\u201cAs people mostly post photos and videos, Stories is the way they\u2019re going to want to do it,\u201d says Facebook Camera product manager Connor Hayes, noting Facebook\u2019s shift away from text status updates after 10 years as its primary sharing option. \u201cObviously we\u2019ve seen this doing very well in other apps. Snapchat has really pioneered this,\u201d explained Hayes, less shy to mention the competitor by name than some other Facebook executives.<\/p>\n
But really it was the rapid ascent of Instagram Stories to 150 million daily users<\/a> that he says inspired Facebook to start testing its own Stories<\/a> in January, and keep expanding it to 12 countries before today\u2019s rollout. Surprisingly, Hayes says Facebook Stories is \u201cadditive,\u201d not detracting from News Feed sharing or usage of its other Stories products. \u201cWe\u2019ve tested in markets with Instagram Stories and Messenger Day, and we\u2019ve seen this as accretive. They end up posting more and they like using the Stories format across apps.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the worst news for Snapchat and best news for Facebook since the world\u2019s biggest social network adopted the strategy of copying the competitor that refused its acquisition offer.<\/p>\n \n If Facebook Stories clearly cannibalized News Feed sharing and consumption, it would have to demolish its most popular and lucrative feature to make way for the future where the camera is the new keyboard<\/a>. And if users saw Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp\u2019s Stories features as uncool clones or redundant as a set, it might have had to limit its attack on Snapchat to just one of its core apps.<\/p>\n Instead, Facebook can charge in full-speed, attacking Snap from every angle without much penalty to its existing business. And with its enormous engineering and design teams, plus billions in profit each quarter, it can throw more resources at Camera, Stories and Direct visual messaging than Snap can. That product development strength is on display with today\u2019s launch, and apparent from Facebook\u2019s insistence on showing reporters forthcoming special effects that one-up Snapchat\u2019s iconic lenses.<\/p>\n Until now, Facebook was just running missile tests and fighting skirmishes on the frontier. Today Facebook declares total war on Snapchat.<\/p>\n \u201cThe way people have been prompted to share for 10 years, it\u2019s very text-centric,\u201d Hayes describes. \u201cEven when you look at the way we\u2019ve done this on mobile, you can see half of the screen is still taken up by a place for you to type text.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur new camera puts visual content at the heart of the Facebook experience,\u201d says Kristen Spilman, Facebook\u2019s director of art and animation. \u201cSo it feels natural for the camera to do more of the talking.\u201d<\/p>\n Facebook has been casually pursuing visual communication for years<\/a>, but got serious about it back in August when it started testing the first version of Facebook Camera during the 2016 Olympics. It went so far as to replace half the News Feed home screen with an open camera window. But while Snapchat opens straight to the camera, Spilman says \u201cpeople were not comfortable with how drastic some of the change was.\u201d It can be pretty jarring to suddenly see your own face on screen, so Facebook decided to hide the camera but let you open it with a swipe. Hayes says Facebook would consider opening to the camera \u201cif over time we find this becomes the primary use case.\u201d<\/p>\n Facebook wants to make Camera and Stories accessible to the wide range of demographics that use it everyday, not just the teens that gravitate to Snapchat. \u201cWe learned from Instagram that Stories as a format is actually great for all types of people,\u201d says Hayes. \u201cWe think it\u2019s going to be adopted by people regardless of age.\u201d<\/p>\n Courting the international market was also a priority for Facebook. It\u2019s built text-overlay filters using local slang for around 10 different top markets, like the U.S. and Canada. In Ireland, users can slap the words \u201cGas\u201d or \u201cSome Craic\u201d on their posts, which might confuse those abroad but mean \u201castonishing\u201d and \u201chaving a good time\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n This is how Facebook plans to recruit users to Stories that Snapchat has forgotten. While the LA startup has focused almost entirely on U.S. teens, Facebook designed its version to appeal to teens everywhere and be intuitive enough for older users that Snap shunned with its esoteric interface.<\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s obvious but somewhat cluttered design puts its new products readily accessible from the home screen rather than buried in tabs.