Tech This Week: Hello Olympics News, Goodbye Noisy WhatsApp Chats

In Tech This Week, we highlight how Instagram can't get enough "inspiration" from its rival, TikTok, and how WhatsApp is muting the noise. But most importantly, we cover how the Tokyo Olympics 2020 has been celebrated across the different platforms.

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All Social media apps are competing to integrate Olympic-related features and content as athletes themselves are using these platforms to broadcast live updates, behind-the-scenes special moments, and connect with fans. Let’s deep dive into how social media platforms brought all the updates of the most popular televised events in the world to the comfort of your very own homes.

Without further ado our dear readers, here's our tech recap for this week:

2020 Tokoyo Olympics on Social Media

Google: Highlights, Ranks, and Doodle Game

When googling the word Olympics, Google Search has added all the latest info on your personal favorite sports and players, and it even highlights your resident country's ranks in the race for gold. In addition, you can simply ask Google Assistant who won or how many medals a country has and it'll give you all the important details.

Not forgetting to mention that teaming up with Japanese animation STUDIO 4°C, Google rolled out largest-ever interactive Doodle game. 

Moreover, Google will take you on a cultural voyage to explore the hosting country, Japan, with Street View, Google Arts & Culture and Translate! Could this be more awesome!

YouTube: Official Broadcaster Highlights

In case you couldn’t watch one of the games, Google added a daily recap video on the official Olympics channel on YouTube so you won’t miss a thing! YouTube has partnered with ‘broadcasters around the world to bring viewers over 5,000 hours worth of highlights of all the events and top athletes, Opening and Closing Ceremonies, medal ceremonies and more’.

Twitter: 

Twitter is rolling out custom hashtag emojis (hashflags) for both the olympics and individual participant nations in more than 30 languages:

Moreover, Twitter will help you learn all about any sports you want simply by ‘Tweeting #ExpertEngine @Olympics and any sporting event hashtag, such as #basketball or #swimming, fans will automatically receive a video reply teaching them all about that sport. Class is in session’.

Just like Google and Facebook, Twitter added an Explore Tab that keeps users up to speed with all the highlighted Event Pages, Partner Moments, Twitter Moments, and select Topics, and Lists.

Facebook: New Features Dedicated to the Tokyo Olympics

With the Tokyo Olympics underway in Japan, Facebook decided to celebrate the huge sports event with a range of tools to keep the fans connected to the games.

Facebook launched Olympics hub information that includes ‘highlights from official Olympic broadcast partners, team and athlete overviews, explainers of competitions new to the Games, Olympic history’.

^{Source: Facebook}

Instagram to Make Under-16s’ Accounts Private by Default 

In another good step to protect young users from online abusers, the photo-focused app decided to default under 16 accounts into private, making it harder for potentially suspicious accounts to find young people and limiting advertisers from reaching that segment.

^{Source: Instagram}

This coincides with Instagram’s mother company, Facebook, announcing the launch of a controversial app for under-13 users, despite getting grilled by concerned parents, child groups, lawmakers, and activists who are speaking up about why it might be a bad idea.

However, the app will be managed by parents and guardians as part of its efforts to reduce the incentive for people under the age of 13 to lie about their age, according to the announcement.

On a side note, Instagram extended Reels’ video length to 60 seconds following TikTok recently expanded its videos limit to three minutes.

Also, Instagram is testing a TikTok-style vertical content feed for Explore:

WhatsApp Allows Users to Hide Noisy Chat Groups

The Facebook-owned messaging app, WhatsApp, rolled out a new option that allows users to manage group chats. Users will be able to archive and hide unimportant noisy chats that will remain muted even when new messages are sent into the group.

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