Weekly News Round-Up

September 7, 2012

Despite its fiscal status in a state of constant flux, Facebook had a good week. The platform passed the final hurdle in its bid to acquire Instagram after the California Department of Corporations ruled that the transaction appeared ‘just, fair, and equitable’. With all legal hurdles out of the way a deal between Facebook and the photo sharing platform could be reached within the next few weeks.

Facebook Expands

Furthermore the social media giant announced new developments to the sites API which will make it easier for developers to build Facebook apps. The advancements are supposed to allow ‘easier and faster to access data from the social graph’

Facebook Improves Brand Security

Facebook has also moved to enhance its security on brand pages. By working to remove fake Likes caused by spambots, malware or fake account users in order to improve brand integrity and provide a more accurate sense of brand engagement.

Facebook’s Partnership with Bing

Additional developments came in partnership with Bing. In a step towards deeper integration between the search engine and the social media platform it was announced that you can now search your own as well as your friends Facebook with the Bing app. The app allows for a more specified search when using keywords to locate photos by photo captions or album titles.

And we haven’t totally forgotten about Twitter either…

Twitter and better promoted Tweets

Not be out paced by Facebook, Twitter also announced new developments last week. Twitter introduced targeted promoted tweets. In a move to try and increase profits, the platform will allow marketers to choose from 350 different types of interest to help target the most relevant audience. The platform has also slashed the price of promoted tweets allowing for more companies to use Twitter as an advertising service.

Or Google+ for that matter…

Google+ and YouTube get a name

Finally, Google and YouTube Partners will now be able to switch to display their full name as it appears on their Google+ profile. However for the moment it is designed primarily for individuals who want to use their full names rather than brands. Brands will have to wait until Google+ Pages are available to link up.

That’s it for this week.

The IF Team

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