Here is a quick roundup of some of the latest happenings in the social media world.
Contents
- Klout
- Swayy
- Social media stats
- More social media news
- Note
- Like the blog? Subscribe below
A year after introducing Graph Search, Facebook is finally rolling out the feature on mobile devices.
This week, the company also released new data regarding security requests issued by the U.S. government, started allowing verified Page administrators to edit link and text posts, and introduced a new security tool for Android.
Finally, starting February 20, the names of Page administrators will appear next to their posts and comments. These users will also be able to see who posted or scheduled updates in the Page’s activity log. Note that the visibility of this new feature is limited to admins.
Feeling like editing your “A Look Back” video? Check out AllFacebook’s guide.
Google Calendar now supports 30 more country holiday calendars.
In an effort to fight fake audiences, YouTube has started auditing the traffic videos receive: “While in the past we would scan views for spam immediately after they occurred, starting today we will periodically validate the video’s view count, removing fraudulent views as new evidence comes to light. We don’t expect this approach to affect more than a minuscule fraction of videos on YouTube, but we believe it’s crucial to improving the accuracy of view counts and maintaining the trust of our fans and creators.”
According to several sources, including The Next Web and Search Engine Watch, Google Search now shows links to YouTube music videos with a prominent thumbnail on top of results pages.
If you have a Google+ Page, the links you share from your website or blog (if linked to your Page) will include a follow button. The button actually replaces the URL.
+Post Ads have two new features: Live Hangouts and Ad Blitz Voting.
The Google+ photo editor has also been updated with two new features:
1. HDR Scape
With HDR Scape you can apply high dynamic range (HDR) effects to a single image, with a single click. HDR Scape is currently available in the Snapseed apps for Android and iOS, and today’s update brings the filter to Google+ on the web. You can see some examples here: https://plus.google.com/s/hdr%20scape.
2. Zoom
Seeing your images up close is an important part of the editing process — from checking the focus point, to seeing how the “Drama” filter has changed your pixels. With today’s update, you can now use the magnifying glass to zoom in or out.
(Source: André Meyer on Google+)
Klout
Have you used Klout lately? The platform has changed and now wants to become your go-to source for great content to share.
Your personal dashboard has a new “Create” area that recommends articles of interest to your audience: “Helpful tags highlight fresh content that is starting to trend as well as items that closely match the interests of your audience members and are likely to resonate with them.”
You can also schedule your posts, decide what you want to see in your stream, add more topics, and measure and track your impact.
Photo credit: Klout Blog
For those who wonder if the company is paid to recommend articles, the answer is no: “Klout currently monitors posts from a mixture of social media (like Twitter and Facebook) as well as a hand-curated list of thousands of RSS feeds from diverse publishers with whom we do not have financial relationships.”
Using LinkedIn Intro on your iPhone? LinkedIn will close the service on March 7. On April 30, it will be Slidecast’s turn.
The company also acquired online job matching service Bright for $120 million, and released its Q4 2013 report.
http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/30914254?rel=0
LinkedIn Q4 2013 Earnings Call from LinkedIn
The Pinterest team announced its redesigned mobile website: “Now when you visit pinterest.com on mobile, you’ll see the latest version of Pinterest, with a cleaner design and the same features (like more useful pins and related pins) you’d get on the web or our mobile app.”
Swayy
Swayyadded LinkedIn integration for Groups and Company Pages to its list of features.
To post to a Group, open the share widget located under each item, check the LinkedIn tab, and choose a group from the drop-down menu.
To connect a Company Page, go to “Your Accounts” area on the left and click the “LinkedIn Connect your account” tab. Then, choose between your personal profile and the pages you manage.
According to co-founder Lior Degani, Swayy has 20,000 users and recommends 4 million pieces of content each month.
In its first earnings report as a public company, Twitter revealed that it had made $664 million in revenue last year — while recording a total net loss of over $645 million. Traffic-wise, the site now has 241 million monthly active users (a 30 percent increase from 2012), among whom 76 percent are mobile users (184 million). Timeline views reached 148 billion during Q4 2013.
Twitter Reach: Q4’13 avg Monthly Active Users 241 million, up 30% y/y. #TWTRearnings pic.twitter.com/74Eva0gRqc
— TwitterIR (@TwitterIR) February 5, 2014
Twitter has partnered with 300 Entertainment. The latter will be able to scour the social network’s data for trends. In exchange, it will help Twitter organize the information and develop software for potential use by members of the music industry and consumer brands.
The redesigned Twitter.com is now available to everyone:
Twitter has a refreshed look on the web! To change the accent color, pick a new Link color in your Design settings: https://t.co/EXEhImdngn — Support (@Support) February 3, 2014
Are you a small business owner? Check out Twitter’s new Small Business blog, which offers tips and success stories to help you leverage the social network.
The new version of Twitter for Blackberry 10 has been re-released.
Social media stats
– About.me: 4.5 million users. 148 million views in December 2013. Active userbase increased by 401 percent compared to 2012.
– Yelp: $70.7 million in net revenue (Q4 2013). 53 million reviews. 120 million unique monthly visitors.
– Ustream (2013): 391+ million viewer hours of live streams. 2.1 petabytes of storage used to record videos. 21+ million broadcasts. 13,360 videos taken down due to TOS violations and copyright issues.
– WordPress.com (January 2014): 1,321,980 new sites. 39.7+ million posts published. 4 billion pageviews (8.18 terabytes of data). 49.9+ million comments. 12 new themes.
– Social, Digital & Mobile in Europe (2014):
http://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/embed_code/30835475?rel=0
Social, Digital & Mobile in Europe from We Are Social Singapore
More social media news
Amazon has partnered with FreeWheel to display more video as on the platform.
Disqus updated its commenting system.
Mozilla announced several new features for Firefox: Accounts, an improved synch functionality, and the ability to customize the user interface. The browser also offers integration with Delicious and Saavn.
Pandora opened its music submission process to independent artists.
Path 3.4 for Android is available for download.
Want to keep an eye on the online activity around the Winter Olympics? Check out Socialbakers‘ Sochi CheerMeter 2014! Mention.net has also put together a few alerts for you to monitor.
Video authoring platform TouchCast released a WordPress plugin that allows users to embed interactive TouchCast videos into posts.
Tumblr, which now hosts170 million blogs, announced that it would publish a biannual Transparency Report to keep visitors in the know about government requests for user information. Optional SSL encryption has also been enabled. To turn it on, visit your Account Settings.
Note
Due to my very busy schedule, I will only publish monthly roundups from now on.
