According to the recent reports, Facebook, Instagram as well as Snapchat will have to remove the like button and in the case of Snapchat, the streaks for the users under 18. The ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) has said that it is going to impose 16 new rules for various social media platforms in order to make those platforms safer for young kids.
Image Source: wsj.com
One of those rules is indicating towards removing the like button from the different social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, as according, to ICO the like button nudges the kids to stay online on those platform for a longer time.
“We’ve
launched the draft of our Age Appropriate Design code, which sets the
standards for those designing, developing and providing online
services to children.” a tweet from the official account of ICO
stated.
ICO
is also working on the other rules to stop the social media companies
from nudging the users younger than 18 years old, to reduce the
screen time for them and to control their privacy. According to the
new rules the social media platforms will have to keep the user
information private by default, and until necessary, the kids should
not be asked to share their private information.
The
new guidelines will also prevent the companies to ask the kids under
18 to share their geolocations in any circumstances, as the
geolocations map the accurate location of the phone.
The
initiative of crafting new rules, for keeping the kids under 18 safe,
has been taken by the government of UK, after the MPs and other
public figures criticised those social media platforms for bad
effects on the children. In fact, the Duke of Sussex has called those
platforms more addictive than drugs and alcohol.
Though
it is a great initiative, for now, it has been only taken in the UK.
In fact, in the UK too, the rules will be imposed only in 2020, after
the consultation will be over in May 2019, for the other rules. The
ICO will start working on making the guidelines starting from Monday,
and will consult and take opinions from the public as well as
experts. After the guidelines come into effect, the companies would
need to pay fine in millions and billions, if it failed to follow.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel hosted the Snapchat’s first partner summit in Los Angeles on Thursday, where he announced a few new features, and a new suite of products, in his keynote speech. According to Spiegel, the company is all set to introduce a new revamped AR camera, Snap Games, and integration with third-party apps.
The company has been facing a lot of pressure and competition by its rival companies, Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, Snapchat is also trying to get ahead of the competition by introducing new features and products.
Image Source: techspot.com
Going
through the facts, Spiegel said, “In the United States, Snapchat
now reached nearly 75 per cent of all 13-34-year-olds, and we reach
90 per cent of 13-24-year-olds. In fact, we reach more
13-24-year-olds than Facebook or Instagram in the United States, the
UK, France, Canada and Australia.”
Like its contemporaries, Apple and Google, Snapchat has introduced an ad-supported Snapchat gaming platform and has teamed up with some renowned game developers. The platform will be rolling out the game titles including Bitmoji Party, Tiny Royale, Snake Squad, C.A.T.S. Drift Race, Zombie Rescue Squad, and Alphabear Hustle. The Bitmoji kit has also got new updates, and now those Bitmojis will also reflect in Venmo and Fitbit devices.
The
Snapchat Lenses integrated with Augmented Reality, now will help its
users to solve math equations and other features like body tracking,
hand tracking as well as pet tracking are also added to it. The new
AR bar will be located under the Lense slider, and the user can
select any of the options according to their need. Also, over 400,000
Lenses have been created for the updated Snapchat.
The
company has also introduced Landmarks, that includes filters that are
specifically designed to get applied when the camera points to any of
the iconic places like Eiffel Tower in Paris, Capitol One building in
Washington, Buckingham Palace, The Flatiron Building in New York
City, etc.
According to Snapchat, now the users will be able to post the stories directly to its other partner social media platforms. The first platform that will have this feature is Tinder. Also, Snapchat will let the users share the music they are listening to on the JioSaavn on Snapchat and Netflix will also get similar support.
The
company is also about to monetise the third party apps to help its
partners to get some benefits.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
According to a report from Cheddar, the parent company of Snapchat, Snap Inc., is planning to launch its own new gaming platform in the coming month. The rumours about the new gaming platform from Sanp Inc. has been making rounds since June last year, and now if we believe the reports the company is all set to launch one in April.
Snap Inc. has already tried its hands in gaming field with its set of AR lens games named Snappables, and also, in January, the company acquired the Australian game studio Prettygreat for an $8.6 million. Furthermore, the Chinese gaming conglomerate Tencent bought a 12 per cent share in Snap, in 2017, which is a clear indication of Snap Inc. paving its ways towards the gaming industry at a bigger level.
