Disappearing messages, photos and videos

By | August 9, 2021
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I was having a read of the technology news the other day and came across a couple of related articles on the BBC.  They were talking about messages, photos and videos that you can set to “disappear” – either once someone’s read them, or after 24 hours.  All a bit Mission Impossible – this message will self-destruct in 5… 4…

This sort of thing has been around for quite a while now.  Snapchat made auto-deleting text messages a big thing with teenagers.  And Facebook and Instagram have their “Stories” feature, which lets you share photos and videos for just 24 hours before they’re automatically deleted.

Anyway – TikTok (an app that lets you share short videos with other people) and WhatsApp (a messaging service) are getting in on the action now.  TikTok are launching a “Stories” option that works just like the Facebook one.  And WhatsApp are giving you the option to have photos and videos you send automatically delete after they’ve been seen.

I wanted to mention these things in case you see something on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or whatever, then can’t find it again.  Or if someone sends you a photo in a WhatsApp message that suddenly vanishes.  It’s probably not your computer or phone playing silly beggars (although that’s not beyond the realms of possibility!) – it could well be one of these mysterious melting messages. 

One more stack of books to clear…

This is the final week of our clearance offer.  The warehouse is looking a lot tidier now – in fact, if you were hoping to get your hands on a copy of How to Shop Online with Confidence, I’m afraid we sold out of those in the first couple of days.

We do still have some of the “keeping in touch” books left if you’re interested (we had a few more of those to start with) – Making the Miles Fade and Meeting People Online. (Here’s the information about them in case you missed my first clearance email.)

This last clearance offer is of a book that’s a little different for us – again at half price until they’re all gone – and then that’ll be that and we don’t plan to print any more.  (I’ll warn you, we don’t have all that many copies left, so I do expect them to sell out.)

Rather than being about technology, this one is all about sleep – it’s called Sleep – Cutting Through the Claptrap.  And you might be curious about why on earth we published a book about sleep?

Well, it’s just such an important topic.  And although there are dozens of books out there about sleep, there weren’t any that quite did what we wanted – that looked at the different options for getting more and better sleep and checked which ones worked and which ones didn’t.  

Most of the books out there are written by someone peddling one particular view – which might or might not be true… and even if it is, might not be what would help you.  I had great fun working on this book at the time (it had been a long time since I’d buried myself in that many journals and academic papers) – and I was really proud of the result!

Anyway, the full details from when we first brought out the book are here.  As before, it’s available on our usual free trial, so you don’t pay until you’ve got your book and are happy with it.  And as they’re on clearance, they’re half price. But once they’re gone, that’s it, they’re gone.

Read more about it (and if you like, order a copy) here if you’re interested or would like to know a bit more about the book before deciding.

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