Redskins' social media failNFL team the Washington Redskins had a bit of a PR nightmare last week, as they launched a hashtag campaign which, it turns out, very few people actually had any support for. 50 US Senators have signed a petition to urge the NFL commissioner to force the Redskins to change their name, due to many people being of the opinion that it’s a racial slur, but the general manager responded with a letter that listed several reasons why they wouldn’t. The club then sent out the following tweet, urging people to show their support.
Turns out, they had wildly misjudged how many people actually do support the name, and they didn’t have a very good time once the tweets started flowing in.
.@Redskins boy, good thing the systematic slaughter of indigenous people was managed better than this twitter account! #redskinspride
So, while it didn’t work out for the Redskins, it worked out very well for the 50 senators who were petitioning a name change.Twitter changes its fontTwitter changed its font this week, causing (as any small change to a social network does) a minor meltdown on the site. The font changed from Helvetica Neue (classic) to Gotham Narrow SSm, for all you font geeks like me out there.Some interesting facts about Gotham: it was used in Barack Obama’s election campaign, and is also used in the logo for the One World Trade Center.If you’re really that upset about the changes, you’ll be pleased to hear that the mobile interface on smartphones and tablets still continues to use Helvetica Neue, Arial or the system default.Facebook looks set to allow under-13s on the siteSocial networking giant Facebook is working on a way to allow users under 13 years old (the current age 'restriction') to join the site.The system apparently allows children under 13 to be supervised by parents, according to a new patent. The mind boggles at how Facebook might be able to produce some kind of parent-monitoring software, but then that’s probably why I don’t work for Facebook. Yet. Facebook currently does an incredibly poor job of banning children younger than 13 from joining the site. US Secret Service seeks sarcasm spotterTurns out I have the perfect job by searching for stories for my article. The US Secret Service wants to identify sarcastic tweeters in order to try and separate them from the serious, and have issued a tender in order to try and find a way to determine sentiment. Now, I’d be happy to take up this post for them. If they’re looking for a sarcastic person to go through the mentions and call out the ones that are being sarcy dickheads, I can definitely manage that.Google+ updates edit functionGoogle has updated the iOS version of its Google+ app this week and has added advanced photo-editing features. The new tool allows users to filter the crap out of… I mean, fine tune their photos without having to leave the Google+ app. Hurrah!Great news for all three of you who use Google+.
