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

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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...

 

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This Week In Social:

Twitted and LinkedIn Ads, American Express and Foursquare, Skype and Facebook, Foursquare Reaches 10 Million, Klout Comes to Facebook, Google Photosharing and Harry Potter

 

Twitter Ads

After nine months of testing in-stream Promoted Tweets on third party client Hootsuite, reports have surfaced today that Twitter’s head of monetization Adam Bain has been pushing a new in-timeline Promoted Tweets product during this week’s advertiser-heavy Canne Lions awards. To the two of you that this comes to as a shock, one word: Inevitable. Twitter has made no secret of the fact that in-stream Promoted Tweets have been an eventual business model goal since April of 2010. 

You can read more on TechCrunch.

 

LinkedIn Social Ads

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LinkedIn today announced that they plan to roll out changes to the advertising platform across LinkedIn which will surface actions from your network, like recommendations and company follows. The focus is to deliver ads that are more useful and relevant to you. Above are a couple of examples that illustrate these changes well. 

 

American Express & Foursquare Team Up

Last March, foursquare rolled out a small test with American Express: link your AmEx and foursquare accounts, spend at least $5 at a local merchant in Austin, and get a $5 savings applied directly to your monthly statement. They have now announced that the partnership is going national. Across the whole country, at select merchants, you can now check-in with foursquare, pay with your American Express card, and get big savings on your monthly statement.

 

Skypes Facebook Integration

With the announcement of Skype 5.5 Beta it has also been confirmed that Skype is continuing to bring people together whenever they are apart by introducing an easier way to connect with family and friends on Facebook. You can now instant message your Facebook friends directly from Skype, helping you stay connected with the people that matter the most to you. Simply use the new Facebook contacts tab within Skype to see when a Facebook friend you want to chat with is online and then start an IM conversation right from within.

 

Foursquare Reaches 10,000,000

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This week foursquare reached its 10,000,000th user. This is a massive achievement for the company that already has over half a million brands and companies, and over 10,000 developers taking advantage of its API. The company is also thought to be planning another round of funding as its value is now believed to have exceeded the $1 billion mark.

 

Klout Comes to Facebook

Klout have announced that they're partnering with Involver to allow brands to provide customized experiences to their Facebook fans based on Klout Scores. Besides the number of fans, brands know surprisingly little about who those people are, their potential reach, and have little ability to message them individually. Now, with this partnership, brands can choose to give different offers, promotions, or messaging to fans based on their Klout.

 

Google Photosharing?

Recent reports seem to indicate that Google is aiming to launch a new photo sharing platform called “Photovine”. The reports surfaced from The San Francisco Chronicle that Google secured the trademark “Photovine”. The clever move is predicted to be a small part of a wider strategy to offset the positive growth of the expanding territory belonging to Facebook.

 

Pottermore

JK Rowling shocked and thrilled her fans in equal measure today, with the revelation that her new venture Pottermore was set to feature a wealth of new and previously unpublished material about the world of Harry Potter. Although the author made clear that she had "no plans to write another novel", the fresh Potter material – to be unveiled later this year - already stretches to 18,000 words about the novels' characters, places and objects, with more to come.

You can read more on the Guardian.

 

This week it is all about ads and partnerships. Can Twitter or LinkedIn Ads improve on the Facebook model? What would be your ultimate social partnership? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below...

 

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