Editor’s Note: The Social Media RoundUp is a weekly feature of Information Space.
Princeton recently released a study that used Google search trends to predict that Facebook would lose 80 percent of its users by 2017. Our own Anne Marie Suchanek even recently wrote about how Facebook is already losing popularity and how she is so sick of the dated social networking site. Some people are taking this prediction seriously, but others think it is a complete joke and have awarded it the WTF story of the week.
image by venturebeat.com
The future is coming to Pinterest, and the future is actually GIFS. This Graphics Interchange Format would allow users to pin and play GIFs on the platform, thus making their content more interactive and interesting. When you pin a GIF to Pinterest, a “play” and “pause” button will appear in the lower left-hand corner of the pin itself. This new updated that is reported to be coming soon, would provide new competition for the popular teen site, Tumblr.
This week the social video network Vine turned one year old. In a year, this mobile app has formed a strong community full of original content creators. Vine is celebrating this accomplishment and anniversary through a website called “A Year on Vine.”
Image by vine.co
Facebook also made news this week for updating their algorithm once again. They are moving away from plain text posts, and encouraging their users to learn more towards visual posts that include links. Specifically, gravitating more towards link-sharing rather than sharing links by embedding in status updates. Facebook found that these posts get more engagement (more likes, comments, shares and clicks) and they provide a more visual and compelling experience for people seeing them in their feeds.
What big stories in social media are you following this week? Share in the comments!