Weekly Social Pulse, Week of 12/4

YouTube’s Top Viral Videos of 2017: Totaling 633 million views collectively (up by 83 million over last year!), YouTube’s Top 10 trending videos were watched for a collective 40 million hours this year. Our favorites from the Top 10 include Ed Sheeran doing Carpool Karoake, Dude Perfect Ping Pong Tricks, 12-Year-Old Singing Ventriloquist and Children Interrupt BBC News Interview. (LINK)

Legacy Social Networks Launching New Things: Instagram is launching a new private messaging app called Direct. Facebook is launching Messenger Kids, for children 6-12. Pinterest launched a Facebook Messenger bot. And it looks like Vine is coming back!! Here’s our favorite Vine compilation Twitter thread to relive the looping goodness that was Vine.

Tell Facebook Even More About Yourself, Finally: Facebook is launching a new feature called “Did You Know” that asks you questions like, “If I had to be locked for a week in a room that was completely dark or completely bright, I’d rather…” This new section is on your profile page and will serve as a carrot to give Facebook even more personal information about yourself. From a brand perspective, it’s a clever way to increase information about users for Facebook’s advanced targeting. (LINK).

The Dad-Rock Resurgence: Depeche Mode is the hottest band of 2017? The ‘80s UK electronic band sold 1.27 million tickets in 2017, which is more than Ed Sheeran, Bruno Mars, Justin Bieber, or Drake. Known as “The Great Dad-Rock Resurgence,” we’re seeing old acts outsell young acts across the country. This year 4 of the 5 highest-grossing concert artists were bands formed prior to 1990, and Desert Trip (starring The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and The Who) outsold Coachella or Bonnaroo. Long live Dad! (LINK)

Can We Talk About Chess Robots For a Minute? The year is 1997, and the world’s best human chess player was just destroyed by a computer. Fast forward to 2017, and the world’s best chess computer gets destroyed by an Artificial Intelligence program that had only learned about chess a few hours earlier. We live in amazing times, folks. (LINK)