Rachel Ramsey : Social Spotlight
Rachel Ramsey
Graduated from James Madison University with a B.A. in Media Arts and Design and a minor in Communication Studies
| Welcome to Social Spotlight! When I'm not covering a variety of technology and communications industries - everything from the cloud and VoIP to customer relationship management and data centers - you will find me on social media. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, foursquare, YouTube, Tumblr... you name it, I'm there

Instagram

Instagram and Twitter - 'Social Media Frenemies'

December 6, 2012

Over the past 24 hours there has been a lot of talk about how Instagram pulled support for Twitter Cards, resulting in cropped or poorly displayed images if you opt to click “View photo” instead of the actual Instagram link.

Users can still share Instagram photos to Twitter, but the image on the two platforms will look different. The idea is to increase traffic to Instagram and utilize the platform and its Web presence more directly, especially now that it has released its Web profiles.

 “A handful of months ago, we supported Twitter cards because we had a minimal Web presence.

Twitter Filters and Instagram Update

December 11, 2012

Since the massive adoption and popularity of Instagram, we’ve seen a few other sites pick up filters of their own. Facebook, which acquired Instagram in April, recently updated its photo uploading feature. Users can now upload multiple photos at a time (up to 30) and edit with Facebook's own set of filters.

Facebook filters

Year in Review -- 2012 on Social Media

December 27, 2012

As we inch closer to the New Year, social networks are rounding up 2012 with the top highlights, trends and events of the past 12 months. Most of these reports came out before the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT shooting and Christmas -- two 2012 events that dominated social media and I think belong on all of these lists.











By now, we’ve gathered that if something big is going on, you can always count on Facebook to find out a) what is happening and b) what all of your friends think about it. As a population, it’s just what we do – share.

Happy New Year!

December 31, 2012

On the last day of 2012, I’d like to wish you a very happy and safe New Year! Here’s what’s happening on the social media blogs this New Year’s Eve.



Already trending on Twitter are NYE, Happy New Year, #Best 2012Memories and #MyWishIn2013. As similar topics start to emerge as the celebrations continue, be on the lookout for a huge amount of resolution tweets tomorrow.

“Whether you aspire to something silly or serious next year, Tweeting your #resolutions can be an effective way to account for your actions.”

You Can Now Tag Photos on Instagram

May 2, 2013

In what is the first major move to make Instagram more like Facebook since the acquisition last year, users can now tag their Instagram photos.

“Photos are memories of the people, places and moments that mean the most to us,” the company blog said. “We have always sought to give you simple and expressive ways to bring the stories behind your photos to life. Your captions and hashtags capture the ‘what?’ and your Photo Map answers the ‘where?’ but until today we’ve never quite been able to answer the ‘who?’”

Taking Instagram to an Entirely New Level with Stop-Motion Video

June 20, 2013

Flip books and stop-motion videos have always really amazed me. It's a tedious process that takes a lot of patience and individual pieces (photos, drawings, props, etc) to come up with an overall creative masterpiece. Twitter's video sharing app Vine has inspired stop-motion videomakers over the past few months as we've seen an accumulation of six-second clips featuring creative animation and stop-motion videos.

Rumors about Instagram joining the world of video sharing applications have been circling around today's Facebook event, but some people are too impatient to hear for sure, and have taken matters into their own hands. An Instagram account by the name of Friends in Faux created a stop-motion video from 1,556 Instagram photos.



Overall, the video took about three weeks to produce.