If you're trying to round up your friends or family for a good ol' video chat sesh, look no further than Snapchat. In addition to sending disappearing photos and videos, you can also use it for group video chat. Unlike Zoom or Google Hangouts, it doesn't require setting up meeting rooms, sending links, or entering passwords. Quarantine is stressful enough. Not to mention, there's always that one clueless friend in the group who somehow misses the text message or email with all the login info. Oh, and another perk: You also don't have to worry about weird, creepy Zoom hackers invading your wholesome virtual gathering.

Facebook joins forces to track virus hotspots

Facebook released its first map that tracks coronavirus symptoms county by county and plans to update it daily throughout the outbreak. Facebook partnered with Carnegie Mellon University researchers to create an opt-in survey designed to help identify Covid-19 hotspots before the cases are confirmed. The map breaks down the percentage of people per county who have self-reported coronavirus symptoms, such as loss of smell, cough and fever. It shows, for example, that 1.45% of people in New York County have reported coronavirus symptoms. But, as you can see in the map below, a huge portion of the map does not have enough participants to show data. More than one million people responded to the survey within the first two weeks, according to Facebook. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company will roll out the survey globally this week, which will help it provide a more complete picture.

LinkedIn reports sizeable surge in LinkedIn Learning usage

With no social events taking up people's time, most of us are looking for remote entertainment options. And one way that an increasing number of people are looking to utilise their free capacity is via professional development, and learning new skills that can help to advance their skills and career prospects. Underlining this, LinkedIn has reported that it's seeing a big increase in demand for its LinkedIn Learning professional development courses. As per LinkedIn, "As our social and professional norms shift, people are turning to learning to help them get through. In the first week of April, people watched 1.7M hours of learning content on LinkedIn Learning vs. 560K hours in the first week of January - a 3X increase in time spent learning."