The year is still relatively new, but if Twitter and Facebook numbers are any indication, it already belongs to our exiting president. Barack Obama’s farewell speech from McCormick Place in Chicago on Tuesday night is so far the biggest social media event of 2017.
Obama’s final speech as President of the United States attracted 17.97 million interactions from 7.94 million unique users across both Facebook and Twitter, according to Nielsen Social. Those numbers were good enough to beat out its closest competitors, this year’s Golden Globes Awards and the 2017 College Football Playoff National Championship game. The Golden Globes attracted 10.1 million interactions from roughly 4.4 million unique users, which is more than half of the president’s activity, but not significantly more.
The last-second heroics of the Clemson Tigers, which helped dethrone the Alabama Crimson Tide in the national championship game came the closest. The classic finale to the 2016-2017 college football season attracted more interactions across Facebook and Twitter than the President’s farewell address, with approximately 18.75 million interactions. However, it only attracted roughly 6.35 million unique users, more than 1.5 million users less than the farewell address. Not surprising, since the TV ratings for the game have decreased each of the last two years.
Obama’s views on technology’s potentially adverse effects on the U.S. economy were promulgated in his farewell speech. “The next wave of economic dislocation won’t come from overseas,” Obama sternly remarked “It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes many good, middle-class jobs obsolete.” Obama, in 2015, stated that automation is a reason for low wages in America, and has been vociferous about this topic as recently as last October. In an interview with Wired Magazine, Obama suggested a change in how society operates must happen in light of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
You can relive Obama’s historic speech here.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?