Twitter just announced that its user growth is still in a slump despite the introduction of its Moments feature. This seems to show that in the age where everything for a social media site could change in an instant, one of the keys to surviving the social media rat race is to offer innovation whenever possible.
Users could easily come and go, so social media sites offer new content and retool features as a way to make them stay. Whether it be through big moves, such as Facebook lining up new features ranging from indexing all user’s posts, testing out emoji reactions, instant articles, to rolling out a notification card system, or via small changes, like Twitter changing its star-shaped “favorite” button to a heart-shaped “like” button, these are decisions that site owners need to make to tip the scales in their favor.
Whether it’s for the upcoming elections or for the Internet’s biggest phenomenon, social media use plays a key role in how trends develop. With social media, site owners have an opportunity to showcase their flexibility and tech-savviness and a platform to discuss society’s biggest issues. It also powers the cycle where users adapt and adopt technology.
Here are the other stories that made it to our reading list:
- An interview from The New Yorker with journalist-writer Svetlana Alexievich, this year’s Nobel laureate for literature.
- Is fact-checking still relevant in the age of shorter news cycles and the growing popularity of user-generated content? Find out more about its importance here.
- Science attempts to dissect and further explain what writers dread most: writer’s block.
- Hackers these days are getting more resourceful by the minute, and they now use social media to get users’ private details for their crimes.
- A U.S. Federal Appeals Court rules that Google’s book-scanning project does not infringe on copyright and should be allowed to continue. The case against Google was filed by the Author’s Guild about 10 years ago.
- The ability to Google something on the Internet apparently overinflates self-assessment of intelligence.
- The three communication skills you need for a career in digital media which can also help you build a strong résumé.
- The three levels of listening which can help you become a better and effective communicator.
- Here are six lessons on what academic research tells us about making data visualizations.
- Can’t think of anything to write? Here’s 10 things to help you start.
- Here’s a piece from Time.com aptly titled “7 Things You—Probably?—Didn’t Understand About Punctuation!!!!” with lessons taken from David Crystal’s new book, Making a Point: The Persnickety History of English Punctuation.
- A slideshow with 26 time-management tips to help you be more efficient on your work.
- Take a breather from work with 55 useful and inspiring websites.
PROJECT CHIRON (BETA) 