. These Rooms can be shared using invitations that look like QR codes, requiring you to take a picture of the invitation, which will then allow you to sign into the Room. These invite codes can be posted anywhere online or shared privately and the creator of a Room has moderation controls.

Some media blogs continue to be skeptical about Facebook’s first endeavor into anonymity, and not even because the launch of this app seems hypocritical in the wake of recent events. Gizmodo referred to Rooms as “unnecessarily complicated” in reference to the app’s requirement of QR codes for invitations. They also acknowledged that Facebook hasn’t had the best track record with their standalone apps (such as Slingshot), so it remains to be seen if Rooms will take off the way that Facebook wants it to.

Ello: The Social Network with No Ads

Recently, Facebook made the decision to crack down on people using their social network whose profiles weren’t using their real names. In particular, they began to crack down on drag queens and similar performers, who frequently use campy stage names as part of their performances. Many drag performers and supporters of LGBT causes saw this decision as discriminatory, as drag performers are often just as (or even more so) connected to their stage names as they would be to the names they were born with. Facebook, however, has still chosen to continually shut down profiles of drag performers (and other types of performers who are better known by stage names).

Perhaps the most famous drag performer of the modern era would be RuPaul, whose influence in the LGBT community has soared thanks to his progressive and popular reality show RuPaul’s Drag Race. Thus, when RuPaul announced that the best alternative to Facebook was a little-known ad-free social network known as Ello, people listened, and began signing up for Ello accounts in droves. In addition to having no ads, Ello also does not adhere to Facebook’s strict ‘real names only’ policy.

I’ve talked about the ‘Facebook killer’ before, a concept related to the idea that eventually Facebook may be usurped by another social network. Social networks have tried before such as Google Plus and Diaspora. However, Ello’s commitment to keeping ads off of its platform, as well as its open doors to the LGBT community who are currently aggravated with Facebook’s policies, may lead to the previously unknown network becoming a powerhouse in the social media industry.

Ello is not yet perfect, however. As a new social network, it has not had the time to develop an intuitive layout in the same way that Facebook has; there are also issues with the search functions and no mobile app is yet available. Similarly, there are issues with the available privacy settings on the site. However, the creators of Ello have stated that they are planning on adding many new features to the network. They plan on funding themselves (without ads) by offering additional premium features that users can purchase.