This Week In Social:

Facebook Chat Announcements, BackType Acquired by Twitter, 2 Million HootSuite Users, Timberlake The New Cowell?, Eminem Sends Fans to Hell & An Elaborate Recruitment Drive

 

Facebooks Big Announcement

Over the last year, the Facebook messages team has been working to make it easier to have one on one conversations with your friends. In November, Facebook launched the new messages, which brings together your chats, texts, emails and messages all in one place. On Wednesday they announced they are introducing video calling and other improvements to chat. The new chat design includes a sidebar that lists the people you message most. Now it's easier to find your friends and start a conversation. The sidebar adjusts with the size of your browser window, and it automatically appears when the window is wide enough.

 

Facebook Group Chat

The group chat announcement comes as an add-on to Facebook’s already existing chat function. When you’re chatting with a friend on your Facebook page, a button allows you to add other friends to the chat. Finally, the company redesigned the chat window, so your Friends list can now vary in size relative to your browser window. A list of friends who are online will appear, as well as those who are offline that you message with the most.

You can read more on Wired.

 

Twitter Acquire BackType

This week it was announced that BackType has been acquired by Twitter! BackType will be bringing their team and technology to Twitter’s platform team, where their focus will be on developing tools for Twitter’s publisher partners. BackType's aim has always been to help their customers understand the value of engagement on Twitter and other social platforms. They also created BackTweets to help publishers understand the reach of their tweets and content, who they are reaching, and how Tweets convert to web traffic, sales and other KPIs.

 

HootSuite Hits 2 Million

See the full gallery on Posterous

HootSuite, the social media dashboard and analytics tool, has reached a new milestone: 2 million users. Invoke Media released HootSuite in December 2008 and it is widely used by individuals as well as organizations, governments and businesses. The White House, SXSW, Zappos and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia all use HootSuite, according to the company. HootSuite hit the 1 million-user milestone in November 2010. Consumers and businesses have shared some 500 million messages to date.

 

MySpace Talent Show

Timberlake reportedly is mulling turning the faltering social network site into a platform to find new talent, possibly through some kind of competition show. While details are scarce, the idea has the potential to become a key part of the future of entertainment – and sounds like a natural step for Timberlake. Between his music career, his well-received role in “The Social Network,” his knack for comedy as seen on “Saturday Night Live” and his Web dealings, Timberlake has become kind of an Internet-era Kevin Bacon, with few degrees of separation between him and the various tentacles of entertainment media.

You can read more on NBC.

 

Eminem Sends Facebook Users to Hell

Rapper Eminem recently released an EP titled Hell: The Sequel with his side project, Bad Meets Evil, a hip-hip duo including Royce Da 5’9. To celebrate, Eminem is launching a violent Facebook game. The aim of the game (developed by Grab) is pretty simple: Become so evil that you go to hell. Users choose an avatar while tracks from the EP play. Then they gain points (by watching music videos and interviews or spending Facebook Credits) in order to buy weapons. Players use the weapons to kill friends. Get enough points and kills, and you get to go to hell.

You can read more on Mashable.

 

Owen Hargreaves YouTube Fitness

Owen Hargreaves has launched a bid to prove his fitness - by posting daily exercise videos on YouTube. The 30-year-old midfielder is currently without a club after being released by Manchester United in May. Hargreaves was plagued by injuries during his four years at Old Trafford, making only 39 appearances after signing from Bayern Munich for £17m. Looks like he could do with some proper shorts though.

You can read more on BBC.

 

Some really cool announcements by Facebook this week. Have you tried the video chat feature? Can Justin Timberlake make a success of MySpace? Will we see social media used more often by job seekers? Lets us know your thoughts in the comments section below...

