Welcome to our weekly edition of what's hot in social media news. To help you stay up-to-date with social media, here are some of the news items that caught our attention.
What's New This Week?
Google Search Integrates Google+: Google transforms “into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships,” and introduces three new features: personal results, profiles in search and people and pages. This means that your Google search results will be even more personalized, thanks to information shared on Google+.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z9TTBxarbs
Twitter's Embeddable Tweets: Twitter users are using the embeddable tweet code to publish interactive tweets on their websites and blogs, like the one below. Find out how to embed tweets here.
Finalists: Top 10 Social Media Blogs 2012 bit.ly/A2SWis via @smexaminer
— Michael A. Stelzner (@Mike_Stelzner) January 9, 2012
Groupon Announces New Promotional Marketing Instrument: Clicky, the Clickable Value-Wheel “gives users the opportunity to potentially score a discount on select Groupons by the simple act of spinning a wheel! Clicky was designed to provide momentary distraction and meet the minimum threshold of amusement necessary for users to share Clicky, the Clickable Value-Wheel through social media channels, thereby virally spreading Groupon and increasing its number of active customers.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4eW0zfmxGQ

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Etsy Adds Pinterest Pin It Button: Etsy, the popular ecommerce site, recognizes the power of social media and embraces Pinterest. Check out Etsy's Pinterest page.
Ads Appear in Facebook News Feeds as “Featured” Posts: These ads, also referred to as Sponsored Stories, are showing up as featured posts in your news feed.
Here's a social media tool worth noting:
Brand My Mail: a new tool to seamlessly integrate RSS feeds, Twitter posts, WordPress blogs and more into your email.
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What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

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