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Week in Web

Weird Wide Web: the week in online oddities

The internet’s best offerings in social media, tech and science news.

WELCOME TO THE Weird Wide Web – where we take a look at some of the internet’s best offerings in social media, tech, science and weird news.

How teens really use the internet

Just what do young people do on social media? Tech investor Garry Tan has tried to find out with a survey involving over 1,000 people across two age groups. The survey, which focused on how people used social networks, found there is a fall-off in the numbers of young people using Facebook but a rise in the number using apps like SnapChat.

The IllumiRoom

Microsoft has built something very exciting: the IllumiRoom.

(It’s proof of concept right now, but fingers crossed this will be rolled out asap).

Quick on the draw

Sick of missing important phonecalls? Want to look stylish? Then look no further than this Japanese guy.

Uploaded by WATCHSARETV1

Tweeting about TV

Twitter has released some very interesting data about how British viewers tweet about TV shows. You can check out the full results here, but the gist is…

  • Engagement patterns mirror key events, or iconic moments during the factual programmes
  • Dramas usually see peaks in Tweets bookend the beginning and end of episodes
  • Entertainment often sees a higher proportion of Tweets from mobile; tweet peaks are largely content-led, but also occur during ads and idents
  • Current affairs sees a higher proportion of Tweets from desktop. Peaks largely follow climatic moments in the story narrative or prompts from hashtags on air
  • Films on TV regularly trend on Twitter. Tweet patterns follow key storylines with quotes often tweeted widely

Image: bloomua via Shutterstock

Messaging

Do you remember MSN Messenger? (More recently known by the clumsy appellation “Windows Live Messenger”) You probably should because, once upon a time, it was the most popular messaging service in the world – with almost 300 million users at its peak.

But Microsoft has started emailing its users – which still number 100 million – to let them know the service will end on 15 March and they will all be migrated to Skype. So – get ready to welcome the future, guys.