 

We are mycleveragency

This Week In Social:

Google+ Released, Bringing MySpace Back, New Google Metrics, Twitter for Developers, StumbleUpon Widget and the Pope's First Tweet

 

Google+

This week the search giant unveiled its rival to Facebook, Google+. However, access to the "limited field test" had to be halted almost immediately after its launch, due to demand by users (it is now possible to buy invites on ebay). Google+ is the companies social initiative that brings friend streams, group video chat and group texting to Google's millions of users. For more information you can check out the mycleveragency blog post on Google+.

 

Bringing MySpace Back

Singer Justin Timberlake has joined forces with Specific Media to purchase MySpace for a fee of $35 million. This represents a significant loss for News Corp. who bought the site in 2005 for $580 million. The singer will not be taking a back seat however, and is set to be involved in the creative process of updating MySpace. This comes despite Sean Parker (who Timberlake played in The Social Network) recently explaining the collapse of MySpace. There is more on the mycleveragency blog.

 

Google Metrics

See the full gallery on Posterous

It has been a busy week for Google. As well as announcing Google+ they have also unveiled an improvement to their Webmaster tools. It will now be possible to measure the effect of 'Tweet', 'Share' and +1 buttons. This will show the added value of the +1 button in search results, whilst also showing the effect of other sharing buttons whilst users are on the site. There is also a sneaky preview of the new Gmail.

 

Twitter Site for Platfrom Developers?

Twitter is working to develop and launch a dedicated site for developers working on the Twitter platform. The new site could be launched sometime in July, company officials said. The fast-growing company has had a hot-and-cold relationship with its developer community, to put it mildly. Many early developers built products 'such as Twitter clients' and helped the network grow but later found themselves in competition with the company itself, which ended up buying clients.

You can read more on Gigaom.

 

StumbleUpon Widget

StumbleUpon has this week released a share widget for websites. Working in much the same way as the 'Tweet' or 'Share' button, website owners can create a widget for their page. By using the Widget Creator, you can insert one line of code into your blog or website that includes either your favourites or sites that are rated the highest within an interest and/or domain. You can choose from three different sizes including square-ish (300×250), wide rectangle (600×250) and tall rectangle (160×600).

 

Pope Sends First Tweet

Pope Benedict XVI has sent his first tweet to launch a Vatican news and information portal on the 60th anniversary of his ordination. His message read: "Dear Friends, I just launched News.va Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers and blessings, Benedictus XVI." The Pope, 84, used an iPad to activate the portal and send the tweet.

You can read more on the BBC.

 

Google is certainly dominating the news this week, closely followed by Justin Timberlake and MySpace. Do you think either social network has the power to rival Facebook or even Twitter? Or are you more interested in the new Google Analytics or Twitter developer site? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below...

 

We are a full service social media agency

Bringing My|________|Back

SexyBack singer Justin Timberlake takes an ownership stake in MySpace

Timberlake, who plays Sean Parker in The Social Network, has partnered with Specific Media to pay $35 million for the faltering social network.

This represents a significant drop in the value of MySpace after News Corp bought the site for $580 million in 2005. With user numbers falling rapidly and reports of up to 50% staff cuts, it is no wonder that the value of the company has plummeted so dramatically.

However, Timberlake suggests that "there's a need for a place where fans can go to interact with their favourite entertainers, listen to music, watch videos, share and discover cool stuff and just connect. MySpace has the potential to be that place." (sounds awfully like a social network that Timberlake was fictionally involved with). 

The announcement claimed that Timberlake will be playing an active role in both the functionality and design of the new MySpace that is due to be unveiled at a press conference later this summer. The new MySpace is also set to launch "socially-activated advertising campaigns" which would let users share their favourite ads with friends.

The whole project seems somewhat ironic in the wake of the following interview with the real Sean Parker who goes on to explain the failure of MySpace. You can skip forward to 20.54 to see Parker's response to "Why did MySpace go wrong?"

What remains to be seen is whether this venture is a genuine attempt to re-invent MySpace or an elaborate PR stunt by Specific Media. What do you guys think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below...

 

We are a full service social media agency