Both Facebook and Twitter are letting users show their support for the Olympics. Yesterday, Twitter launched ‘followable’ moments as well as other methods of getting Olympic news. Similarly, Facebook announced rolling out features that allow users to show support for their nations and favorite Olympic teams and keep up with the happenings in Rio through a dedicated section in the news feeds.
Also, the most popular social network in the world is reintroducing Profile Frames for the Olympics. Last year saw the first introduction of the Profile Frames feature, which allows users to place their profile picture on a custom frame. The news frames have the Rio 2016 Olympics logo and the flag of the nation the user supports. By default, the frame will have the flag of your country. The feature is live on Facebook at the time of this article.
Facebook Acquired MSQRD
Facebook recently acquired MSQRD, a photo and video filter application. Through the help of MSQRD, Facebook launched country flag masks which users can overlay on their faces in videos and pictures. Also, MSQRD brought the support of Live Broadcasting on Facebook, which means that you can upload a video showing your friends what you look like before and after putting on the mask.
The Olympics-related content does not end there. Facebook began greeting users with Olympic messages from 1 August. After the greetings and photo, illustration is an option to explore. The greetings and photo illustrations, which appear at the top of your News Feeds, will end on 5 August.
If you choose to explore, you will be taken to a page with a variety of Olympic content, which includes the ability to search Olympic events, teams, and athletes. You can also watch Live videos from the Olympics stadia in Rio. Facebook assures a similar greeting will appear when the Olympics conclude on 21 August.
Unfortunately, if you ignore or dismiss the greeting, it may never come back. That is the major drawback with the Facebook Olympic content, and other sports tracking features it has offered in the past. However, we have to give it credit for supporting sports. Earlier this year, it rolled out the “sports stadium” feature, which allows users to enjoy sports coverage, view comments from other users and check out match information. But still, these pages are hard to find, if Facebook does not include them in the News Feeds.
On the other hand, Twitter is far much easier to use when tracking sports events. The social site allows users to track sports events easily, watch highlights and track the medal count. Twitters recent deals with the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL and more will broaden the sports coverage in the coming months.
