social media round up
Social Media Round Up – Museum Wars, Google’s Birthday And Pressing The Snooze-Button On Your Friends
It is 20 years since Google.com was registered, and in that relatively short time has come to be a dominant force online, on our desktops and on our phones, seeing off the likes of AltaVista and AskJeeves (remember them?!). In that time it has created quite the monopoly on our digital habits. Over 90 per cent of all web searches use Google, 60 per cent of us use Chrome to surf the web, and 90 percent of all smartphones run on Android. It has become an advertising giant, earning $90 billion each year – a third of digital advertising revenues. And that’s basically the point of Google, by tracking our habits and indexing the world, Google knows more about each of us than we will probably ever realise, from our search history, YouTube preferences and even the routes we take to work. All of this data means targeting advertising and making money out of each of us is easier and easier. A big happy birthday to one of our main ‘couldn’t live without’ brands. The anniversary of Spectacles by Snapchat is around the corner. Burger King and Sainsbury’s have taken to the new tech to shoot their recent ad campaigns. Spectacles (that’s with a capital /S/; not to be confused with your low-tech, lower case /s/ spectacles that are just so last-century) are high tech glasses which can record videos from the wearer’s perspective. This has caused quite a stir in PR and marketing circles. Capturing video content in a circular frame (enabling viewers to spin their phones around the shot) Burger King and Sainsbury’s are the very first clients to use the glasses to shoot ads. The fast-food giant made the most of National Cheeseburger Day in the US while the supermarket, showed off some cooking inspiration. Facebook has introduced a snooze button and for some of us it’s an absolute Godsend! We all have those friends who go a little overboard on the social posts at certain times… new baby, on holiday, eating a meal *eye roll emoji*, but they’re friends, or even family, so unfriending them or unfollowing isn’t an option (or just feels a bit harsh). Enter Snooze from Facebook. In the top-right menu you can now choose to ‘snooze’ someone’s posts, so you won’t see anything in your feed from them for 24 hours, a week or 30 days, so we can take a breather (however brief) from the repeat offenders. Hastings, Waterloo, Gettysburg, the great battles of history can add one more name to the pantheon of historical conflicts: South Kensington. The Science Museum and its neighbour, the Natural History Museum, got down and dirty on Twitter last week with some digital fisticuffs on their #AskACurator day. Challenged by a contributor to say who would win a battle between the two, the geekiest game of top-trumps ensued, with each institution outdoing its rival with exhibits from their respective archives. The NHM laid down its dinosaurs, the Science Museum retorted with robots, a spitfire and ancient poisons. Not to be outdone, NHM played the pterodactyls and vampire fish card. With the Natural History Museum ready to call it a draw, the Science Museum upped the ante with a 3D printed dinosaur, NHM countered with locusts and so the battle continued. For all the fun that they were having, the Twitter battle highlights the importance that cultural institutions place on social media to unlock their vast archives for the public and to engage the wider world in their work beyond the confines of Exhibition Road.HAPPY BIRTHDAY GOOGLE_
BURGER KING AND SAINSBURY’S MAKE A SPECTACLE OF THEMSELVES_
YOU SNOOZE, YOU…KEEP YOUR FRIENDS_
SOUTH KEN SMACKDOWN_
