Going, Going, Gone?
Twitter shares have plummeted 8 per cent after Google, Disney and now Salesforce backed away from bidding for the platform. Lacklustre growth and a troubled user culture have scared away potential buyers, leaving its future uncertain.
Seeking Recommendations
Stuck for what to do on a Friday night? You can now ask your Facebook friends to suggest places, which Recommendations will map… as long as the business has a Facebook page. This is great news for local businesses that rely on word of mouth, but may leave less tech-savvy business owners out in the cold.
Visual/Video
What’s the Story?
Instagram is making Stories more discoverable by featuring them in the Explore tab, one of the most popular parts of the app. Users with private accounts will still only have their Stories displayed to friends, but publicly viewable Stories could potentially reach a much wider audience.
Watch this
In a move that may allow it to keep a larger share of ad revenue, Snapchat is offering media partners a flat license fee instead of sharing ad revenue with content creators. This is the advertising model used in television, and mirrors the move towards ’Snapchat Shows’, a TV-like format the platform is exploring.
Social Winners
Restart a Heart
Twitter’s like button at the centre of ‘Restart a Heart Day” campaign to help create awareness of CPR and how it can be used to save a life.
New Support Tool
Instagram now tackles issues from self-harm to eating disorders with its new support and reporting tool.
Social Losers
An Army of Jokesters
The British Army’s attempt to have a ‘robust’ sense of humour turned out to be ‘racist’ instead.
Weibo > Twitter
That awkward moment when you realise your clone app is worth more than the original one. China’s Weibo, started in 2009 as a Twitter clone, is suddenly worth more than Twitter itself, with a market cap standing at US$11.35 billion, while Twitter is at US$11.34 billion.
Creative
Say it in .gif
Red Bull has introduced a new social media tool that allows fans to “reclaim” their social media feeds without being constricted by character limits
“Tweetbeat” of Austin
The 6-foot-high by 10-foot-wide aluminium and plexiglass device has been installed in Austin, Texas to measure “the tempo of Austin” using Tweets based on geolocation data.
