Major Facebook Upgrade: 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.

This was a VERY big week for social media news. Be sure to see all the new updates from Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Foursquare and more below.

What’s New This Week?

Facebook Surpasses 800 Million Active Users: Plus, 350 million people use Facebook via a mobile device.

Major Facebook Features Roll Out

New Facebook Timeline Revolutionizes Your Facebook Experience: Facebook changes its current layout to give you a Timeline where it’s easy to share the story of your life.  This new feature will roll out over the next few weeks (signup here for Timeline).  Check out the video below.

Facebook Apps Get More Social: Improvements in Facebook’s Open Graph protocol mean that app developers are now able to create more social Facebook apps.  Facebook has already worked with a few companies on this new generation of apps, including Spotify, Netflix and The Daily.  Watch the video below to learn more.

New Facebook Profile Features

Facebook Profiles Get a Makeover:  There are a number of changes in the general presentation of your Profile page. Some of these changes to your news feed highlight the most interesting stories on your Profile page.  Here’s what’s new:

• Real-time Ticker: You now have a real-time mini-feed on the top right-hand section of your Facebook profile home page.  This is a live stream of your friends’ updates.

Simply click on one of these updates to get a pop-up with the full story.

• Top Stories: There’s now a blue corner on the latest updates or stories that Facebook thinks will interest you.

This new feature highlights your top stories.

• Facebook Stories: You may notice how Facebook now refers to “updates” as “stories.”

Watch the video below to find out more about these new changes to your Profile.

New Facebook Business Page Features

See Your Friends Activity on Facebook Pages: In addition to the changes on Profile pages, Facebook has a new feature found on Business pages.  There’s a new Friend Activity navigation link on Facebook pages which allows you to see what your friends are saying about the Page.

Check out this new link on the left sidebar of your Facebook Business page.

Facebook Allows Users to Comment on Pages Without Liking Them: You no longer need to Like a Facebook page to be able to comment on it.

More Social Media News This Week

Google+ Open to Public: Now anyone can open up a Google+ account.

Google+ Makes Improvements: Google+ has rolled out a number of improvements. You no longer need an invitation to join Google+. It is now open to everyone. And there’s now a search function across the Google+ platform. In addition to these improvements, there are a couple of new features for Google+ Hangouts:

• Mobile Hangouts: You can now join a Hangout on your mobile phone.

To get started, simply find an active hangout in the stream, and tap “Join.”

• Hangouts On Air: The new On Air feature opens your Hangout to everyone, so it can be seen by the general public.

On Air is rolling out to a limited number of broadcasters to begin with, but any member of the Google+ community can tune in.

• Hangouts With Google Docs: This feature will allow you to view your Google Docs in your Google+ Hangout “when you want to write, plan or present something with others.” It’s an interesting free collaboration tool.

Google Docs is part of the Hangouts Extras which will be available soon.

Google’s +1 Button Comes to Ads: Google AdWords advertisers can add a Google +1 button to their ads.

As you can see at the bottom of this ad, when you click on the +1 button your friends will see your photo, unless you opt out.

Twitter Lets You Tweet Photos Via Text Messages: You can now “share photos on Twitter by including a photo in your text message. It’s simple: just enter the text of your tweet as you normally would, attach a photo to the message and send to Twitter.”

Klout Adds Google+: You can now connect Google+ to your Klout dashboard to integrate your activity on Google+ into your Klout score.

Foursquare Gives Homes More Privacy: You can now check in to your home on Foursquare without sharing your address.

Foursquare Passes a Billion Check-Ins: Follow the week of check-ins across the globe in the video below.

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Gowalla Builds a Social Atlas of the World: Gowalla’s latest upgrade takes Gowalla “away from the check-in space and towards the travel and location-based story space.”

Gowalla now focuses on helping you share the world with Social Guides.

Here’s a social media tool worth noting:

Blog Pitching Symbol: A tool to create a badge to let your audience know your blog’s policies on accepting pitches.

An easy way to let your audience know if you want to receive brand or product information.

And don’t miss this:

Social Media Examiner presents Facebook Success Summit 2011! (online conference starts Oct. 5th!)

Watch this video from Mike Stelzner (founder of Social Media Examiner).

Join 19 Facebook marketing experts at the web’s largest Facebook marketing conference. This is a special online conference designed to help you master Facebook marketing (brought to you by Social Media Examiner). Join Guy Kawasaki; Mari Smith; Dave Kerpen; Paul Dunay; Jesse Stay; Robert Scoble; Michael Stelzner; experts from Intuit, PETCO, Applebee’s and Intel; Jay Baer; Chris Treadaway; Amy Porterfield and Andrea Vahl—just to name a few. Go here to learn more.
What social media news caught your interest this week? Please share your comments below.