<\/p>\n Just like with Instagram Stories, you\u2019ll immediately notice the circular Stories bubbles in a row above the News Feed, showing the profile pics of friends who\u2019ve posted, ranked by relevancy rather than reverse chronology like Snapchat. This solves the problem that you didn\u2019t necessarily add all your friends to see their Stories. Even though your boss or distant acquaintances might post, you\u2019ll see your closest friends first, which makes sure you get the maximum value no matter how long you spend watching.<\/p>\n As you watch the chronological slideshows of photos and videos you can tap to fast-forward a frame or swipe to skip to the next friend, each of which can see who watched their Story in what order. Relevancy-sorting also empowers auto-advance so all your friends\u2019 Stories play in a row, unlike Snapchat, which makes you clumsily create a manual playlist of which to watch.<\/p>\n A text and image reply bar appears overlaid on Stories so you can quickly type or shoot a response that gets sent over Direct. These replies only live as long as the 24-hour disappearing content, so friends will have to check them quickly or miss them entirely. The readily visible reply bar might slightly obstruct the view, but should greatly increase reply frequency.<\/p>\n For now, Facebook Stories can\u2019t be viewed by your public followers, so the product is effectively pushing social media influencers to do their broadcasting on Instagram Stories where verified profiles get special features<\/a>. There\u2019s also no Pages or businesses allowed on Stories for now, or ads inserted between Stories. However, Spilman says once Facebook is sure users love Stories, \u201cWe\u2019ll considering broadening to brands and businesses.\u201d Injecting ads could give Facebook a new supply of ad inventory just as it expects to run out of News Feed ad space<\/a> \u2014 something that\u2019s worried Wall Street in recent earnings reports.<\/p>\n A quick swipe right from the feed reveals the Facebook Camera, where you can tap to shoot a photo or hold to record video. After you jazz it up to your liking, you can either post to your Story, to the News Feed, to specific friends via Direct or any mix of these. The option to blast a Camera post to all of them could be spammy, but sometimes you might want to share the best scene from your Story to News Feed. Facebook even encourages Camera posts to News Feed by making them full-bleed thanks to overlaid profile pics and\u00a0 <\/span>Like\/comment buttons.<\/p>\n Along with shooting new stuff, you can upload from your camera roll with no restrictions or borders on old content. You\u2019ll only see letter boxing if content was shot on a device with a different aspect ratio. Videos have a max length of 40 seconds, much longer than Snapchat\u2019s 10 and Instagram\u2019s 15. That means you can share longer videos you\u2019ve recorded or downloaded, like viral clips.<\/p>\n Facebook\u2019s Camera offers most of the creative tools you\u2019d expect, plus a lot more.<\/p>\n What\u2019s missing:<\/strong><\/p>\n Rather than hiding special effects behind an unintuitive tap like Snapchat, a column of dots denotes that you can vertically swipe through suggested special effects like ones for a current holiday or your city. There\u2019s also a whole tray of 50 to 70 categorized effects showing the most popular ones, those you\u2019ve recently used, selfie masks, style and color filters and overlaid illustration frames.<\/p>\n When Facebook gathered reporters in San Francisco yesterday to demo the product, it clearly wanted us to think of it as going a step beyond Snapchat\u2019s offering. That\u2019s why it showed off high-tech effects that aren\u2019t available yet. One, for example, adds Mario-esque music and throws 8-bit sunglasses on each additional person who comes into frame, with a bonus effect if you can get five people on camera together.<\/p>\n The next big opportunity here for Facebook is turning Camera into a platform. As I wrote last year<\/a>, Facebook can\u2019t possibly dream up every possible special effect people might want. Snapchat already allows filter submissions and payments in exchange for temporary geoflters. By allowing users and AR developers to submit filters. Facebook could make its camera\u2019s breadth infinite. Though Facebook was cagey, the team admitted \u201cthat is a long-term vision for the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n Overall, Facebook Camera feels extremely powerful and polished, with effects popping up fast and a sensible way of organizing them all. It doesn\u2019t require you to know secret tricks or techniques, which can be fun for the teen in-crowd but alienating to olds. Whether or not you use Stories, Facebook Camera should help you express yourself more vividly.