Welcome to AdFeeder’s web Wednesdays, your weekly dose of the latest news and stories that have caught our eye. From technology news to the latest vehicle releases and everything in between, we aim to bring you a quick run down of what you need to know each week.

The sun is out, the news is fresh and it’s Wednesday afternoon already – you know it’s time for another round of Web Wednesdays!

The BMW M4 Cabriolet is heavy, very heavy

The last few weeks have been extremely busy for BMW. After being engulfed in controversy and extremely mixed reviews all thanks to those grills, the M3 and M4 thankfully made up for it by producing over 500 horsepower and continuing the M Car tradition of being a pure drivers car.

There was a slight problem with the M4 Cabrio though. (We’ve mentioned the grilles, there was something else). Contrary to what you might think, removing the heavy roof off a vehicle often makes the car heavier, all thanks to the mechanisms that allow the roof to open and close safely, as well as the small task of having somewhere in the car to store it. Despite wearing a fabric roof that’s apparently 40% lighter than the old M4’s folding metal roof, the M4 Cab is 5kg short of two tonnes. BMW has quoted the kerb-weight without a driver is a whopping 1920kg.

There’s no denying that it’s a very, very fast car, but you’d be amazed at some of the cars that are lighter than this M powered drop-top. Ready?!

Porsche’s sporty Macan GTS, a Range Rover Velar, almost four Caterham Seven 160s combined, and a Maserati Quattroporte all weigh less than this bulky BMW, and we havent even revealed the most alarming one yet.

The chonkiest of all BMW’s, the flagship, the pinnacle of refinement and luxury – you guessed it, the BMW 7 Series. The 730d has one goal in mind: to provide its passengers with the most relaxing, comfortable and luxurious experience possible. But with limo-like quality comes weight, right? Well, yes. But bizarrely, not as much as the roofless M4.

We’ll let that one sink in for a little bit…

TikTok is trialling three minute long videos

What’s a Web Wednesday without a bit of TikTok news?! This time we’re swapping the short, sharp and often amusing videos for ones that are slightly longer in length. Two extra minutes to be exact. That’s right, TikTok is trialling three minute long videos on the app, allowing creators to share far more in one video.

This has emerged partly down to the amount of storytelling that goes on within TikTok. It’s a very interactive platform, in that users often share memories or stories in a far more conversational way, making the three minute video option far more viable for this kind of content.

It does, however, change the dynamic of the platform a little. Currently, TikTok allows all creators to upload videos up to a minute in length. It’s proven to be a successful length — longer than a Vine, shorter than most YouTube videos. 60 seconds isn’t a huge amount of time to pack an explainer video or comedy sketch in, which almost adds to the way users consume the content that is shared.

Three-minute videos on TikTok feel like a miniature replica of YouTube, back when YouTube videos were shorter than 10 minutes. However, we’ve actually seen the three minute videos in action on the app, and were pleasantly surprised with just how easy it is to be sucked into the longer videos, and then have the ability to hop back into a 15 second meme.

We think that it should be pretty successful for TikTok, as users who generally want to sit through three minute how-to videos will do just that, and nestling these longer videos amongst easier to skim over content should maintain the apps incredibly high engagement levels.

Fancy a campervan, but not sure if it’s for you? Ask Paul

Sometimes there are websites or apps that come along that shake the industry up so aggressively it leaves the remaining competition scrabbling to keep up. There’s a few brands that come to mind when you think of this – Airbnb, Monzo, *cough* Tesla.

Now, there’s a new kid on the block, and he’s coming for your motorhomes. No really, he is. The company is called Paul Camper, named after the campervan founder Dirk spent three months exploring Australia in, and its concept couldn’t be simpler. Register for free, search your dream location and browse hundreds of campervans that are available for hire by real owners.

Once you’ve found your dream set of wheels, get chatting to the owner and secure the details of your trip, where payment is made and you’re free to enjoy the open road with a place to stay at all times!

We bring this one up, purely because of just how popular the concept of a campervan or motorhome really is right now. Thanks to the pandemic, holiday seekers are having to look a little closer to home for that taste of freedom and fresh air, therefore making a rolling home the perfect way to get around.

In fact, it’s been reported in some areas there has been a 500% increase in the number of bookings for camping and campervan sites around Britain. Areas seeing the biggest increase include the South West, where reservations have gone up by 273 per cent since 2019, and the Lake District, where they have risen by 218 per cent.

Find out more and start booking here!

Twitter actually released the ‘subscription’ service

We mentioned this one a few weeks back, and to be totally honest we didn’t think much of it at the time, and never expected it to become a reality, yet somehow Twitter has officially launched its new subscription service called Twitter Blue.

The monthly service will give users access to a range of new tools to enhance their tweet experience. From what we can see, you have the ability to undo tweets, change the colour of the feed, a reader mode that essentially puts the entire feed into a text mode. But oh no that’s not the end, for a princely sum of $3.49 a month, users can also change the Twitter icon on their smartphones, jazzy.

This all might sound incredibly pointless (and you’d be correct), but these groundbreaking new features might be exactly what some users are looking for, therefore replacing one shop-bought coffee a month with a host of new features is worth the money. As a platform, Twitter doesn’t exactly need a heap of subscribers to make the project worth its while either. Even if only 1% of Twitter users sign-up and pledge that monthly fee, that would still equate to around $7 million per month. Moneeeeeey.

It’s being trialed in Canada and Australia first, but is very likely to be here in the UK at some point in the near future.