Wondering if you missed any big announcement in the social media universe last month? The answer lies below.
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- WordPress
- Yahoo
- More social media news
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Have you noticed that the new Facebook News Feed displays stories more prominently and has a simpler design? The company also announced some changes for Events and Pages on the desktop:
- Timeline: All posts are now displayed in the right-side column. Business information (e.g., map, hours of business, phone number, likes / visits, apps, website link, photos, videos…) is on the left.
- Admin tools: Ad info, new likes, unread notifications, and messages are easily accessible with new navigation options.
Photo credit: Facebook for Business
- Pages to Watch: Moved to the “Overview” tab in Page Insights. Click “Posts” to view the past week’s most engaging posts from those pages.
Photo credit: Facebook for Business
For more information on the changes, you can refer to this article.
The Facebook iOS and Android apps have been updated. The new Facebook Messenger for iOS now comes with message forwarding and the ability to add Groups. And version 1.0.2 of Facebook Paper is available.
Premium Video Ads launched with a select group of advertisers:
Each 15-second video ad will start playing without sound as it appears on screen and stop if people scroll past. If people tap the video, it will expand into a full-screen view and sound will start. People can expect to begin seeing these new ads over the next few months.
[…] The ads are bought based on Targeted Gross Rating Points to reach a specific audience over a short period of time. Delivery is measured by an independent third party, Nielsen Online Campaign Ratings (OCR), and advertisers only pay based on what Nielsen OCR measures.
(Source: Facebook for Business)
Did you catch Mark Zuckerberg’s message about Internet privacy intrusions by the U.S. government?
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https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?app_id=&channel=http%3A%2F%2Fstaticxx.facebook.com%2Fconnect%2Fxd_arbiter%2Fr%2F87XNE1PC38r.js%3Fversion%3D42%23cb%3Df2e3e6ff3a392b8%26domain%3Dsocialmediaslant.com%26origin%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fsocialmediaslant.com%252Ff262473769fb5d6%26relation%3Dparent.parent&container_width=660&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fzuck%2Fposts%2F10101301165605491&locale=en_US&sdk=joey&width=550
Facebook also released ThreatData, a new tool to help keep “the Internet free of threats,” and announced new educational and enforcement measures targeting commercial activities on the social network and Instagram.
Finally, Facebook acquired Oculus VR, the maker of the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset, for $2 billion.
The new Instagram for Android app is available.
February saw a slew of announcements on the Google front. Here is a quick list below:
- Updated Android Search app
- Alerts: new filters for regions and languages
- Drive: image editing inside Google Slides and Drawings; cheaper monthly space upgrades; Voice typing; launch of add-ons, to add more functionality to documents and spreadsheets
- Google+: larger preview images in updates; ability to preview and select images when posting link posts; post pinning in Communities for moderators and owners; total content views displayed on profiles and pages; mass removal of spam and bot accounts; updated Google+ for Android app
- Gmail: potential Pinterest-like layout for the Promotions tab; constant encrypted HTTPS connection implemented; updated Gmail app for iOS 7
- Google Media Tools: support for 16 languages added (Spanish, Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Swedish, Dutch, Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, Polish, Czech, Russian, Korean, and Japanese)
- Search: The Knowledge Graph now includes a “related topics” section for specific queries; new search layout (different font, no more underlines from links, and 60 character-limit for titles)
- 9th transparency report: “Government requests for user information in criminal cases have increased by about 120 percent since we first began publishing these numbers in 2009.”
LinkedIn updated its Terms of Service and announced the removal of the Products & Services tab from all Company Pages on April 14.
You have two alternatives for sharing products and services content that many companies are already using and benefitting from: your company’s updates and Showcase Pages.
(Source: LinkedIn Company Pages)
In other news, the company also launched two new tools to help brands become better publishers:
- Content Marketing Score is “a recommendation engine that quantifies your impact by measuring your audience’s engagement with your content.” This content includes Sponsored Updates, Company Pages, LinkedIn Groups, employee updates, and Influencer posts.
- Trending Topic “ranks the topics that resonate most with specific audiences on LinkedIn so that you can tailor your content for maximum relevance.”
Pinterest now supports eight more languages: Malay, Tagalog, Thai, Vietnamese, Hindi, Greek, Hungarian, and Romanian.
And for secret boards fan, good news: You can now create as many as you want.
