We’ve been busy at 55comms HQ, the busiest we’ve ever been in fact, but so too has the media world – here’s the latest!
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Yesterday, Instagram unveiled its latest product, "Threads", a stand-alone companion app to Instagram which is expected to compete aggressively with Snapchat. As you may expect, it’s a photo sharing app focused around enhancing the communication among your closest friends. Instagram introduced the “Close Friends” feature on Instagram mid-2017 which allowed you to create a group (audience if you will) of your closest friends which could be selected and messaged if you wanted to share a post or a video but not with your entire followers list. So, it seems Instagram has realised an opportunity within the photo/video messaging market, with close friends, and is really pushing to dominate. Threads boasts plenty of high-quality photo and video capabilities to entice users to use the platform, but above all, it’s really driving home its improved privacy. It’s an obvious tactic amid the wide-spread distrust in social apps but necessary nonetheless. I look forward to installing the app to see how it fits within the other social apps I regularly use – is there a place for it or not?
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Netflix just upped their monthly price by $2 for Australian users. It’s the first price change in Australia since 2017, which comes as Australia prepares to welcome Disney+ and Apple TV+ to the already crowded streaming market next month. A Netflix spokesperson said the price change is about ensuring the service can continue to produce high-quality content. It’s well documented that Netflix has spent bags of cash on producing original movies and TV series, so I hope with the extra $2 they’re taking out of my pocket, we’ll get more excellent content.
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This… is Big Brother. The famous catch-phrase we’re all too familiar with is reportedly making its way back to our TV screens. It’s the show you love to hate, but a growing demand from young viewers has Seven Network saying it’s going to bring it back. I can’t add any truth to the headlines, but I admit it seems promising for the fans. But as expected, the headlines on social media were met with just as much hate as there was support. “Another rubbish show producing rubbish influencers,” one angry Facebook user commented, with plenty others latching on and sharing their distaste. On the other side of the fence: “Finally some wholesome Aussie TV!” wrote a happy supporter. For now, it’s only rumoured, so you’ll have to keep your eyes peeled for any solid announcements.
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If you were / are an owner of a Samsung Galaxy S4 then you’re entitled to some cold hard cash. Samsung recently settled a lawsuit of $13.4 million for artificially inflating benchmark scores by introducing code that detected when benchmarks were running and the overclocking the Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor speed to 532MHz, instead of the 480MHz that the processor normally ran at … (that made no sense to me either). But it means that there’s $2.8 million sitting in a settlement fund which goes to those who purchased the device, so you’re able to claim $10. Instructions on how to claim $10, if you’re a Galaxy S4 owner, aren’t available yet — but an email should make it to your inbox with those instructions soon.
That’s it for this week, have a good weekend.