The predictions and rumours circulating last week have turned out to be correct and now ailing Yahoo has acquired Tumblr for a hefty $1.1 million. The main reason for this new development has been confirmed to be Yahoo’s desire to reach the coveted teenage demographic. Tumblr has a huge user base, users can create and upload their own creative content, instead of the slightly more passive social sites like Facebook.

Yahoo hopes that by buying out the high-user, low-revenue platform they will ensure users will stay on Yahoo owned properties for longer. They have stated that as part of the agreement they were not allowed to make the website more corporate or irrelevant to the audience. Users have been assured that the blogging platform will stay at the New York base and ran as a separate business – which has done nothing to quell the fission of unease the Tumblr community has expressed over the past week. The merger is expected to increase Yahoo’s audience by 50%.

Twitter adds Lead Generation Cards

On Wednesday, Twitter unveiled another update to cards – a button that allows users to register their interest for offers and discounts from brands with one click.

When a tweet containing an offer is expanded the user can see a description of the offer and opt in for it, simultaneously sending their name, Twitter handle and email address to the brand in question from the users pre-loaded account information.

This will save users time and effort, instead of filling out a form everything will be sent securely for them in one click – this may make users more inclined to claim an offer if they don’t have to fill out the tedious information usually required by brands. In turn, brands could see more potential customers

Cards are being tested with Twitter’s managed brands and will look at rolling out globally soon.

Pinterest improves pins

Pinterest have introduced yet more improvements to pins, hoping to make them more useful and easy to use on different devices.

The social platform has been working with several popular websites with Pinterest boards to allow users to see more information within pins so they don’t need to click through multiple websites to gather information they need.

On pins relating to products user will now be able to see pricing, availability and where to buy it. On recipe pins cook time, ingredients and servings will be shown in the pin itself and movie pins will feature content rating, cast members and other key information.

These more informative pins can be identified by a icon below the picture. All old pins surrounding these topics will be updated, with the aim to update all pins with this feature over time. You can only see the new pins as part of the new look – just click ‘Get it now’ on the top of the home feed.

They are also including a Pin It button for mobile apps so no matter where users are, they can select and save the information they want.

Facebook video sharing

When Twitter-owned video sharing service Vine launched in January, to great success, Facebook blocked the feature from allowing users to ‘find friends’ on their site. There are now hints that the social network is testing their own video sharing service. It has been suggested that users will be able to upload between 5 and 10 second clips to Instagram, which Facebook acquired last September. There are speculations as to whether the feature will allow Instagram’s popular filter options.

Flickr updates

Yahoo recently updated another of their acquisitions this week – Flickr got a revamp. Larger images are now available, users can upload full-resolution photos and have 1TB of free storage. They have also updated the app for Android and tablets, after recently giving their iOS app an update. This is inline, once again, with Yahoo’s aim to attract a younger audience. The photos sharing service is also trying to keep up with the success of Instagram which overshadowed the platform when users started taking a lot of images on mobile.

However, the site has received some backlash after these updates earlier in the week – the site became completely unresponsive Friday morning . Many users saw the new #badpanda image or the site was simply down. This could be due to the extra high-res images flooding in – or a resurgence in users after the updates.

Twitter premieres TV advertising

Twitter has apparently honed in on audience’s more active participation when watching TV and the trend of ‘second screening’. Video advertising is now available in Tweets. 64% of users tweet when in front of the TV so the option of adding video in tweets is hoping to extend the reach of TV ad campaigns. The feature was made available in beta for promoted tweets yesterday to a select group of companies in the US with national television campaigns.

Synchronized TV and twitter targeting will create a more engaging experience for followers and allows a brand’s message to become stronger with enhanced campaigns across two platforms.

To help run this, Twitter has given advertisers a new dashboard that allows them to see when their TV adverts have been broadcast. Along with this, it will track when users tweeted about the advert in conjunction with it being aired. This will give advertisers a helping hand when deciding how to create a successful promoted tweet and how to best build on their campaigns.

