Here are some of the biggest updates in the social media universe you may have missed this week:
YouTube has changed its comments section– and it’s creating quite a stir.
Last week, the video sharing site announced on their blog that they would be mandating that each user sign in with their Google+ account to leave a comment. The move was a step towards making the comments into more of a conversation. With the personal data acquired through Google+, the posts would be sorted by people you care about first and give you the choice to share your comments with the public or only people in your Circles. Controversy has arisen over the changes mainly because it removes some of the anonymity that surrounds the posts. Site moderators hope that it will lead to less cyber-bullying on the site, while users feel that it has detracted from the YouTube experience and is too invasive. As of now, 4 out of every 5 profiles have made the connection – if this will drive more comments, whether they are more appropriate or not, is still up for debate.
Pinterest has been making some big changes as well. Just yesterday, Pinterest announced that they were launching their first API that will allow for third-party sites to embed their most popular pins directly onto their website. Some of their big-name partners to first use the service include Disney, Nestle, Walmart, Target, and Zappos. The pins on these sites and mobile apps will update regularly, ensuring that they are always the most recent popular pins.
Twitter introduced a way for users to get a more tailored experience early last week. The newest feature allows for TweetDeck users to create a custom-timeline and pick and choose which Tweets they want to add to it, either by hand or programmatically. Each of these timelines is public and will have its own page on Twitter.com, as to ease sharing capabilities. This tool allows users to find the latest and most important information about live events or other hot button issues and create a thread out of what they deem to be the best tweets.
