Friday Social: InstaBabies, John Lewis’ Telescope and Facebook Cookies
- Social Media
Our #FridaySocial is a weekly round-up of the key social media news stories from the previous seven days. Let us know your thoughts in the comments or via Twitter – @Umpf / @GrittAlessandra
InstaBaby Lo-Fi
American website BabyCentre.com has just released the results of its 2015 Baby Names Survey and while there aren’t too many surprises in the top five, it seems that social media might’ve had an impact on the rankings further down this year’s list.
According to BabyCentre’s research, Instagram filter-related names including Lux, Willow, and Juno have all increased in popularity since last year. While there don’t appear to be any baby Lo-Fi or X-Pro II yet, soon-to-be parents Chrissy Teigen and John Legend may be the first…
John and I can’t wait to welcome little x-pro II into the world https://t.co/5ttG0Q0oty
Facebook Blocks in Belgium
Following a ruling by the Belgian Privacy Commissioner, Facebook will now require users to log in before viewing any pages on the site.
The ruling relates to Facebook cookies that track the activity of non-Facebook users. In a statement given to the BBC, a Facebook spokesperson said: “We had hoped to address the BPC’s concerns in a way that allowed us to continue using a security cookie that protected Belgian people from more than 33,000 takeover attempts in the past month. We’re disappointed we were unable to reach an agreement and now people will be required to log in or register for an account to see publicly available content on Facebook.”
Privacy commentator and law lecturer Paul Bernal noted that Belgium isn’t applying Belgian law, it’s applying European law, so other countries may follow suit.
John Lewis’ John Lewis Telescope
Following the launch of its Man on the Moon Christmas ad last month, John Lewis (the retailer) has gifted John Lewis (the man) a telescope as a thanks for his patience with wayward tweeters.
John Lewis, an American Twitter user, owns the @JohnLewis handle and so annually receives a bombardment of tweets following the launch of the department store’s festive ad. Mr Lewis patiently and politely responds to the majority of tweets he receives, redirecting users to the @JohnLewisRetail account.
The store sent him a telescope as featured in this year’s ad:
— John Lewis (@johnlewis) December 1, 2015
Facebook Business Messenger
Facebook is making it easier for customers to interact with businesses with the launch of a new Page plug-in that allows customers to message a business without leaving their website.
A similar function for Facebook Events was also introduced in the post yesterday, allowing further integration between Facebook Pages and company websites.
Instagram Testing Multiple Account Support
We love a bit of social media news at Umpf HQ, but it’s not often it makes us WHOOP for joy like this one did: Instagram is reportedly testing support for multiple accounts for Android users.
Previously, many users have turned to third-parties to post to and view multiple feeds. Instagram hasn’t commented on whether or not this will be rolled-out more widely, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed for the feature’s official launch soon.