Facebook wants you to get into the meme game, a Washington Post reporter’s robotic room service experience goes viral, and WeWork says it’s laying off 2,400 employees globally.
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Facebook wants to help you make memes. The social media giant launched a new experimental app called Whale to attract teens to the platform, and it’s only available for iPhones in Canada. The app allows users to overlay photos with text and visual effects. Facebook faces stiff competition when it comes to winning over the younger audience – most notably from hit video app TikTok. There are around 90 stock photos to choose from, and strangely, many of them have a watermelon theme, for some reason. The news, which is trending on LinkedIn, piqued the interest of several marketers and communication specialists, but several people were skeptical about whether or not it can slow down TikTok.
Trending on Twitter – Washington Post’s Beijing bureau chief Anna Fifield was surprised to see a room service robot deliver her extra coffee pods. The video of the exchange was posted to Twitter and has been viewed more than 1 million times. Fifield was staying at a hotel in Shanghai. Others on Twitter, who had stayed in the hotel before, shared their own experiences with the robot. Guests at the hotel apparently get a call from the robot prior to its arrival at your door, warning them that the delivery is on its way. The only problem I see here is the fact that the room service robot only delivered two extra coffee pods. Journalists need way more than that, come on now.
And lastly, also trending on Twitter is the news that WeWork will let go of 2,400 employees around the world. The layoffs come after several difficult months for the company, including founder Adam Neumann’s resignation. A WeWork spokesperson’s response to the layoffs have made their way around Twitter, and it reads that WeWork is “making necessary layoffs to create a more efficient organization.” The job cuts represent roughly 20 per cent of its total workforce.
That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing.