Five things worth sharing from the last week or so, brought to you by a different member of the Browser Media team every Friday.
This week’s My Five is by Joe.
1) Facebook down
The world has been sent into a mass panic over the past week as Facebook went down TWICE.
For Facebook, this is actually more serious than it sounds with lost revenue and disgruntled customers. So much so that shares slipped by 4% shortly after the site went down.
For the rest of us, it gave us an opportunity to poke some fun and Twitter was the channel of choice, with #facebookdown providing some excellent tweets.
This one made me laugh:
With #facebookdown I’ve got no idea what some of my friends have eaten tonight. Have they been for a jog? It’s a real nightmare #keepitdown
— Christian O’Connell (@OC) September 28, 2015
Whilst this one deserves an award:
Yes we can confirm Facebook is down, please don’t call us! What a great opportunity to spend some time with your family… #FacebookDown
— Kingston Police (@MPSKingston) September 28, 2015
2) Google Now On Tap
This week saw the launch of two new Google Nexus phones, which heralds the arrival of Android Marshmallow, the latest version of Google’s mobile operating system.
Along with various improvements, Marshmallow includes Now on Tap, which will help users search for information about whatever is on their phone’s screen at the time.
This could introduce a fundamental shift in the way that we search for stuff. Could it be the start of the end for the humble search box?
Google’s own search chief has been speaking about the future of search this week. A good summary of what he had to say can be found over on the BBC website.
3) Not another Haka
I have been suffering from a surprising lack of interest in the Rugby world cup. Try (like the pun?) as hard as I can, I just find it very dull.
Without wishing to offend any Maori traditions, I can’t deny that I did raise a chuckle at BBC Newcastle’s Geordie Haka this week though.
A totally different league to the cringeworthy Hakarena from Matt Dawson…
4) Lemmings
I have always had a softspot for wingsuit videos and am determined to do it one day.
This week, I found a new video that has fuelled my desire to launch myself towards a probable death, but also reminded me of a suicide (some debate about the official collective noun(http://www.gardenoflifetemple.com/WordPlay/CollectiveNouns.html), but this feels right!) of lemmings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgQRUhGt8Ks
Is that a dead body he passes at 1:17?
Nutters!
5) BBC Earth Facebook
I saw this image this week and traced it back to the amazing BBC Earth Facebook page.
If you want to be reminded of what an amazingly beautiful planet we live on, I cannot think of a better place to go.
See – Facebook does actually contribute some good! Have a great weekend.