Check out all the latest social media news from the last two weeks, including changes and new features for Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Tumblr, YouTube and Vine:
- Facebook tests new ‘buy’ button for online purchases in U.S. – Facebook is now testing a “buy” button that would allow consumers to purchase products directly from ads on the social network; so far the testing has included “a few small and medium-sized businesses” in the U.S. (Reuters)
- You can’t use Facebook’s new iPhone app — unless you’re famous – a new iPhone app, Mentions, is now available for download by everyone, but only for use by “verified public figures” on Facebook; celebrities who’ve been testing the app have posted twice as much as before (re/code)
- Facebook testing redesigned events page with ‘Events For You’ section – Facebook is testing a new layout/redesign of its events page, which will feature an “Events for You” section; the test includes a few users worldwide before a “mid-paced” rollout over the next few weeks (AllFacebook)
- Facebook launches “Out-App Purchase” ads – Facebook is now letting developers sell Facebook desktop game virtual goods straight from ads in the News Feed or sidebar (TechCrunch)
- BuzzFeed and Facebook’s ‘BuzzFeed Brews’ partnership launches – Facebook is now serving as the primary video content platform for ‘BuzzFeed Brews,’ BuzzFeed’s event interview series at local bars (Lost Remote)
- Twitter snaps up CardSpring, a platform for helping developers connect apps with consumers’ credit cards – Twitter has acquired payments infrastructure company CardSpring; Twitter describes the tool as helping “merchants work with leading publishers to create online-to-offline promotions” (The Next Web)
- Twitter releases powerful new analytics tools – advertisers now have more tools to examine the performance of tweets, including the number of impressions, clicks, expands, retweets and profile clicks each of their tweets generated; advertisers can also see how many new followers they earned as a direct result of each tweet (AdAge)
Foursquare
- Foursquare’s Swarm iOS app gets mayor leaderboards for every check-in, easier sharing and more – updates to the Swarm app include showing mayor leaderboards among friends with every check-in, easier sharing to Facebook and Twitter, faster and more accurate checkins, and photos from venues (The Next Web)
Tumblr
- Why Tumblr is pumped: you can now embed Vine videos on your blog – Tumblr users can now embed Vine videos on their Tumblr blog; while there were ways to do so before, this update eliminates extra steps and allows users to share directly from Vine (Mashable)
YouTube
- People-powered radio: YouTube launches crowdsourced music program with SiriusXM – Sirius XM and YouTube launched a new radio show that is programmed by YouTube fans; the hour-long weekly show, called “YouTube 15,” will feature 15 of YouTube’s most popular musical artists (VentureBeat)
Any social media updates that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.