According
to the reports, the new gaming platform will allow its users to play
third party games over it. The new platform will also accept games
from outside developers, and those games will play on the Snapchat
application itself.
The
company is hosting a Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles on April 4th,
for developers and creators from different regions, where the company
is expected to unveil its new gaming platform, which is also referred
as the “Project Cognac”. Cheddar has even reported of an
invitation for the event having a slogan imprinted over it saying,
“Less talk. More play”. The slogan, too, is hinting towards
the same new gaming platform, that the company may launch at the
event.
Snapchat currently is facing tough competition as many other Snapchat-look-alike apps have come in the market and to move ahead in the competition, entering the gaming business can be a fruitful decision for Snap Inc. Moreover, the new gaming platform will be a source of increased user engagement and higher revenue.
For
now, the company has not commented on the matter. But, if the sources
are to be believed, the new gaming platform will be a great place for
the outside developers and creators to place their games, and for the
advertisers too, it will be a popular platform to play their ads.
Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.
These days, we all are on social media sites, chatting our whole day away. Yes! And when it comes to expressing what we feel, words come after the emojis. Emojis is the integrated way of telling how you feel, and who knows better about Emojis than ‘BA’.
Confused about who is BA? BA is none other than Jacob Blackstock, the man behind “Bitmojis.” If you are an active social media user, you probably know what Bitmojis are. Bitmojis is an advanced version of emojis. it’s nothing else but ‘you’. Yes, Bitmojis is what you would see yourself as in an animated fantasy world. And the man behind this beautiful fantasy world, Jacob Blackstock or as he prefers himself to be called, ‘BA’ has a story which stands a must listen one.
Image Source: businessinsider.com
The Toronto born boy had an exquisite interest in movies and drawings. Jacob was deeply influenced by some of the movies like Mary Poppins and Poltergeist. He believed in himself and saw his future in them. The day he got to know that only the humans create those movies, he decided to do something in the same field. His mother gave him tips about his speech and told him he must not forget about mentioning her when he would receive an Oscar. His passion for his dream to do something in movies led him to write a short story, “ Mr Beaver in Space”, at the mere age of four. While in school, he not only wrote but also, produced and acted in a play.
He also had quite an interest in drawing. It was almost like that he started drawing the day he learnt how to hold a pencil. He was too much into cartoons and comics and who knew that he would do something so extraordinary out of something so simple.
The ‘movies’ interest was not over yet. He got a job in a film studio and made an 11 minutes movie, which was animated using stop motion. It took him three long years to create the 11 minutes movie. It was Outrageous, but at the same time, he was also exhausted by this. He wanted to do something else, something different.
Keeping this in mind, he started working on a new idea. The project got the funding of the Canadian government, and all BA did was that he would sit every day on his desk, take a drawing sheet, and draw a 10×8 inches panel. He drew, drew and drew. Not thinking about what is going wrong, or without detailing, beautifying all the stuff he made, he drew and drew. Although he was not completely sure about what he was doing, he went on for a few months, and considering the work he was doing, he decided that something has to come out of it, and it cannot belong to the garbage.
Soon, he realised that it was too much work for him. He became tired of drawing, and that’s when he created an online comic builder. It was an easy-to-use tool and created comics faster than ever. The real strike for him was when he discovered that this comic builder designed people. The comic builder turned out to be wilder than his own imagination.
That’s when he came up with Bitstrips with the help of his high school friend Jesse Brown, in 2007. Based on his thinking that the comics take a lot of time, Bitstrips allowed people to make comics even with little artistic skills. Jesse referred it to as “YouTube for comics”. At first, it was meant for the educational purpose, i.e. was used in schools, but soon they noticed that it was also being used outside the class. In 2012, a Facebook version for Bitstrips was launched, and within months, it gained heavy user amount, i.e., more than 10 million users. An app was launched, and just in the time of few months, it became a hit. It was among the most downloaded apps across the globe. Upon which, BA and Brown received funding from Horizons Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
In October 2014, BA came with Bitmoji, which gave users the independence to create stickers which featured comic characters of Bitstrips.
“Texting is making the conversation more convenient than ever, but it’s also stripped away a lot of the things that make communication human, we think one of the most important things that are still missing is identity. If you think about history, 99 per cent of human communication has been face-to-face,” said BA upon the purpose of Bitmoji (Source- Business Insider).
