Le Tour Yorkshire's grande triumph, Facebook makes quiet improvements, Brazil’s big World Cup exit and it's farewell to Orkut

Brands cash in on Yorkshire’s Tour de France

This year the Tour de France kicked off in the well known French province of Yorkshire and saw le grande success. Five million were said to have watched the spectacle over the weekend, according to the race’s director, and 2.5 million lined the roads – half the population of Yorkshire. Le Tour Yorkshire also became a social success, amounting 65,000 followers on Twitter and 54,000 on Facebook. The whole event is thought to have brought in an excess of £100m in economic benefits for the country. The power of sports on social media created a great platform for selfie trend headache.

Facebook’s big LIKE

Facebook added some new and improved features to its messaging service this week, to keep up with the competition in the fast growing world of messaging apps. If you hold the Like button down for longer on the Messenger app, your Like now becomes one much bigger LIKE, resulting in a massive thumbs up symbol. Now you can also send out videos in Messenger, helping to keep its functions inline with other mobile apps messaging features. Not heard of these changes? The uproar surrounding Facebook’s experimentation with manipulating the moods of its users from their newsfeed meant the Messenger announcement got a little lost in the noise.

Brazil’s Exit from the World Cup is one to talk about

It didn’t end the way Brazil hoped it would, as they spectacularly crashed out of the World Cup in a devastating 7-1 defeat during the semi-finals. But at least it didn’t go unnoticed. Tweets about the final score of the Brazil vs Germany match came thick and fast, causing the event to become the most tweeted about event ever. You can also view how brands reacted to this knock out sensation in these tweets: http://bit.ly/1jh2FCc.

Another one bites the dust

Orkut, the social networking site owned by Google +, announced that it will be closing down later this year. Orkut started life in the same year as Facebook but in terms of success that’s where their stories part. The relatively unknown networking site did have its big moments though, as the first site to bring social networking to the masses in India and Brazil. However its staying power was tested to the limit by the arrival of Facebook and soon saw its users abandon ship, such is the fickle world of social. Orkut is the latest in a fairly long line of failures from Google’s forays into social networking and might not be the last if you believe the Google + rumours.