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Stories come to all Facebook Groups
Facebook announced today that it is bringing Stories to all Groups. The feature allows members of Groups on the platform to contribute to a collaborative story and react to content from other members. Group Stories were first introduced on Facebook in a limited capacity last year.
Facebook debuts Lasso, a TikTok-style video app aimed at teens
In an attempt to court the youths who have been fleeing from its flagship platform, Facebook has once again dipped into its bag of tricks and pulled out a TikTok clone. Lasso, a music-filled video sharing app that Facebook has reportedly been working on since October, is available now for iOS and Android.
300 million people use Facebook Stories every day
Facebook Stories appeared to be a major flop after they were launched, with seemingly few users adopting the feature in the months after it became available. But it looks like that's changing because Facebook announced today that more than 300 million people are using Stories on Facebook and Messenger every day. While the company didn't share what the rate breakdown was between the two, it's a sizable usage number, putting it closer to Instagram, which hit 400 million daily users in June.
Facebook Stories will add AR doodles and Boomerang GIFs
Facebook is giving Stories a much-needed boost by rolling out AR doodles and Instagram's Boomerang to its Camera feature suite. Over the coming weeks, you'll be able to draw on the world your camera sees, thanks to what the currently embattled company calls "3D drawing." It'll enable you to doodle and scribble on your screen before or while you're recording and see what your augmented reality graffiti looks like on various surfaces as you move your phone around.
Facebook merges Stories and Messenger Day
The fact that has Facebook four distinct Snapchat-like offerings for its main social network, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp can be pretty confusing. Someone in the company must have realized that, because it's making things just a bit less puzzling by merging Facebook Stories and Messenger Day. The fused experience is now simply called "Stories," and any photo, video or slideshow you upload appear both on Facebook itself and the Messenger app.
Instagram tool finally lets you cross-post Stories to Facebook
You'll probably have a lot more Facebook Stories to watch in the near future... except you can also watch most of them on Instagram. According to TechCrunch, the social network has begun rolling out a feature that allows you to cross-post Instagram Stories to Facebook Stories if you're in the US. The company began testing the feature in August, but as always, only a handful of people were lucky enough to get access to it. Now that it's officially out in the US, the feature will arrive on your Instagram app in the near future if it hasn't yet, giving you an easy way to share what's going on with your life with nan and pop.
Facebook acquires a German computer vision startup
Facebook's latest startup acquisition is German computer vision company Fayteq, a company that develops plugins for editing applications like Adobe After Effects that let you add or remove objects from existing video. After the purchase, Fayteq added a note on its website notifying customers that its products and services were no longer available for purchase.
Facebook’s camera can now make GIFs
Facebook has sneakily added a new feature to its app's camera. Some people are now seeing an option that allows users to make a short GIF directly through the camera, which can then be shared on Facebook stories or on your page. You can also bump up the GIF with a number of frames and filters. However, the downside is you can only share the GIFs on Facebook. They only save as videos and can't be sent to other platforms through Facebook.
Facebook's Snapchat-like Stories are now available worldwide
Facebook's quest to clone Snapchat features wherever possible just took its next logical step. Just a couple of months after it started testing Stories in the main Facebook app, the social network has rolled out the feature to many (though currently not all) users worldwide. As with similar efforts in Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, you can stitch together photos and videos to share stories that vanish after 24 hours. It won't be at all shocking if you've used any of those apps, but its presence in the core Facebook app is particularly significant.
Facebook reveals your own 2012 Year in Review
We've already seen Google's search-based turn at nostalgia for 2012. Facebook doesn't want to be left out, but it's swinging the focus to a very different subject than the usual politicians and pop stars: ourselves. Now that the Timeline has had a year to weave into our collective consciousness, Facebook is using it to show all the personal highlights of the past 12 months that it deems worthy, such as job changes, new friends and the many photos that reached our news feeds. Not that Facebook isn't willing to look at the bigger picture. It notes that US trends were dominated by elections, The Hunger Games and -- surprise -- Facebook's new buddy, Instagram. There's even more trends to explore at a special 2012 section of Facebook Stories, so you'll have plenty of options if you're as interested in your own life events as reliving the Olympics.
