Speaker 1: New features are coming to Facebook and Instagram.
Speaker 2: I'm Rich Demiro. This is Rich on Tech Daily.
Speaker 1: Facebook is holding its annual Faight Developers conference this week
Speaker 1: near San Francisco, and they announced a bunch of new
Speaker 1: features and products for all of their brands, including Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Whatsappened Oculus. I'm going to go over the biggest things
Speaker 1: coming to Facebook and Instagram, which are two of the
Speaker 1: most popular apps.
Speaker 2: Let's start with Facebook.
Speaker 1: The two biggest announcements have to do with dating and
Speaker 1: the ability to clear out your Facebook history. Now I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about your search history, but this is all
Speaker 1: the stuff that Facebook collects about you as you browse
Speaker 1: the web and use their website. The feature is called
Speaker 1: clear History. It's kind of like erasing your web browser.
Speaker 1: But it really has to do with all the websites
Speaker 1: and apps that send information to Facebook when you use them,
Speaker 1: and spoiler alert, it's pretty much all of them. You
Speaker 1: can delete the information after you see it, or you
Speaker 1: can even turn off collection of this and going forward. Now,
Speaker 1: keep in mind this is not going to be an
Speaker 1: easy process. Well, it might be easy to turn it off,
Speaker 1: but once you do, Facebook kind of hinted that it
Speaker 1: might not be so simple to use the Facebook login
Speaker 1: option for websites after this.
Speaker 2: Also, your data is still.
Speaker 1: Going to be collected, it's just done so in a
Speaker 1: more anonymous way. So we'll have to keep an eye
Speaker 1: on this one because the feature is not available just yet.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious to see how this will be
Speaker 1: implemented and whether it's useful or kind of frustrating.
Speaker 2: Dating is the next.
Speaker 1: Big thing Facebook's going to build into their app, and
Speaker 1: this makes a ton of sense. Facebook has so much
Speaker 1: data on people. I think some people might be hesitant
Speaker 1: to use it at first because they might want to
Speaker 1: keep their dating life separate from their Facebook life. But
Speaker 1: then again, this might really forward some pretty interesting connections.
Speaker 1: Facebook knows all about you, they know all about your
Speaker 1: friends and everyone on there, and they also know who
Speaker 1: you stalk on there. Now, the dating part of Facebook's
Speaker 1: going to be a separate section of the app, so
Speaker 1: you're going to have to create a new profile to
Speaker 1: use it. Facebook's going to recommend matches based on your
Speaker 1: dating preferences, the things you both have in common, and
Speaker 1: also your mutual friends. They are not going to recommend
Speaker 1: people that you're already friends with and dating profiles are
Speaker 1: only going to.
Speaker 2: Show first names. One more thing to know.
Speaker 1: Dating messages will be sent through a special inbox, and
Speaker 1: if you're chatting with someone for the first time, you
Speaker 1: will not be able to exchange links or photos.
Speaker 2: That's probably pretty smart all right.
Speaker 1: Now, on to Instagram, so many new features here too.
Speaker 1: For starters, Instagram is getting video chat now. This is
Speaker 1: different from the live video function that you're familiar with.
Speaker 1: This is more like FaceTime, but with your Instagram friends.
Speaker 1: It's all private. But the cool part is that you'll
Speaker 1: be able to video chat with one person or several
Speaker 1: people at once, and you can also minimize the video
Speaker 1: and you can still browse around on Instagram while you're
Speaker 1: talking to your friends. So this definitely appeals to our
Speaker 1: ever shortening attention spans. Look for this feature to come
Speaker 1: to Instagram in the next few weeks.
Speaker 2: And I have to say.
Speaker 1: Instagram is slowly but surely becoming a really nice way
Speaker 1: to get in touch with everyone because guess what, everyone
Speaker 1: is on there. It's kind of like secondary to text messaging.
Speaker 1: I find myself doing more direct messages on Instagram because
Speaker 1: all your friends are on there. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: they're on iOS or Android. And now with video chat
Speaker 1: thrown into the mix, this is going to be pretty interesting,
Speaker 1: very useful.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Also on Instagram, they're adding a new Explore page, so
Speaker 1: it's going to show groups of things that you might
Speaker 1: be interested in, like hashtags of dogs, travel or architecture.
Speaker 1: And there's also going to be some new ways to
Speaker 1: share to Instagram Stories right from popular apps.
Speaker 2: They mentioned Spotify and go Pro at first. Now here's
Speaker 2: the thing.
Speaker 1: If you have an Android phone, this functionality is sort
Speaker 1: of already there, or at least it is on my Pixel.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it was something Instagram was testing, but I found
Speaker 1: it really useful to be able to share photos from
Speaker 1: my gallery right to Instagram Stories as opposed to taking
Speaker 1: them with the camera inside Instagram Stories.
Speaker 2: See the difference.
Speaker 1: So I can see this feature getting very popular as
Speaker 1: more and more apps lets you share right to your
Speaker 1: story from the apps and you don't have to connect
Speaker 1: them at all. It just sort of happens through the app.
Speaker 1: For instance, let's say you're listening to music on Spotify
Speaker 1: and you want to share this to Instagram Stories right now.
Speaker 1: You'd have to take a screenshot and Spotify, then go
Speaker 1: over open Instagram, go to your stories, import that picture
Speaker 1: right on it and then share it. The new feature
Speaker 1: would just let you share right from Spotify, so that's
Speaker 1: pretty cool. There you have it, just a few of
Speaker 1: the things coming soon to Facebook and Instagram. Let me
Speaker 1: know what you think on Twitter I'm at rich Demurro
Speaker 1: or on Instagram at rich on tech. Remember many of
Speaker 1: these features are coming soon, so they might.
Speaker 2: Not be available just yet, but be on the lookout
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 1: If you like this podcast, be sure to leave a
Speaker 1: review and rating in the Apple podcast sapp. That way
Speaker 1: more people discover it. And as always, links to everything
Speaker 1: I mentioned here on my website.
Speaker 2: Just go to a richontech dot tv. Thanks so much
Speaker 2: for listening. I'm Richdmurro. I'll talk to you real soon.