Facebook
A Likely Story
You know those annoying grey bubbles that sit at the top of your Facebook mobile app, prompting you to share ‘Your Story’ – well they’ll soon be available on desktop too! Facebook Stories is the first ephemeral social content offering to be available on desktop, but who knows whether that will actually translate into increased traction.
Following Google’s lead, Facebook will now begin penalising websites which are not optimised for mobile devices. A change to the newsfeed algorithm means those frustrating, slow-loading pages, are now less likely to show up in your feed. Considering 94% of Facebook users access the site via mobile, it’s a change that makes a lot of sense.
Twitter is a place for sharing thoughts, posing questions and engaging in discussions. But there’s one topic Twitter won’t talk about… its daily active user number. Earlier this year the US Securities and Exchange Commission asked Twitter why it refused to share this information, and the company sent back a lengthy response… in which it did not disclose the number.
The old Twitter thread cops a fair bit of flack. “It fills your timeline with half-contextualised tweets, sometimes poorly connected so you can’t figure out where they start and where they stop,” one Verge journalist writes. But is the Twitter thread actually a form of modern poetry? This journalist believes so…. here’s why.
Visual
Instagram Stories turned one this week – and to celebrate, parent company Facebook released some stats about the platform. Among the highlights – users aged under 25 now spend more than 32 minutes each day on Instagram. Also, Instagram Stories now has 250 million daily users – compared to rival Snapchat’s 166 million. Understandably, the fabulous bday celebrations sent Snapchat shares plummeting 2.6% on Thursday.
Tinder’s highly successful swipe feature has attracted a number of copycats over the years… but would you guess that LinkedIn would be one of them? This week the professional networking site announced that it is implementing the millennial-friendly feature to connect new entrants to the job market with mentors. Our verdict? Swipe right, sounds cool.
Loser
Facebook was forced to shut down a pair of artificially intelligent robots this week after they invented their own language. The chatbots, named Alice and Bob, were built to negotiate by mimicking human trading patterns. But when the social network paired them to trade against each other, they began speaking in their own bizarre ‘language’. Click through to read transcripts of the creeeeepy conversation.
Winner
If you’ve ever used dating app Tinder, you may have noticed a number of hopefuls hoping to woo would-be suitors by posting photos with big cats. Now the dating app is cracking down on the unethical / primitive / perhaps slightly Freudian trend. ‘Posing with a king of the jungle doesn’t make you one,’ Tinder said. The #NoTigerSelfies campaign comes after pressure from animal rights groups and aims to raise $10k for charity Project C.A.T.
Creative
Most people lack the skills and patience to craft even the most basic of garments, so you may be surprised to learn that the highly detailed gowns pictured here were actually made out of toilet paper. Entrants in the 13th annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress competition battled it out recently, in a clever campaign from toilet paper manufacturer Quilted Northern. If it’s soft, sturdy and delicate enough for a beautiful wedding dress, it’s probably good enough for your bottom too.
