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 Matt.
1. Facebook without the fun
On Monday, Facebook announced that Workplace, the company’s new business communication and collaboration tool, was being made available to businesses everywhere.
The company said, “We’ve seen that just as Facebook keeps you connected to friends and family, it can do the same with coworkers.”
Productivity apps are all the rage at the moment, but with the likes of Slack, Yammer and Skype currently dominating the enterprise chat space, is there any more room at the table for Facebook’s Workplace?
Time will tell, of course, but Workplace’s major advantage over its counterparts is its familiarity. The fact that Workplace is essentially a re-skinned version of Facebook, should make it relatively easy to adopt, even for the most tech-shy of organisations.
If being able to use Facebook at work without geting into trouble sounds like your bag, then head over to https://workplace.fb.com/ to get started.
P.S. It’s not free.
2. Phone and away
Regular visitors to this blog may have read about Annie’s recent month-long digital detox experience. I’ll admit I hadn’t heard of the #digitaldetox (if irony made hashtags) thing until reading Annie’s posts, but it turns out it’s pretty popular.
After a bit of digging into the subject I discovered there is an official Digital Detox website, there are device-free festivals (run by Innocent, OF COURSE), and ‘Unplugged tourism’ is even a thing now.
As explained by Motherboard in a recent article about unplugged tourism:
“These days, vacation can feel like work. Between Facebook updates, Instagram posts and tweets of your shower thoughts, memorializing your vacation can overpower the trip itself.”
The article went on to explain that studies have shown over half of those who plan on ‘unplugging’ during a holiday aren’t actually able to, so bad is their mobile addiction. Also, there are apparently health benefits to switching off and blah blah blah.
There’s no denying most of us spend too much time glued to our devices, but those who are willing to pay an obscene amount of money to travel to the jungle in order to unplug, may have bigger issues to contend with.
3. How to break your phone
Have you ever thought, “I wonder if it is possible to take a selfie with no hands?”. Wonder no more, it is possible, as proven by this guy:
Today is the proudest day of my life. I successfully took a picture of me high fiving myself pic.twitter.com/tCZ53T5JSx
— Seth Schneider (@TOSUBUCK) October 8, 2016
That hasn’t stopped a whole lot of people trying the hands-free selfie themselves, and breaking a whole lot of phones in the process.
It’s good, but I preferred cat beards.
4. GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
To many people, international football presents an opportunity to see the world’s footballing elite in action, exercise patriotism, and generally have a whole lotta fun.
For others, it is nothing more than a massive inconvenience and unwelcome disruption to domestic league football.
Whatever your stance, everyone loves an underdog story. On Tuesday evening, San Marino, currently ranked by FIFA at 201 in the world, scored their first away goal in World Cup qualifying for 15 years, and this is how they reacted;
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL
— Selección San Marino (@sanmarinopasion) October 11, 2016
WE FUCKING SCORED AN AWAY GOAL. STEFANELLI YOU FUCKING LEGEND!
— San Marino (@soccersanmarino) October 11, 2016
Just lovely.
Check out some of the hilarious reactions over on Twitter.
5. Wee Day Out
Danny’s back with a brand new edit, sit back and enjoy the ride.