Editor’s Note: The Social Media RoundUp is a weekly feature of Information Space.
Whenever Facebook feels like its users are finally getting accustomed to a site update, the company likes to pull the rug out from underneath everyone and change things again.
A lot of users have sporadically been forced to change over to a mobile-inspired look. But last week, the social network officially unveiled its latest design for the News Feed, which takes learnings from its failed trial and applies them to a familiar but fresh design that it plans to roll out globally over the next few weeks.
Twitter just shelled out some big bucks to avoid getting into major legal trouble. Twitter paid IBM $36 million for 900 patents after IBM threatened to sue Twitter over at least three patents in November.
Instagram finally shook hands with a major ad agency and made a deal. The photo-and video-sharing site is rolling out a paid advertising program with a year-long commitment from Omnicom to spend up to $100 million This deal means that Instagram will start displaying ads on user news feeds from brands that work with Omnicom’s media and creative agencies. This group of agencies is a long list, and can be viewed in full here.
Facebook and Instagram have teamed up in an attempt to make the world a safer place. On Wednesday, the two social networks announced that they will be cracking down on gun sales taking place on their platforms. They will delete posts from users offering to buy or sell guns without background checks, as well as do their best to ban users under 18 from viewing gun offers posted by individuals or groups.
Hope everyone has a fun Spring Break by downloading these apps, and following these Social Media Do’s and Don’ts.