Instagram’s Live Feed
Snapchat has been dominating the millennial era with its “keep it real” video feed. It markets a more “private” platform as you can send your story to a select group of friends. One question that’s remained is when Snapchat will create a group feature – as in being able to send to three friends within a group so everyone can chat together. As of now you’re only able to send to people individually and let’s face it our fingers get tired having to select each individual. Well, turns out Instagram beat Snapchat to the punch. And it’s not just a video feed that can be sent in a group, but a live video feed, one that can also be sent to your story. Unlike Facebook’s live video feature, Instagram’s videos will disappear as soon as you watch them. Think of it like a Snapchat in the olden days.
This is a new and interesting play as Instagram is trying to make live video an intimate space. “You can be comfortable because you know they’re not going to stick around,” Instagram’s head of product Kevin Weil said. Your videos will only appear to a select group of followers – those who engage with your photos & videos the most. Broadcasting has been slow to catch on, so Instagram is trying to change this endeavor. However, the intimacy is kind of contradictory because Instagram will also show trending live feeds from celebrities & media types. The feature is rolling out today to a test group of users. (Source: The Verge)
Kanye Ditches His Concert
Kanye West had a hissy fit at his concert in Sacramento, CA last Saturday. He threw a lot of f-bombs around aiming them towards Beyoncé and Jay Z. He only performed three songs (repeated one) and bolted after his rant about Beyonce’s “Formation” performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, saying it was “rigged.” Something about Beyonce’ not performing unless she won Video of the Year over him. “In my opinion … now don’t go dissing Beyoncé, she’s great. Taylor Swift is great. We are all great people. We are all equal. But sometimes we be playing the politics too much and forget who we are just to win,” West said. Whatever that means. And Sunday, Twitter threw a #KanyeIsOverParty. Guess West had a lot boiling up that poured over at the concert. Feel sorry for the 13,000 fans that paid $250 for a ditched concert after West said, “Get ready to have a field day, press, because the show’s over.” And yes, he did a mic drop. I think we can all agree though that Snoop Dogg’s reply was the best part. He took a video of himself watching Kanye West’s rant and started off with a “this n*gga crazy” and ending with a “I smoke weed, and weed don’t make you do that.” More to come. (Source: NY Daily News)
Play a Game, Score a Job
James Johnston clicked on a Facebook ad one day and started playing a coding game called CodeFights. As a coder himself, he found the activity to be a lot of fun. Coding, fun? We’ll take his word for it. After playing for a while, he received a notification asking if he was interested in new job opportunities. After a “heck yeah,” Johnston received a call from CodeFights founder and CEO, Tigran Sloyan, to discuss more. Next thing Johnston knew, interviews starting coming in like crazy, and he finally accepted a job at Thumbtack, a startup valued at a ‘measly’ $1 billion. And Johnston isn’t the only one who has scored an opportunity like this. CodeFights has about 500,000 users and the company continually “cherry-picks for job opportunities.” The catch for companies that want to find prospects off of the game is to pay a 15% fee of the annual salary from the employee that was hired through their platform. (Source: CNN Tech)
