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...

 

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