Here is a quick roundup of some of the latest happenings in the social media world.
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Facebook launched a brand new section this week. Trending, which is located to the right of the news feed on the web version, surfaces a list of popular topics based on a user’s interests and what is happening across the site. Each item is accompanied by a headline that, once clicked, reveals the most interesting posts on that topic from friends and Pages.
Photo credit: Facebook Newsroom
Photo credit: Facebook Newsroom
AllFacebook reports that the social network is starting to allow users to display their names in their native language. These will only be visible to the people who speak the same tongue.
Facebook and Yandex announced a partnership agreement that gives the Russian search engine full access to the social network’s public data from users located in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Turkey:
Yandex will add up-to-date articles and videos, among other things that have had great resonance among Facebook users. In addition, the popularity of materials in the social network will be taken into consideration when ranking search results.
(Source: Yandex Press Release)
According to Re/code, Facebook may soon launch its own social news reader for mobile devices.
YouTube introduced its new comment management hub for creators and added another channel to its list. A collaboration with DreamWorks Animation, YouTube Nation is a daily web series that showcases the trendiest videos on the site.
There is a new activity stream in Google Drive:
When you open Drive, click the ⓘ button in the top right corner and the activity stream will appear, showing you who has taken action on files and folders in My Drive. You’ll see a rundown of what your team has been doing, such as editing and commenting on notes, adding a new spreadsheet, renaming a presentation, and more.
(Source: Google Drive Blog)
Photo credit: Google Drive Blog
Search Engine Land reports that Google Alerts have been redesigned.
In its new Year in Review assessment on bad advertising practices, Google reveals that it removed 350 million bad ads from its systems and blacklisted 200,000 publisher pages in 2013. Account bans for copyright policy violation increased by more than 25% compared to the previous year. For more number, click here.
LinkedIn introduced its Volunteer Marketplace. The new site helps trusted nonprofits (e.g., Catchafire,Taproot Foundation, BoardSource and VolunteerMatch) connect with skilled professionals.
To date, more than three million LinkedIn members have added the Volunteer and Causes section to their profile.
Over the last six months alone, more than 600,000 have signaled they would like to serve on a board or do skill-based volunteering.
Today, with the launch of LinkedIn Volunteer Marketplace, non-profits can discover the relevant members who’ve expressed interest in volunteering. In addition, these members will now be able to browse hundreds – and eventually thousands – of specific, high-quality volunteer opportunities that nonprofits are seeking to fill.
(Source: LinkedIn Blog)
Marketers and brands now have new ways to create tailored audiences. They can use email addresses from their existing database and information found in Twitter user profiles (e.g., bio, follower count, verified status, past Tweets). Another option is the ability to exclude people from their campaigns using the same methods.
Twitter.com also has a new design.
WordPress
WordPress added two themes to its collection: Poly and Blogly.
Do you know that Google released its first plugin this week. With Google Publisher (in beta), you can easily add AdSense ads and verify your site with Webmaster Tools in one click.
WordPress 3.9 will be released on April 15. Versions 4.0 and 4.1 should be available around mid-August and early December, respectively.
More social media news
App.net‘s Broadcast has new features: email notifications, an embeddable subscription widget, and analytics for developer-tier account holders.
Social platform Collegefeed launched Collegefeed for Employers, a new network that helps U.S. companies connect with college talent. More than 500 companies have already joined.
Feedly now has a URL shortener. The new feature comes with analytics and automatic Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ metadata
Mixcloud introduced its redesigned web platform and added branded profiles for brand partners.
Paper.li‘s bookmarklet has been improved: “When we detect an article, our semantic analysis assigns a topic but if you don’t agree, use the new drop down topic field shown below to reassign the article to another topic and then add the article to your paper directly to the topic section you choose.”
Path has a Windows Phone 8 app (in public beta).
Version 3.2 of the Quora for iPhone app is available for download.
Spotify now offers free unlimited music streaming to all web users.
Tumblr members can finally mention others. The feature works like on Twitter: Just type @ + username in your post and the person will receive a notification.
