Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference kicked off in San Francisco today. As predicted, a lot of the focus centered on Messenger, Live Video, and VR.
Beyond chat bots and live-streaming, however, the social network revealed a huge update for user profiles. Facebook today announced that it has partnered with several third-party video apps to allow people to customize their profiles with videos and creative animations.
The new ‘Profile Expression Kit’ rolls out today with support for six iOS apps, among them the popular video-looping service Vine (owned by Facebook competitor Twitter), Boomerang by Instagram, Lollicam, BeautyPlus, Cinemagraph Pro, and MSQRD. The latter is a Snapchat-style video app that was acquired by Facebook earlier this year.
Facebook claims that its Profile Expression Kit will let you jazz up your profile in just a few taps, allowing you to bring a sense of humor, personality, and originality to the platform. Those are all important themes for the site, which has seen a worrying decline in the amount of personal posts on its service.
Most social media-savvy users will already be aware of the likes of Vine and Boomerang, but what about the other third-party video apps? Facebook reportedly selected its partners based on their popularity in various regions of the world. The likes of BeautyPlus and Lollicam (both selfie-centric apps with editing and animation features), for example, are currently trending in Asia, reports Forbes.
Profile videos generated through the selected apps can be either temporary or permanent, with Facebook allowing the ability to place a timer on a new creation. Additionally, users will be able to select a thumbnail of their videos to appear on integrated apps, such as Tinder and Spotify, where videos don’t autoplay. Facebook states that the feature will be available on the Android versions of the partner apps in the coming weeks. The social network is also opening up the Profile Expression Kit to developers, in order to integrate more apps.
