Social Media Notes
Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& tech) news. Come by each week for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week!
- Big (ish, probably?) news: Google is now a subsidiary of something called ‘Alphabet.’ Google says “Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main interest products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens) and Calico (focused on longevity).” Learn more about it at their interesting custom URL too: abc.xyz.
- Have you encountered the “RetweetStorm”? It’s the term for retweeting support of a particular topic in a very ‘pointedly consecutive order.’ Giving the ideas and opinions of others a chance to shine without you actually blasting to your followers your own worded rants. I’ve seen it and have practiced it myself (not knowing its phrase ;)). Probably most interesting in this article though is the discovery that there are “tweetstorm apps.”
- Are we living in an alternate worldline? This Berenst#in Bears theory that’s resurfaced online is INSANE!
- What you should probably avoid retweeting: terrorists. Because that could count as a terrorist act and you could be charged for it.
- “Screw texting. It’s time to pick a universal messaging app.” ~ preach ~ I do find myself using Facebook Messenger more and more, but much like the writer of this Wired article, I also have a folder full of messaging apps that I bounce around with. Really interesting look at “WeChat” in China too.
- Did you know the most famous Canadian dog on Instagram (this hasn’t actually been verified but I am going to say it’s either true or pretty damn close to being true) is from Edmonton? Tonkey the bear coat Shar Pei puppy from Edmonton has been making her way all over the Internet the last couple of weeks! Read about the adorable pup and how she became ‘Internet famous’ (more than 234,000 followers!)
- Cool: YouTube is retiring its 301+ views count for a more real-time viewing algorithm. With that, they’re explaining a bit about why 301+ and how it will now work.
- It does seem like a missed opportunity: Twitter’s quest to be THE way we yell at customer service. A look at how most people turn to a company’s online accounts to get customer service now and how Twitter might’ve missed the boat on a big customer service opportunity.
- This is so terrible. Fourth secular blogger hacked to death in Bangladesh.
- More insane social media repercussions: A Thai man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison after being found guilty of ‘posting messages and pictures defaming the monarchy.’ We are very lucky to live where we live.
- I saw this job posting for Snapchat this week and just thought it was worth noting: Assignment Editor for Snapchat News and Politics. How journalism has changed – and how social media is affecting that industry – is fascinating. Also another interesting job posting that could only exist today: Buzzfeed Junior Animals Writer.
- Is Facebook cheating, lying, and stealing – when it comes to video content? YouTube creator Hank Green alleges so. Saying Facebook has been suppressing YouTube links in favour of natively uploaded videos (cheat), inflating video views with autoplay ads (lie), and not doing more to protect copyright materials (steal).
- Yikes. A ripple effect after last year’s European ruling that people who felt they were being misrepresented by search results that were no longer accurate or relevant could ask search engines like Google to de-link the material (the right to be forgotten): Free-speech watchdogs say the huge and unwieldy eraser is coming for Google across the globe.
- She may try to exercise her ‘right to be forgotten.’ Remember Rebecca Black? The young girl behind the hit (worst?) song “Friday” – this Buzzfeed story on Black, who is now 18, is really interesting. “She’s too famous to be normal and too normal to be famous.” How different would her life have been if the song/video had been released today and not back in 2011?
- Facebook is making the jump into livestreaming but so far it only works for celebrities. The feature will show up as “Live” when it does roll out to us commoners – and you’ll be able to like, comment, or share the video while viewing the livestream.
- There’s definitely been a rise in social media jobs in the past few years – check out this new infographic with some of those stats and tips for current folks in social media jobs. More proof it’s really across industries: The San Fran Police Department even has their own “Instagram officer” who scans the service day in and day out, watching for suspicious characters or behaviour and information.
- Spreading diversity in tech: The #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag campaign aims to spread awareness about the different types of people in the tech industry.
- You might notice more Instagram ads soon – the company recently turned on its Ads API that will let businesses start Instagram ad campaigns in a more automated way. Oh, goodie…
- Reddit is cracking down on some of the worst parts of its site: bans racist and hateful communities and updates its user policies.
- I thought this Twitter thread on embedded tweet notifications was interesting – can people get notified if their tweet has been embedded into a blog or news site? I’d love that, but get how it might be hard for Twitter to do – and might get a bit crazy/unmanageable, since so many “new stories” are just collections of tweets nowadays, lol.
- Next week I’m going to be the curator for @PeopleofCanada – a rotating crew of Canadians sharing their lives with Canada and the world.. Marty Chan was among one of the very first People of Canada curators back in 2012 (I wrote this social media column on him at the time) and I am really excited to be doing this now. It’s been interesting to watch the tweets over the years! I hope the account’s followers enjoy my snippets of life (and summer) in Edmonton! Watch for my posts Aug 17-24.
- Did you see this week’s Cat Saturday photos?! My favourites are 2, 16, 17, 18 and 32!!!
Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!
Linda