Facebook’s sole aim since its advent ages ago was to connect people. This meant that users should be able to freely and easily share their personal world with their friends and family. Currently however, it seems as if there has been a dip in this trend.
According to analytics and a report by Bloomberg, overall sharing over Facebook has dropped 5.5 percent between mid-2014 and mid-2015. Even more shocking is that sharing of personal stuff like pictures, thoughts, videos etc has dropped by 1 percent during the same period of time. At this point, the social giant had recruited a team to find out possible solutions to reverse this declining in sharing.
According to people working in this sector, this decline in sharing of personal data is called “context collapse.” Apparently, people have shifted to more private areas like Snapchat, Instagram etc to share their lives.
The company has been releasing different tools to make sharing personal content easier and faster. For instance, Facebook this week rolled out a live video tool that everyone on Facebook can use. As a demo, Mark Zuckerberg himself addressed five million people around the globe encouraging them to post live video of whatever they want.
During the same video feed, the CEO of the social giant gave us a glimpse of what the Facebook app for mobile could become in the future. Zuck’s app on the iPhone is very different from what you might be using right now. His “Whats on your mind?” box is always open and ready for someone to type in, making it much easier and quicker to post updates. If you tap on “Post” you will get a list of things you can do like writing a note, posting a photo or starting a Live Video.
Apparently, the Facebook app on different devices comes out to be different with minor changes. More interestingly, the beta Zuck is using, has been out for a couple of months and Facebook is collecting data from its users to improve it. When it will be out for everyone to use is anyone’s guess.
We’ve re-designed the ‘What’s on your mind?’ menu at the top of your News Feed to inspire people and make sharing on Facebook more fun and dynamic,
a Facebook spokesperson says.
Tapping on ‘What’s on your mind?’ will now bring up a menu of all of the different ways you can share, including options like posting photos and video, feelings, or checking in to a place.
The video also reveals that Zuck’s app had buttons to share music and slideshows, too. Something the social networking giant doesn’t have yet. Another interesting features was a GIF button that many users spotted. We’ve seen a GIF search option in Messenger but there hasn’t been much in this regard on the main Facebook app. Seems as if this might change in a few months.
