Roundup of the Latest Facebook and Google+ Changes

Facebook and Google Plus seem to be churning out new features every day in a bid to keep users from abandoning the social networking sites. This is the roundup of all the latest features rolled out by both.

 Facebook gets Reply button

Despite Facebook’s huge user base, brands and public figures have trouble leveraging Facebook to engage with their followers. Currently comments on a post are sorted chronologically and by the time you reply to a particular comment, there are already few more in between; resulting in a chaotic mess. Finally Facebook has realized that it is power users like brands and public figures who keep the social network buzzing and has  added a Reply button for pages and people with more than 10,000 followers for now. The Reply button sits alongside the Like button and lets a person to respond to a particular post and carry on a separate sub-threaded conversation. This is a much better way to have a meaningful one-to-one conversation than the typical Comment option.

The Reply feature is currently available only in the desktop site and maybe rolled for mobile users hopefully soon.

Google+ gets some retro filters

Lately photos are taking the center-stage in all the social networks(as was seen in the recent Facebook Timeline update and Google+ Profile update) and Google+ doesn’t want to be left behind. In the recently unveiled Facebook timeline change, users are provided an option to sort their Feeds based on various filters and an option to see just Photo updates from friends. Now Google+ has a similar option to sort the search results that contain only photos.
Not to be left behind the Google+ mobile app too gets a few goodies – retro filters(Warm, Cross, B&W, Cool, Contrast, Retrolux, and Drama) and a few basic image editing options courtesy of the Snapseed acquisition by Google. You also get adjust saturation, contrast, brightness and lots more by sliding your fingers up-and-down, then left-and-right. Why should Instagram users alone have all the fun. Go on, click some snaps and apply some crazy filters and keep sharing!

Image credit: ZDNet,GPlusProject

This article has been reproduced from Sridhar’s blog.