Hollywood gets wrung out in the name of charity, Twitter experiments and Football is the sport of social champions

The #IceBucketChallenge

It’s a viral trend that’s taken Hollywood by storm, the #IceBucketChallenge is making sure that celebs drenched in freezing water is the main feature on our feeds this week. Amusing videos of Oprah, James Franco and many more have created great content for the campaign. As you watch Lady Gaga oddly pour ice water upon herself, you can only hope that part of the £19,000,000 raised so far came from Gaga in the name of charity and not in the name of art.

Twitter experiments

Twitter has experimented with the favourite button this week, turning the process of favouriting a Tweet into a more public feature than it previously has been. The favourite button, similar to Facebook’s like button, lets users know you enjoyed the Tweet without amplifying your action to other users on Twitter. The experiment now allows favourites to show up in your followers’ timelines publicly displaying your favourited Tweet. The new favouriting actions have been met with mixed reviews from Twitter users. Twitter will also be adding popular Tweets to your timeline, suggesting Tweets that you may like to see on your own feed. The Tweets selected will surface on your feed regardless of whether you follow the user or not, delivering what Twitter deems as interesting and relevant content to its users across the network.

Football - The champion sport of social media

Football has proven itself to be the sport of choice on social media this year. Football gained the most Tweets ever, for a sporting event, during Brazil’s epic defeat against Germany in the World Cup while The Premier League opening weekend saw an impressive 5.5 million Tweets. It wasn't all good news for The Premier League though, as they issued a warning to football fans not to post goals on Vine. Efforts to curb fans posting copyrighted content on all social channels are in full swing, so that rights holders have more control of where content is shared as the sport becomes ever more social.

Google Youtube

This week a few leaked screenshots gave an insight into Google’s new subscription-based music channel, YouTube Music Key. Android Police, the blog who were responsible for the leak, gave the first taste of what the channel may look like and what features it may offer. Building on Google’s range of music services, Music Key will introduce a number of new exclusive features including added concert footage, covers and remixes. The service will also be able to tap into YouTube’s algorithm, suggesting new music to users. These features are what Google hope will differentiate their new streaming service from competitors.

Tweets of the week

Google and Greggs entertained Twitter this week through their show of savvy social media skills after an internet mishap involving the Greggs logo. When users googled “Greggs”, an unfortunate slur on the logo appeared, which Greggs brought up with Google directly on Twitter. After a few fun Tweets, disaster was averted and both brands managed to get themselves trending through their friendly banter. Other offensive content to pop up this week was allegedly from retired cricketer Ian Botham’s Twitter account. The graphic tweet which caused much upset to those who saw it was quickly deleted and Botham blamed everything on a hacker.