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Google launched a new music streaming service on Wednesday. The service poses a threat to other providers such as Spotify.

Google Play Music All Access was unveiled at Google I/O, the company’s annual tech developer conference.

Users will be able to stream from a library on any device using the Android Operating System. Google has signed deals with Sony, Universal and Warner, to name but a few, so millions of songs will be available. As of now the service is priced at $9.99 a month, discounted to $7.99 if users in the US sign up before June 30. No announcements have been made about pricing in other countries.

Foursquare adds more menus

Foursquare has added more menus to the mobile app with the help of Locu, the same company that powers menus on Yelp.

Businesses can update their menus and they will be loaded to Foursquare in real time. More opening hours, phone numbers and addresses are also looking to be added in an effort to make the service as up to date as possible. The partnership is also looking at expanding Foursquare to include the price listings for salons and hairdressers. This means that users could start to use Foursquare to compare businesses for their needs without having to visit each website individually.

Google+ gets updated

Google + received a massive update on Wednesday, with 41 new features being added. There are obviously more updates than can be explained individually, but one of the main features is an update to the user interface. Feeds are now separated into columns that can be altered according to screen size (basically, if you have a large screen you can put more columns in what is usually white space.) Video and image media can also fill the entire column and several tools have been animated to make them more attractive to use. Posts have also been updated, Google can now automatically add hashtags to a post by reading through the content and scanning the images. This will allow users to see posts surrounding the same topic – and of course there is the option to turn this feature off.

Google hangouts have also been made more interactive, the feature has been made into a standalone version and combines text, picture and live video that can be used across Android and iOS as well as computers. The app is available from Google Play, the App Store and the Chrome Web Store.

Yahoo rumoured to be in talks with Tumblr

Rumours have started circulating, first reported by All Things D, that the ‘aging’ Yahoo is in talks with New York based Tumblr. The blogging platform claims it has 107.8 million blogs and 50.6 billion posts. These talks could be in line with the Yahoo’s need to secure that important 18 to 24-year-old age bracket to refresh their image. Tumblr has just started deals with new advertisers, featuring brand’s blogs in user’s dashboards, and is predicted to generate anything up to $100 million this year. Strategic partnership and investments could be the next step.

Baking company’s Facebook page goes viral

Amy’s Baking Company was recently featured on the American version of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. The programme didn’t show owners, Amy and Samy, in a very positive light. After the episode aired Reddit and Yelp users let their feelings be known, and they weren’t that positive to say the least. Threads were taken down after claims they had turned into a ‘witch hunt’ – so the comments started coming in on the Amy’s Baking Company’s Facebook page instead. Posts, seemingly from the company themselves, started rolling out on Tuesday, with claims that the couple that run the bakery, Amy and Samy, will ‘take a stand’ against the negative comments about their business. But the posts became increasingly hostile, swearing at the Reddit, Yelp and Facebook users and telling them to ‘bring it on’. The long stream of rants were then deleted and this post appeared:

Over 26,000 replies have been posted since Tuesday.

Since then the Facebook page has announced a ‘re-opening’, with the promise for some proceeds to go to a charity for cyber bullying…

The post This Week In Social: Google music service, Foursquare menus, Google+ update, Yahoo/Tumblr rumour appeared first on mycleveragency - Full Service Social.

All the stats have even proven Pinterest to become a leading site with conversion rates, even much high than it’s counterpart Facebook. However, there’s still room for some significant changes. Below are the main features they could introduce or change:

• Introduce Featured boards
• Public brand boards
• Improve Categories
• Introduce Pinterest API
• Allow Merging Boards
• Asses the current Analytics

Read about these in more depth over on our Econsultancy post.

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With the help of the viewer, a falling man luckily escapes promoting the Volkswagen Side Assist feature. This new feature works by showing other vehicles when they are in the side mirror’s blind spot. The video below is an English translation if you’re wondering about the lip sync issues!

