#SongbirdStories - The Rest from the Nest of #SocialMedia

Ah yes, it's that time of the week again and we have more of the small and random stories we know you all love to read but we don't have enough for a full article. So sit back and enjoy reading.

#SpaceFlower - The First Flower Grown in Space on Twitter

Apparently one of the things astronaut Scott Kelly missed about earth was the sight of greenery and plants, but now he has something living he can enjoy. He gave the space flower, a zinnia, it's début this week when he shared photos on his Twitter. The zinnias were grown as part of an experiment to see if flowering plants could be grown within the veggie technology they have on the space station. It's not grown perfectly but we can now see that you can in fact grow plants like tomatoes in space. It's no surprise that this beautiful reveal is one that trended across the planet.

Facebook's Ideal Customer's Voicemail

Most people use their voicemail as, well, voicemail. You leave your name and ask people to leave a message but photographer Michael Anderson had other ideas. Anderson does a lot of his business on Facebook so when he can't pick up the phone, he tells people he'd rather people went online and messaged him on there. There's even a little place on his page that states he usually replies within an hour, which is admittedly quicker then a lot of people respond to voicemail. His message allows him to get a lot more traffic on his Facebook page then he would otherwise and the staff love him for it. They apparently bring him up during some conferences as an example of what Facebook users could do in the future. Anderson is a true paragon in Facebook's eyes and I'm pretty sure they're hoping many others will follow in his footsteps soon.

Nintendo Have Finally Joined Tumblr

Well...technically they already had with their Splatoon and Pokemon tumblr accounts but now they finally have a general Nintendo tumblr. There's not very much on their account for now but it looks like it's going to mostly be reblogged cosplay photos and fanart mixed in with little factoids and reminders to check things out. It seems a little late, but I suppose it's better late then never and you can check them out here. You have to wonder why they have a little text saying it hasn't been rated yet though...

French Politician Wants To Sue Over Selfie?

Yes, you read that right. The former leader of the National Front wants to sue a dancer for posting a selfie with the leader sleeping with his mouth open in front of him. Jean-Marie Le Pen blames the picture for the party's loss during the recent election. Now considering this is a far right party, it's unlikely that a single selfie is what caused them to lose so badly but Le Pen is eager to blame someone and Brahim Zaibat's caption of "Knock out the [National Front] tomorrow by going to vote" would have helped place him as a scapegoat, oops.

Whatsapp Getting Rid Of Subscription Fee

Whatsapp, the mobile messaging service owned by Facebook has dropped it's subscription fee. Before you would have one year free before paying 69p ($1) a year to use the service. But apparently some people weren't even aware of the fee so what difference it'll make we don't know.

Nintendo To Release First Mobile Game

This is big news in the world of mobile apps. Nintendo are a giant on the video game market and now they're moving into mobile games it's going to be exciting to see where they go. You can assume the games will be kid friendly and their entry game is going to get the chance to use their Mii avatars to play mini games and interact from their - or your - phones. The game will be free apart from extras so make sure to watch your kids. It's due out in March this year.

Kylo - The Cat That Looks Like Adam Driver

Last Saturday a picture of an adoptable cat at the MCSPCA went viral after someone spotted him and pointed out that he looked like the actor Adam Driver of Star Wars fame. The picture of the cat was spreading across the internet as he was adopted and his new owner was watching it all happen. Now her boyfriend has set him up an instagram account where they'll show pictures of little Corey who has since been renamed Kylo. Photos and fans are already flooding the account and it looks as if he's enjoying his new home just as much as he's enjoying his new found internet fame

'Pretty Pot Heads' of Australia

A recent trend on Australian women's Instagrams are pictures of them with substances that look like marijuana as well as things like pipes and other smoking paraphernalia. There's not much to this other than that but it's interesting to see it's become such a big social media trend that's somehow localised to one country. There are a variety of different tags for a lot of very similar pictures including #stonergirl and #prettylittlepothead among others, stating that the drug should become legal.

Twitter Went Down

We all remember the good ol' days when it was common for Twitter to go down a lot. Everyone hated the fail whale because they had to see him so much. But on Tuesday, Twitter was down from 8.30am GMT and it took until 11am for a lot of users to get onto the site even sporadically. This caused a lot of problems for a lot of people and businesses who rely on the app. It was apparently down to a piece of coding they added in and have since removed. You'd have thought they'd have been aware of that possibility, wouldn't you?

Messi's Biggest Fan

A picture has emerged online of a boy with a plastic bag tied to his jumper with Messi written crudely upon it in ink. No one knows who the boy is or where he's from but many people are feeling for him. The tweet claiming the boy from Iraq was apparently fake but the person who re-posted it on Twitter thinks that they did find it on Facebook. The rumours on Twitter are that Messi is looking for the kid himself to hopefully give him a real football shirt after a fan account was apparently direct messaged by someone representing Messi. But Messi has yet to comment on this himself so there's no way to know whether that's true or not, just as we have no clue who the little boy is. Even so it's a sweet story to end the week with.

Rosina Brooker

Rosina is a Songbird rookie with a degree in Creative Writing. She's trying to focus on her novel on the side but is hoping that Content Writing will turn out to be a good career choice in the mean time! Follow her @RosinaAtSMF

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