Snapchat Adds Chat and Video Calls

Most messaging apps have become all-in-one solutions, offering video calls, image sharing and even gaming, with the notable exception of Snapchat. Now the ephemeral messaging platform is widening its functionality, adding text chat with the ability to have a FaceTime-like video call if both users are online. These, of course, will be destroyed upon leaving the chat unless you use a save for later functionality on select messages. The addition of these features will likely boost engagement but will Snapchat lose some differentiation? Video calls are not saved by default on most services and text typically does not carry the same privacy concerns as images.

Twitter & NYT Experiment With Anchor Links

The New York Times is experimenting with a new form of Twitter integration which lets users share selected text from within an article on Twitter opposed to simply tweeting the article’s titles. Users who click through the tweet are directed to the selected text within the page. The new functionality will enable readers to share the material which resonates most with them. NYT has been aggressive on Twitter, even selling ad packages based on the most shared stories on the social network (called Spark) so it only makes sense to encourage more flexible integrations.

Gigya Report: Social Login And Sharing

Gigya has published a insightful report on the social login and sharing preferences across the various platforms from Yahoo to LinkedIn. The findings on Google+ are interesting as they reveal that a decent amount (24%) of social logins are connected via Google+ accounts although the network accounts for a mere 2%. Translation: Google+ is an active network of users (likely stemming from Gmail), but a lack of engagement for their social features.