This isn’t the first time VW (Brazil) have used YouTube to create a big impact campaign with an innovative campaign. They previously introduced ‘Automatic skip YouTube Ad‘, which you can read about in a previous blog.

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It has been rumoured that by Summer Facebook users will start seeing video adverts in their news feeds. The ads will be up to 15 seconds long and when users open their feeds for the first time each day a video will start automatically but, thankfully, without audio.

This could be inline with growing budgets for advertising on, for example, YouTube. The only difference being that Facebook could have the means to show far more targeted adverts than other social platforms.

Nothing has been confirmed but insiders have suggested that the videos will be rolled out very slowly so users won’t get put off the site – and ads will be limited to one per user per day.

Linkedin introduces channels

LinkedIn have been rolling out a lot of updates recently and on Wednesday they announced one more: channels. Users will start to see an updated view of LinkedIn Today that uses channels, making it easier to follow broader news topics that cross over various industries. There will be up to 20 channels to follow, including Higher Education, Social Impact and Economy, with more channels to be added over time. When users follow a channel updates from that channel will feed directly into user’s homepages. All updates will be timely and relevant, with the aim to help professionals stay one step ahead and know what is trending in their sector.

Other features include:

• A new streamlined design
• A customised LinkedIn Today page featuring: ‘Your News’ with the latest from the channels you follow, an overview of influencer posts, a list of over 250 influencers sorted alphabetically and by number of followers and a section for new channels.
• More relevant emails that will include an overview of top influencer posts, trending news and SlideShare content.
• Updates will start rolling out to all English-speaking members this week.

Pinterest set to localise the global service

On Thursday Pinterest began it’s initiative to make Pinterest more attractive to users all over the world with a global localization strategy.

Users in the UK will be the first to benefit from the updates to the service. Pinterest was launched in the US in 2010 and has become increasingly popular with UK users. The Pinterest team have recognised this and are introducing a British English language setting and more UK based content available in search results.

To coincide with this Pinterest have also launched ‘Pin It Forward’, tracked using the hashtag pinitforwardUK. 300 UK based bloggers will share their inspiration boards and stories which describe how Pinterest helps them pursue their passions.Further localisations are to be rolled out over time, with France looking to be the next target.

Smartphone users pay for one in 10 apps

uSwitch.com has carried out new research into the smartphone economy and surveyed 1,700 people. The study found that users pay for just one in ten of their apps and download an average of just 29 apps overall.

This means that the average user spends £8.94 on apps. Out of these apps, only 41% of them are used regularly.

The 55-64 age bracket are the most reluctant when it comes to downloading apps in general, with an average of 23 downloads each. Whereas the 18 – 24 age bracket are the most indulgent with their downloads with an average of 37 apps each, but only 37% of these are used regularly.

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On Wednesday, the LinkedIn blog announced that users would now be able to personalise their profiles with rich content. Videos, photos and even presentations can now be uploaded to the professional network to illustrate user’s achievements. This looks like it would give more of an ‘online portfolio’ aspect to the site, which essentially would be a massive plus when it comes to job hunting and recruitment. A more effective showcase of achievements will surely lead to better opportunities.

To edit a LinkedIn profile, simply go to ‘Edit’ then follow the prompts to upload content to the Summary, Experience and Education sections. The changes began rolling out to English speaking countries on Wednesday with promises of ‘more to come’.

Coke’s first digital-only campaign 

Coke, known for their impressive TV campaigns, are taking an unusual step. Their new campaign, ‘The Ahh Effect’, will see Coke putting their efforts entirely into digital reach – with smart phones as a specific target.

The brand has bought up to 17 URLs containing varying versions of ‘ahh’ for example, ahhh.com and ahhhhhhhhhhhh.com. The umbrella site, ahh.com, allows users to scroll through all of the sites that feature multiple games, GIFs and videos.

The campaign intends to target a new teenage market by using multiple games that can be played in small chunks, from a few seconds to a few minutes, instead of one main game or message. The big thing here is that all content is optimised for mobile, mainly iOS and Android, to further appeal to a younger market.

