The Week In Social: Facebook Newsroom, Visual iMessage, and Microsoft gets Github

News programming comes to Facebook Watch

Facebook previously announced that news programming would come to its Watch video platform, and now the company has made good on its promise. The social media behemoth has revealed a slate of daily, weekly, and somewhere-in-between current affairs series debuting in the coming months from a variety of mainstream US news outlets. Among those mentioned are CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper Full Circle’, ABC News’ ‘On Location’, and the Mic-produced ‘Mic Dispatch’. Facebook has noted that it is working with publishers to “to experiment with these different formats” while stressing “they will have full editorial control of their shows.”

iMessage gets more visual

Apple has revealed the next set of features arriving in iMessage, and the tech giant seems to be moving away from boring ol’ text in favour of something more akin to Snapchat. At its annual WWDC event, the company revealed “Memoji”: a customizable face similar to Bitmoji, but with the face-mimicking features of Animoji (we know, there’s a lot of “moji”). Apple also unveiled some filters and visual effects that hearken back to its Photo Booth app. These features will also come to FaceTime.

One ticket, please. Wait! Where’d you go?!

Snapchat and SeatGeek have announced you can snap up those seats now, honey. The companies have partnered up to allow users to purchase concert tickets directly from the app. LA football club was the first group to jump on board, letting users swipe up to get to the game. SeatGeek co-founder, Russ D’Souza, said “for too long, the legacy ticketing approach has been to make it difficult for teams to sell tickets in lots of places. Teams should want to sell their tickets in as many places as possible.” Amen, Russ. Amen.

Facebook takes on Twitch with Fb.gg

Not to let Twitch enjoy all of that Fortnight action, Facebook has launched Fb.gg, a new hub to house gaming-focused content on the platform. The dedicated section lets users peruse an assortment of featured games and gamers, unsurprisingly with an emphasis on live-streamed content; after all, it’s Twitch’s live audience that allowed it to rival YouTube for online video eyeballs in the first place. This is the latest instance of Facebook taking notes from Twitch – back in January, Facebook began incentivizing players toward its platform with tipping-based monetization.

YouTube Scores a Gooooooaaaalll

YouTube went FULL FIFA this week revealing this year’s most popular world cup teams. The decision to air more World Cup 2018 related content came after data showed that videos containing popular soccer stars like Messi, Neymar, and Ronaldo had an 80% increase in watch time last year. The Google-owned company also announced that viewers watching football match recaps had “more than doubled” compared to last year. While only just now gaining traction in the United States, football (soccer) is the world’s most popular sport. Will YouTube lead the charge indoctrinating the US into the planet’s favorite sport? Only time will tell.

Microsoft says “mine, please” to Github

Going for the full embrace, Microsoft announced that it would be acquiring GitHub, and their open source libraries for a whopping $7.5bn dollars. People have been babeing out about GitHub since 2008, using its free-to-use open source libraries across a litany of industries, from governments to private enterprises. While some were worried that the tech giant would turn GitHub into a completely different animal, ala “IT’S ALIVE,” the company has assured the public that they’ll proceed with GitHubs “developer-first” ethos.

Snapchat shows music is sick…like viral

Snapchat is showing everyone who’s ever pulled out a guitar in high school that even they can be a star. The ghost is moving past “look how pretty I am” filters and is now trying to make a splash in the music industry. Ben Schwerin, Snapchat’s VP, announced that Snapchat has a new music strategy where they’ll partner with record labels to empower musicians everywhere. Artists like Jacobson and Yungblud have already voiced their enthusiasm for using the augmented reality offerings to release music in new, innovative ways (sorry Kanye, not everybody needs to go all “cabin in the woods” in Wisconsin to create great art anymore).