Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& sometimes tech) news. Come back weekly for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week! 

• Twitter struck a big deal with the NFL this week – announcing it will stream Thursday night football games live on the social networking site. It’s free, and you don’t need to be logged in to view it online. “Twitter is where live events unfold and is the right partner for the NFL as we take the latest step in serving fans around the world live NFL football,” the NFL said.

• This move is being called one of ‘most seismic shifts in recent media history‘ – with some suggesting this move marks ‘the beginning of the end’ for traditional media as technology ‘quickly rendering the decades-old broadcast paradigm obsolete.’

• Just fascinating: Move over, Rat Pack and Brat Pack, now we’ve got the Snap Pack. “For them, taking photos and videos for Instagram and Snapchat is not a way to memorialize a night out – it’s the night’s main event.” How them young’ins party now.

• Also: this is an interesting look at the woman behind ‘The Dog Agency’ – a company that finds and promotes dog influencers on Instagram (seriously!) In case you were wondering, payment for dogfluencer posts are on par with their people counterparts: “There’s no distinction because it’s a dog.”

• And here’s a new study saying bloggers now have a bigger influence than celebrities. A survey of 14,000 people revealed that 3% of participants said they would consider buying a celebrity-endorsed item but 60% said they have been influenced by a blog or social media post when shopping.

• There was just a lot of stuff this week about influencers online (2016 – year of the influencers). Here’s another piece about the most liked newlyweds on Instagram! Rose to popularity for their knack at curating memes and other content.

• On Instagram fame: here’s a story on one of the most popular chefs on Instagram and his well-liked, perfectly photographed photos. Downside: looks great but doesn’t necessarily taste great (is that a metaphor for life these days?)

• And more about Instagram influence: the impact of ‘influencers” social media posts – great example: “Last summer, Morse posted a cinnamon bun from Ye Olde Bakery in Southampton, N.Y. The next day, “they were sold out by 10 in the morning,” she said. “They’d never experienced anything like it.””

• While the battle over privacy wages on with the FBI and Apple, WhatsApp has gone ahead and switched to complete encryption for its billion users.

• When guest-tweeting goes wrong (also: when did guest-tweeting become a thing?)

• I thought this story about the man behind Bernie Sander’s Twitter account was also interesting – I can’t believe some of the things he can tweet without getting approval!

• New numbers say 92% of American adults now own a cellphone, while 68% own a smartphone. “The rise of the smartphone has had major social, political, and cultural impact. It has changed the way people reach their friends, obtain data and media, and share their lives.”

• If you’re trying to take control of your @username on Twitter (if someone else has it), this account from Techcrunch is pretty interesting and might help you.

• I struggle to see how this was a good move – but this company Saint Laurent wiped its Instagram history clean after its former creative director left the company. Clean slate?

• Snapchat made QR codes cool again with its Snapcode – scan to add friends. Now Facebook’s rolled out its own Messenger Code.

• Facebook is also making changes to its videos – including a video search function, including live-streamed videos into its search, and launching a dedicated video hub.

• What kind of content do people want to say online? Well apparently more than 800,000 people wanted to watch a watermelon explode on Buzzfeed’s Facebook.

• It’s so easy to get sucked into scammy websites if you see their shiny ads on Facebook. Looks like there have been enough complaints now that Facebook has reacted and is actively removing ads and shutting down these shoddy dress accounts from the social networking site. It’s funny because I’ve actually purchased quite a few items from RoseGal which is considered one of the shoddy sites and I’d say my success rate with them was maybe 60-40% (60% the items turned out pretty good, 40% it was bad).

• Lots of people get their news from Facebook nowadays, but the platform is worried that too many people are doing just that – sharing and reading links, and not sharing stuff about their lives.

• Here’s the week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favourites are 1, 4, 8, 14, 15, 21, 25, 28 and 33!

Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!

Linda

Follow @lindork