Content will come from creative communities and even crowd sourced from the users themselves. The features will be added and removed through trial and error, depending on popularity.

All the features are very colourful, cartoon-like and feature a lot of cats…

Mobile messaging takes over SMS for the first time 

In places such as US and UK, where smartphone usage is particularly high, WhatsApp, Viber, Snapchat and WeChat have overtaken the more traditional messaging services such as text messaging for the first time.

Informa compiled information for the Financial Times and found that 19bn messages were sent from chat apps every day in 2012, in comparison to 17.6bn texts. Mobile messaging is expected to keep growing to 41bn per day this year.

Figures from Ovum show that mobile operators are falling behind, losing more than $23bn USD in text revenue last year. In an attempt to remedy these losses many are now offering their own messaging tools or signing deals with new messaging services, but is text messaging slowly fading out forever?

Twitter updates apps

On Wednesday Twitter updated Android and iOS apps, which can be downloaded now from the Apple App store and Google Play.

The site recently expanded the locations that trends cover to more than 160 countries and cities; this has now been brought over to apps and mobile users can see what is popular in local areas.

Twitter for iOS now allows users to invite friends from the app and has improved video playback for Vine. Also, most importantly for users tweeting original material, replies to retweets been changed. They now include the original author as well as the user that retweeted.

As for Android, users now have a quicker access to account switching and settings via their menu…any guesses for which platform Twitter is most interested in?

 Instagram introduces new tagging feature

Instagram has added a tool that allows tagging fellow users in pictures. The feature is called ‘Photos of You’ and works a lot like Facebook’s photo tagging system.  Clicking on an image allows users to type the names of people they follow and drag them onto photos to tag them. There is even a feature that only allows tags once they are approved. There is a key difference to Facebook however; only the user can tag their own photos, which will stop spam tagging from unknown followers.

This could be key to brands, whereas before Instagram campaigns have relied largely on hashtags and user mentions, users can now be asked to tag photos that are part of campaigns. The tagged feed could create more interaction between brand followers as all of the submissions for a campaign will be in one place.

Tagged images will appear within the ‘Photos of You’ section on profile pages, which will be available on May 16^th – tagging is available to users now.

The post This Week in Social: LinkedIn introduces digital content, Instagram Introduces tagging, Coke’s first digital-only campaign, mobile messaging overtakes SMS and Twitter updates apps appeared first on mycleveragency - Full Service Social.

Using the basis of popular games such as Pac-Man, Catch the Cookie uses augmented reality to superimpose a glass of milk onto your surroundings. The aim of the game is to catch Oeros in the glass when they are dropped across the screen by the Oreo airship. The app uses a camera function to create a mash up of the real world and virtual world so your surroundings are always part of the game. Although a great concept… it’s a difficult game! The app is available through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Catch the Oreo – Google Play: http://bit.ly/10UYCTf

Catch the Oreo – App Store: http://bit.ly/10UYT8B

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At the end of the 5 seconds of mandatory waiting time, the video automatically clicks the “skip ad” button. The lettering explains: “New Beetle with DSG Tiptronic transmission. You don’t shift gears. Neither does the commercial”. Surely one of the best features ever added to YouTube?

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Vine has become so popular mainly because the short duration of the clip (each Vine is six seconds long) suits our ever-diminishing attention spans, and it’s also a massive factor that users don’t need to leave their feeds to view the clip because Vine is part of Twitter and postable on Facebook. Also, all Vines loop endlessly – which can be quite hypnotising when done right.

This week, the Tribeca Film Festival is using Vine to hold a competition for the best six-second films. Here are our top 10 brands that are brilliant at using Vine.

1 – Peanut butter & Co. – This 12-person strong company figured out how to use Vine to their advantage, and even encouraged sales, to coincide with National Peanut Butter and Jelly day in America on April 2nd. The New York based company was pushing BOGOF coupons, via Facebook and Twitter so they utilised their Vine account to show how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the brand’s products. During the course of the day, according to the company, it garnered 300,000 impressions and, more importantly, 6,000-plus coupon downloads.