He further said that Bitmoji expresses what’s inside you. “Your avatar doesn’t have a bad hair day,” he said. Bitmoji really stood as the perfect animated avatar of the person who used it. It relevantly shows the best you!
In the year 2016, speculation started rising that Snapchat wanted to buy Bitstrips, which it did around for $100 Million. Bitstrips now only focused on ‘Bitmoji’, and soon after, a Snapchat update with integration with Bitmoji was released. Bitmoji became the most downloaded app on the iOS app store in countries like Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom and the United States.
According to BA, Bitmoji is the “next level” or “beyond” emojis. Bitmoji releases new updates very quickly and sometimes even within 24 hours. Bitmoji currently, is a part of emoji and is gaining its spice by getting involved to Tinder to create something that shows the love side of ours.
BA predicted the needs of the communication of the future, and he presented it to the world which got famous just in a jiffy. Such is the power of imagination. And so is the story of BA or we may say, the CEO and Co-Founder of Bitstrips.
Raghav is a student and a content writer. He loves to write about emerging as well as the existing technologies around and about the ones who bring them to you. Music is the other passion that Raghav processes. It is like the fuel to his body. He is also in writing songs and poems. He believes that life is short, so live the best out of what you have got. Raghav considers himself a sci-fi guy, having stories and tech all around in his head, all the time.
Born to the lawyer parents, Evan Spiegel led a privileged childhood. He received his first computer when he was just in the 6th grade. The lavish life during his childhood never seemed to hold him back from his interests. Evan was a nerd from childhood itself. He grew up in Pacific Palisades, California and completed schooling from Crossroads School for Arts and Sciences in Santa Monica. His interest particularly lied in technology and design and he took professional training in the same early from his childhood.
Spiegel’s educational journey was mostly through the Art and Design schools and colleges. During his high school days Spiegel took design classes in the Art Center College of Design, Pasadena. The next internship he landed was in the famous energy drink producing company Red Bull. Although it was an unpaid internship he learnt a great deal about the marketing of products. This further led him to pursue product design program at the Stanford University.
Evan’s idea to connect the world with images and keep yourself updated with rest of the world was initially ridiculed by his classmates. And if it would had not been about the ridicules, the world would have never seen Snapchat. Spiegel proposed this idea positively to conduct his class final project in the Stanford but failed to receive the same response.
Spiegel met Bobby Murphy, the co-founder of Snapchat, during Kappa Sigma fraternity. The two tech enthusiasts united in an unexpected way before becoming partners in what is now a billion dollar company. Murphy was working on his idea of building an online social network platform, which was highly inspired from Google Circles. Looking at Spiegel’s previous work and experience Murphy hired him to design the platform. Unfortunately, the idea failed, but not for Spiegel.
His designing work impressed Scott Cook, co-founder of the financial software giant Intuit, and was hired for txtWeb. The project required him to design a platform to broadcast information by using web over text messages.
The Turning Point
Spiegel developed Future Freshman along with Murphy which aimed to simplify college admissions. The project was well appreciated and received a good response initially. But with time it took the low lane and finally came to a halt. When one door closes it opens another one. Who knew that shutting down of Future Freshman would actually give a kick-start to Snapchat. Evan Spiegel was approached by Reggie Brown, third in their team to build Snapchat, to discuss his technological curiosities.
The third member boosted the team’s confidence and the idea for Snapchat, for the first time, saw the light of the day. Brown suggested that the app should be named Picaboo as its main aim was to connect the world just with images. The idea was dropped as it failed to grab investors into their pockets. The company saw a downfall within just a small span of its incubation when Brown decided to part his ways and asked for 30% share and the credits the company owed to him.
Evan Spiegel and Murphy mutually decided to drop out Brown and rename the company with added features. Thus, was born Snapchat. This fallback actually set the company in motion as it started attracting youngsters and soon made its mark towards the ‘million dollar company’ tag. The company is now in full swing and is expected to introduce much more exciting features for its users.
Harshal Pawar is an avid reader, a TV show addict, and a writer. He has a personal blog brainwork.wordpress.com where he jots down his articles and poetry about love and life.
He is currently pursuing film-making and wishes to bring the words written on a paper to the screen. More of all he is a scorpio.