<\/p>\n While Facebook split off chat from its main app a few years ago and forced people to download Messenger, Direct brings private communication back to the main app. Anything you shoot or upload through Facebook Camera can be sent to specific friends who\u2019ll receive it in their Facebook app\u2019s Direct inbox. You just can\u2019t start with a text. These messages last at least until they\u2019re viewed, and will remain visible until the conversation stops. So if you\u2019re rapidly replying back and forth with text or images about a Direct message it will stay alive, but it goes away once you cease to banter.<\/p>\n Facebook tells me after content disappears from your Story or Direct messages, it completely deletes the content off its servers. The only exception is if it\u2019s flagged by someone for violating Facebook\u2019s community standards, in which case it\u2019s kept until the investigation concludes. Though it might seem a bit redundant with Messenger also having its own camera, Hayes says \u201cit\u2019s not out intention to build up Direct as a Messenger replacement.\u201d<\/p>\n Whenever you move 1.8 billion people\u2019s furniture, some are going to get pissed<\/a>. Loyal Snapchat users or those whose friends primarily live on Instagram might see Stories as making Facebook too cluttered, bloated or redundant<\/a>. But there are still at least a billion people who would probably enjoy Stories that aren\u2019t using them every day yet. These are Facebook\u2019s core targets with today\u2019s launches.<\/p>\n Now people have Stories for each way they might want to share. Instagram Stories<\/a> is for artful photography. Messenger Day<\/a> is for igniting conversations and inviting friends to hang out. WhatsApp Status<\/a> is for minimalist visual communication. And Facebook Stories is for showing your day-to-day life to the widest audience. Though subtle, those differences are likely why Facebook doesn\u2019t offer any cross-posting options, making creators do the labor of re-uploading everywhere if they want to reach all their networks.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t expect Stories in Facebook\u2019s apps to suddenly stamp out Snapchat. Facebook\u2019s best hope is that U.S. teens who are addicted to Snapchat end up using its Stories too. But Snapchat\u2019s neglect of international markets and older age demographics left the door open for Facebook. Now with its aggressive invasion of the Stories space, it may claim those segments before Snapchat ever gets a chance, blocking the upstart\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n In the long-run, we remember the tech companies that provide value at scale, not just who invented things. We remember Netscape as an innovator, but that doesn\u2019t make Google Chrome a clone. Facebook was willing to swallow its pride to protect its future. Maybe if Yahoo or BlackBerry were willing to pivot like this, they\u2019d still be in power.<\/p>\n \t\t\t<\/p>\n Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/-Aov3VEXVmI\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In its biggest change in a decade, Facebook is evolving from text and link-focused sharing to the visual communication format it admits \u201cSnapchat has really pioneered.\u201d Starting today, all users <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-4376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\tStorytelling for everyone<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nHow to use Facebook Stories, Camera and Direct<\/h2>\n
Stories<\/h3>\n
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One big problem with Facebook Stories is that they\u2019re visible to all your friends and for now you can\u2019t change that. That interferes with the more casual, off-the-cuff, goofy, personal style of content people typically post to Stories, which they might not want their boss or family to see. Facebook should build a privacy feature for hiding your Story from certain people. At least you won\u2019t see Stories from anyone you unfollowed on Facebook, like annoying old buddies or exes you want to avoid.<\/p>\nCamera<\/h3>\n
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What\u2019s in Facebook Camera:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
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Facebook refused to detail any financial details of its licensed filters like the Minions movie effect. It could try to pull sponsorship revenue from these like Snapchat, or just curate ones people will actually want and offer them free like Facebook already does with branded stickers.<\/p>\nDirect<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nThe new News Feed<\/h2>\n
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