2 – The Cavendish London – This hotel ran a Valentine’s competition this year to win an overnight stay for the best romance-themed Vine tweeted to them. Entrants were asked to create an upload a Vine video, with the video ruled the most romantic to be the winner of the competition.Here’s the winning creation:

3 – schuh – We featured schuh in our original blog post about Vine and they continued to use the platform on a regular product to showcase the vast amount of product they’ve got. We love how they have just got Vine and continue to promote new arrivals, such as below.

4 –  Doritos – You can’t help but love the Mariachi band in non-GIF form so when Doritos combined the Mariachi band and GIFs….well it’s like cool original dipping into sour cream and chive, a match made in heaven. Over Easter, Doritos ran the #DoritosNameThatTune to win Easter goodies.

5 – Urban Outfitters – Still utilising Vine to a massive amount, UO don’t post with high production value, but they do post regularly, mainly to showcase products. Joining in with the popularity of zombie TV show The Walking Dead they recently sent out this post.

6 – Topshop – Vine proved massive at New York and London fashion weeks, with Topshop using it mainly for direct catwalk reporting from the front row, it’s not very slick but it’s quite effective.

7 – Marie Curie – Charities are always looking for new and innovative ways to fundraise online and get their supporters to donate. Marie Curie released a Vine on Valentine’s Day showing a heart being made out of daffodils. This was a great idea as it was topical but they also made it clear that the purpose of the video was to remind supporters to donate. 

8 – Columbia Records – Daft Punk’s record label have been embarking on a social marketing trail for their new album over the past few weeks and released the track listing via Vine. BBC 6 Music later followed up this Daft Punk vine with their own version to help create the greatest Daft Punk playlist.

9 – Converse – Simple, but effective. Fashion brands can use Vine to great effect.

10 – Code Computer Love – And finally, this digital communications agency Vine efforts are something to behold.  http://www.vine-comic.co.uk/

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Ofcom, the UK’s telecoms regulator, have found that there has been significant growth in social networking among older internet users. Ofcom’s Adult media Users and Attitudes Report examined 2012 UK data and found that more than a third (35%) of 55 to 65 year-old internet users created a profile on a social network site last year. This is a significant increase from 24% in 2011.

A quarter (25%) of users aged 65+ also set up profiles in 2012. Younger users (16-24) still dominate the data, but new users are only up 2% from 2011, this would probably be because the majority of younger Internet users would already have a social media presence.

Ofcom said that about two-thirds (64%) of all the UK’s adult Internet users had a social networking presence in 2012, up 5% from 2011.

The following graphic is from page 91 of the Ofcom report.

Pinterest makes some tweaks to new look

The new look Pinterest is still in the process of rolling out to users but that hasn’t stopped them from making some changes on the way. The Pinterest team has listened to feedback and re-added some features to make the site even more user-friendly.

The ‘Pinned by’ feature, which lets users see who originally pinned an item, is back.

As is the ability to find friends from Twitter and Facebook and users can now mention friends using the @ symbol again.

Users are still able to ‘opt-in’ to use the new look, which is a different method to Facebook and Twitter who release features slowly before releasing to the masses.

As well as these re-introductions, Pinterest now also has an improved search, with an auto-suggest included.  Users’ activity notifications are also now in the top right corner.

Facebook acquires startup Parse to offer mobile development tools

Facebook has acquired Parse, a startup that builds back-end tools for mobile developers. This will allow Facebook to offer its first paid B2B service.

Parse was founded around two years ago, they offer services that help mobile developers store data in the cloud, manage identity log-ins, handle push notifications and run custom code in the cloud.

This move is hand-in-hand with Facebook’s push to become more relevant to mobile developers, as they don’t make their own devices like Apple or Google.  But, Facebook integrations with apps can make them sticker and help developers acquire new users.

With the help of Parse, Facebook will now be able to offer back-end services for data storage, notifications and user management.

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