Google+ Updates: This Week in Social Media

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+ Allows Nicknames: Over the next week, Google+ will provide “support for alternate names—be they nicknames, birth names, or names in another script—alongside your common name. This name will show up on your Google+ profile and in the hovercards which appear over your name.”

New Google Accounts Generate Both Gmail and Google+ Accounts: Signing up for a Gmail account now automatically creates a Google+ account. This could impact how users use and network on other Google platforms such as YouTube and Google Docs.

Google Updates Privacy Policy: This update takes effect on March 1. It simplifies all privacy policies and makes it clear that if you’re signed in, Google “may combine information you've provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.”

YouTube Hits 4 Billion Daily Video Views: This is a 25% increase over the last 8 months. “Roughly 60 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube every minute.”

Say Hello to the New Vimeo:  Vimeo gets a new design and puts a greater focus on your videos, which makes Vimeo easier, faster and more fun to use.

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Here's a social media tool worth noting:

AgoraPulse: An all-in-one Facebook marketing and CRM solution. Check out their unique comparison feature to see how your Facebook business page compares to your competitors' pages. (This feature is only available to paying customers.)

Here's an interesting infographic:

How to Get More Clicks on Twitter: Check out Dan Zarrella's latest findings to improve your Twitter marketing results.

And don’t miss this (starting next week!):

Social Media Examiner presents Small Business Success Summit 2011! (online conference)

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What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.

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