Here’s your quick weekly summary of all the latest social media news, including changes and new features on Google+, Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr:
Google+
- Google Launches Content Recommendation Engine For Mobile Sites, Powered By Google+ – mobile content recommendations will appear as small widgets at the bottom of the screen as users browse a news site that has enabled this service; Forbes is the launch partner (TechCrunch)
- Google+ Games shutting down on June 30th in favor of Google Play game services – Google+ Games will be shut down on June 30th; it will be replaced by the launch of Google Play game services, “a cross-platform tool that will sync progress, achievements, and other gaming data on Android, the web, and even iOS” (The Verge)
- Google Intros Stand-Alone Hangouts App – Hangouts is “the gold standard of video messaging;” last week Google introduced a stand-alone mobile Hangouts app, so users can access Hangouts directly via mobile without using the Google+ app (Mashable)
- Google+ completely redesigned, now automatically enhances photos and highlights your best shots – the new Google+ redesign resembles the platform’s tablet apps, with a three column view and photos/videos taking up the full screen width (The Verge)
- Twitter Acquires Big Data Visualization Startup Lucky Sort, Service To Shutter In Months Ahead – Lucky Sort, a start-up focused on data mining through statistics, was acquired by Twitter; the service will be shut down, and part of the team will join Twitter in San Francisco (TechCrunch)
- Yahoo partners with Twitter to bring tweets directly into its US newsfeed on the desktop and mobile Web – “relevant and personalized” tweets are now directly incorporated into the newsfeed on Yahoo!’s US homepage (The Next Web)
- To Ease Small Screen Nesting, Pinterest Mobile Adds Search Suggestions, Mentions, And Notifications – updates to Pinterest on mobile include search suggestions to make single-screen pinning easier, as well as push notifications and tagging with @mentions (TechCrunch)
- Pinterest Makes Pins More Than Pretty Pictures – Pinterest will be showing more information about images on the site, including “pricing and availability of pinned products, cook time and ingredients for pinned recipes, and ratings and casts for pinned movies” (AllThingsD)
Tumblr
- Yahoo Buys Tumblr and Promises “Not to Screw It Up” – Yahoo! is acquiring Tumblr for $1.1 billion; David Karp will remain CEO and “Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business” (AllThingsD)
Any updates to social networks that we missed?
