Skip to main content

Facebook’s photo-sharing app Moments now lets you share videos as part of major update

facebook recommendations social network app smartphone
bloomua/123rf
Facebook pretty much abandoned its push into stand-alone apps at the end of last year by closing its Creative Labs division. One app that didn’t get relegated to the cutting block, however, was Moments.

As it turns out, the photo-sharing app is actually quite popular. Moments’ users have shared more than 400 million photos since its launch last year. To celebrate that milestone, Facebook has launched a major update to the app, which now lets you share videos alongside images.

For those who aren’t familiar with Moments, the app is built for private photo sharing. Using AI, it identifies who’s in your images and when they were taken, allowing it to suggest who you should then share your photos with. Once you send a photo to someone, they will be notified via Facebook and Messenger, allowing them to log in to Moments and contribute their own images from the same event. With the new update (available right now for iOS and Android) you can also upload videos to those collections.

Additionally, Facebook claims that you’ll soon be able to add videos to your shareable slideshows in Moments — these are the short videos set to music that can be created using a selection of images — which can then be shared via Facebook, reports TechCrunch.

A major part of Moments’ success can be attributed to Facebook’s heavy marketing of the app. The likes of Slingshot and Riff failed due to the social network’s insistence on an organic strategy for its standalone products, which was reliant upon positive word-of-mouth. Its unorthodox treatment of Moments, on the other hand, has included promotion on the Facebook news feed, and via Messenger (as described above). The social network also recently made its handy photo-sync feature a Moments exclusive, further driving mobile users to the app.

Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
TikTok pivots to photos while its competitors are still chasing its viral videos
Smartphone with TikTok's Photo Mode all on a white background.

TikTok's competitors have been all over the news recently for essentially copying the short-form video sharing app's  most successful moves. But while everyone else is pivoting to video, TikTok is now taking swings in the other direction: photos.

On Thursday, TikTok announced a slew of new editing and creation features, but the one tool that caught our eye was Photo Mode. Because the image that TikTok shared in its official announcement depicted a photo carousel-style image post that looks a lot like Instagram.

Read more
Facebook’s new controls offer more customization of your Feed
A smartphone with the Facebook app icon on it all on a white marble background.

Facebook isn't likely to stop recommending posts in your Feed anytime soon, but it is offering a few options for controlling the content you see there.

On Wednesday, Facebook parent company Meta announced that the social networking platform is offering two more ways to customize your feed: by selecting "Show more" or "Show less" on individual posts, and by adjusting new settings in Feed Preferences.

Read more
Searches for health topics on YouTube now highlights personal stories
The red and white YouTube logo on a phone screen. The phone is on a white background.

Google and TikTok aren't the only places people look for information on health issues. YouTube is another resource people look to for educating themselves on health-related topics. Now, YouTube has launched a new feature in an attempt to further support those queries in a different way.

On Wednesday, the video-sharing website announced its latest feature via a blog post. Known as a Personal Stories shelf, the new search-related feature will yield a "shelf" of personal story videos about the health topics users search for. Essentially, if you search for a health topic, a Personal Stories shelf may appear in your search results and it will be populated with YouTube videos that feature personal stories about people who have experienced the health issue you searched for.

Read more