Looking for products to buy? Check out the new Gifts feed. The pins feature information such as pricing, availability, and where to buy.
The Gifts feed also includes a few price filters so you can find something for every budget. $$$$ means the price is greater than $200, $$$ means the price is between $50-$200, $$ means the price is from $25 to $50 and $ is anything less than that.
(Source: Pinterest for Business Blog)
Pinterest’s first transparency report is also available.
It was a busy month for Twitter. The company made several announcements:
- No more #Music iOS app after April 18.
- New name for the Connect tab.
- New mobile features: photo tagging for up to 10 people and photo collage in Tweets (up to four images). Note that tagging doesn’t count against the 140-character limit.
- Partnership with Billboard to “create the new industry standard for tracking and surfacing the conversation around music as it happens.”
- No more explicit sexual content allowed on Vine.
Twitter is also experimenting with different things:
- A new feature that would show the number of views your Tweets get
- The ability to track your favorite Twitter users and accounts in a separate timeline
- A new profile redesign for its iOS app
- A Share button to replace the Retweet button
- The potential phasing out of @replies and hashtags — at least on mobile devices
- A click-to-call button embedded into Twitter ads on mobile.
Earlier this month, the world learnt that access to Twitter had been banned in Turkey. The company filed petitions in Turkish court and won its case:
This decision is an exceptionally strong win for freedom of expression, and it will be of paramount value for us in protecting Twitter’s users against other attempts at censorship in the future.
While it represents a welcome outcome on one aspect of our legal efforts, this decision does not address the broader ban of Twitter in Turkey. We will continue to fight to have the ban lifted on behalf of the millions of people in Turkey who have come to rely on Twitter as a vital communications tool.
(Source: Twitter Blog)
WordPress
Using the WordPress for iOS app? Version 4.0 is here.
The Akismet plugin version 2.6.0 is available.
The WordPress.com Developer Site has also been redesigned.
Do you know that WordPress.com users around the world now have 12 additional top-level domains to choose from? These include .com.br, .net.br, .info, .biz, .mobi, .mx, .es, .nl, .be, .fm, .tv, and .in. — and your location does not matter.
Other announcements include:
- New emoticons
- An improved editing experience, which includes drag-and-drop file upload support, instant gallery previews, and better compatibility with text pasted from Microsoft Word and other applications
- Enhanced image editing for pictures already inserted in posts
- New audio playlists for Space Upgrade users
(Source: WordPress.com Blog)
Note that the last three improvements will be available to self-hosted sites with WordPress 3.9 Beta 3, which will officially be released on April 16. This version includes more than 200 changes.
Yahoo
Yahoo plans to stop allowing Facebook and Google logins. The company also acquired Vizify, which will shut down, and published its second transparency report.
Reviews posted on Yelp are now included in Yahoo Search results.
Flickr photo pages now display comments, captions, and camera info on the right.
More social media news
Architects will soon be able to have their own .ARCHI extension.
URL shortener Bitly has started providing Moz with data and click-tracking technology.
Buffer now offers content suggestions within a user’s dashboard.
Fiverr launched its Android app.
Flipboard acquired news reader app Zite from CNN, released its updated Android and iOS apps, and celebrated the first anniversary of its magazines. To date, users have created more than seven million of them.
HootSuite updated its iOS and Android apps and Hootlet extension.
Klout announced the release of new features: suggested people, scheduler enhancements, link shortening, and topic explorer. The company was also acquired by Lithium Technologies.
Last.fm‘s radio streaming service will be shuttered on April 28. From now on, the company will focus on scrobbling, music discovery, and recommendations.
Blogging platform Medium now supports embedding for posts, profiles, and collections, and has a read-only iPhone app.
The new Paper.li comes with a redesigned dashboard, mobile optimization, and more.
Quora launched Verified Profiles for “well-known and high-visibility public figures” who write on the site. These profiles sport a checkmark icon. Note that requests for verification are not accepted.
Slideshare integrated its Privacy Policy and Terms of Use into the LinkedIn Privacy Policy and User Agreement.
Sprout Social‘s updated iOS app is out.
Two-factor authentication is now available on Tumblr. Check out your Settings page to turn it on.
Vimeo acquired video-creation app Cameo.
The updated WhatsApp for Android app lets you pay for a friend’s subscription.
Wikimedia is testing Hovercards on all its wikis to allow people to preview articles without leaving the pages they are visiting.
