What’s MGHappening in Social Media: October 30, 2018

The Verge – Facebook has seen mixed reception to its first piece of hardware, Facebook Portal. Still, that’s not keeping the social media network from working on other products in the hardware space. The company recently confirmed that it is now working on AR glasses, which stems from Oculus, the AR company Facebook acquired in 2014. Facebook has not released any other details about the product, as it seems Facebook is not yet finished with developing hardware. (Full Story)

CNBC – The U.K.’s privacy watchdog has fined Facebook €500,000 ($644,600), the maximum fine possible, for breaches of data protection. This fine is in response to various data breaches over the years where data was accessible to third-party developers without consent. (Full Story)

The Verge – Facebook is adding new features that take advantage of the licensing partnerships they have with three major music labels. New additions include the ability to add music to user profiles and Facebook Stories (something that has already come to Instagram Stories). The company is also expanding Lip Sync Live to Pages (as opposed to personal profiles), so creators and artists can use the feature to “connect with their fans.” On-screen lyrics will also be added to Lip Sync Live, creating more of a karaoke-style experience. (Full Story)

The Verge – Facebook has released a new version of Messenger, which aims to simplify the app and elevate chat back to the main focus. The bots, games and other widgets that have been added over the years are still present, but they are now more hidden for people who don’t often use them. The redesigned app doesn’t add anything new to the mix as of yet, but Facebook hopes users will find it even simpler to use. (Full Story)

The Verge – Instagram is adding a new music integration for Stories: SoundCloud. At launch, the integration can not be initiated from within Stories, but will rather require users to select a track in the SoundCloud app and then share it to Instagram Stories. When shared to Stories, the track will appear as a movable sticker, just like most other Instagram Story additions. Instagram also allows tracks to be shared from Spotify and for users to add background tracks from many major record labels. (Full Story)

The Next Web – Since July, Twitter has been eliminating bots and other fraudulent accounts, which has in turn been driving down their overall user count. During Q3, Twitter’s user account dropped by nine million, but since those accounts were bots, this is ultimately good news. Although the overall user count is declining, less spam is leading to a better user experience and increased revenue for Twitter. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – Snapchat has had a rough year in terms of user count, shedding another 2 million between Q2 and Q3 of this year. Snapchat started 2018 with 191 million daily active users but saw that number drop to 188 million in Q2 and it now sits at 186. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel discussed the future of Snapchat alongside this report, saying that much of the world does not yet use Snapchat. He also pointed out that there are more than 100 million monthly active users of Snapchat, but did not compare that stat to other time? periods. (Full Story)

TechCrunch – Google Maps is adding a new feature that will allow users to follow their favorite businesses in order to stay on top of their news and updates. The idea of following a business page is very reminiscent of the ability to do just that on Facebook. When a user opts to follow a business, events, offers and other updates will appear in the “For You” tab in Google Maps. Notably, Google My Business pages, which is how companies can feed information to consumers, can be set up for businesses and aims to be up and running within three months’ time. (Full Story)