social media round up
Social Media Round Up – It’s All Emojis And Avocado This Week
After months of speculation, Apple has announced that the new Emoji characters will be available with the upcoming iOS 10.2 software update. The new characters, announced this summer, include a variety of new gender and race options with a range of new career choices such as a welder, teacher, mechanic, astronaut and lawyer. However, the one we’re all most excited about is the long awaited avocado – after all, we still LOVE to Instagram and tweet images of avo on toast. Emojis have become rooted in modern culture, not only was ‘emoji’ the ‘Word of the Year 2015’ in the Oxford Dictionary, but New York’s Museum of Modern Art has recently announced a new exhibition of emoji sculptures. The museum acquired the original set of 176 emojis that were released in 1999 by Japanese phone company NTT DoCoMo and the collection will be on display in December. In more emoji news, a grandmother is hoping to make emojis more accessible to the over 50s by creating animations that better reflect the older generation. Diane Hill, from Coventry, enlisted the help of an artist to create her images – nicknamed ‘emoldjis’. They depict false teeth and memory pills and have now been submitted to the Unicode Consortium, the official organisation which sanctions new emoji characters to be included on keyboards each year, in much the same way the Oxford English Dictionary agrees on new words. The 56-year-old said that she hoped the new emojis – if approved – would encourage more older people to converse on social media and in text messaging. Other designs submitted include older person “looking disapproving over glasses” and “spending the kids’ inheritance”. Waitrose released its annual report on the nation’s eating habits this week and one of the most interesting findings was the huge influence that Instagram has had. Photographing a beautiful restaurant dish, editing and posting it online before devouring it is a given (we all do that, right?) but what struck us was almost half of us admitting to making more effort when cooking for others in preparation for them to post in image of it online. The supermarket also noted that sales of patterned bowls have risen by 12 per cent – we can’t be plating up our masterpieces on just any dull dishes, apparently. On a related note, a recent hashtag survey by Sous Vide Tools gave us the top ten most instagrammed foods, with pizza taking top spot. Sushi, chicken, salad and pasta complete the top five. Shockingly, avocado doesn’t seem to make it into the list…hmm, we’re not so sure about that one, especially with the excitement over the new emoji! This week it was announced that insurance company Admiral had planned a trial to offer young drivers a ‘first car quote’ via an app which would review Facebook profiles. First-time drivers considered to be ‘low risk’ following a review of Facebook posts would be offered a discount, however, Facebook banned the move on the basis that Admiral cannot determine discounts based on Facebook posts and likes. Privacy campaigners have criticised the attempt by Admiral to analyse users’ data and in the social media world where your online self is never a true reflection on reality – can your Facebook information really build a true picture of who you are and determine whether you are more or less likely to crash? Following the ban, Facebook said it would allow people to use their accounts to log in to the Admiral app, but will not allow the insurers to view users’ posts.AT LONG LAST THE AVO’ EMOJI IS NIGH!_
‘EMOLDJIS’_
THE CONTINUED RISE OF FOODSTAGRAMMING_
FACEBOOK AND ADMIRAL_