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Hi there!

Another month just flew by, and we're back with the fifth edition of DrumUp’s monthly social media digest. A lot has been brewing this month of June in the world of social media with both Facebook and Twitter rolling out a bunch of changes. DrumUp too, launched a bunch of new features in June, including LinkedIn integration. You can read more about the updates below. Like always, if you have any thoughts on DrumUp, we'd love to hear from you.

1. Share those Special "Moments" in Seconds through Facebook's New App

With the announcement of the new "Moments" mobile application for Facebook accounts – the latest from the in-house CreativeLabs development team – the mega-sized social networking site now aims to make mobile photo sharing much quicker and more hassle-free through facial recognition technology. By using facial recognition to identify the people who commonly appear in these pictures, they are automatically grouped together in albums which are then simultaneously shared to the same people who were present in them, through the "Moments" app. Sharing memories has never been easier.

2. Relevance of Posts on Facebook Rated by Time

Facebook aims to improve the relevance of posts unique to each user, by measuring the time that the user spends reading, commenting on, or liking the post. This is a sharp departure from the original algorithm which measured the popularity and relevance of a post by the number of likes, comments and shares generated by the content. The updated news feed algorithm takes into account that some internet speeds will force users to take more time to go through their posts, and makes it intuitive by measuring the time spent relative to each post.

3. Facebook's Five Trending Topics to Tame Information on Homepage

The information that will appear on the Facebook homepage is going to be organized by five core topics: "All News", "Politics", "Science and Tech", "Sports" and "Entertainment", easily identified by small icons on the "trending area". The new design was implemented to effectively organize the information that appears in the section to be less distracting and more relevant to an individual user. The volume of information on Facebook is increasing by the minute, and by categorizing it into five core topics, users will be able to access information on the topic that piques their interests. Posts to become more relevant to users?

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4. E-commerce Enabled through Twitter Product Pages

Twitter's product pages have been designed to be all the more interactive, with the addition of an option to buy the product or go to the product's website, along with a detailed description of the product which includes the price. In a daring move to kick-start e-commerce on the social media network, Twitter also gives access to specially curated lists from high-profile accounts and product pages that users are currently following. The new feature is designed to be used in conjunction with newly acquired startups like CardSpring. More on Twitter's re-designed product pages.

5. Twitter Decides to Use Hearts Instead of Stars

A small change can make all the difference, as Twitter makes the switch from stars to hearts to help increase user engagement with the content published on the massively-popular social media platform. According to an 8,500-word memo written by Chris Sacca – an early investor in the company: "New users will find the heart familiar and comforting" going on record to state that a heart indicates a "casual" and positive gesture that would increase the number of posts, as well as the number of visits to the service. Twitter wants to spread the love.

6. Twitter to Get a New CEO as Costolo Resigns on the 1st of July

In a decision that made headlines, Dick Costolo is stepping down as Twitter's CEO for the apparent betterment of the company, instead remaining on Twitter's board of directors indefinitely. However, there are hints that the decision was spurred on by investors, who felt that the CEO's decisions were the reason behind the stagnant user-growth and the sub-par results from the direct-response advertising initiatives that had been taken earlier. The decision was publicly announced for the sake of transparency such that dedicated users would be fully aware of the developments within the company. What does the future of Twitter hold?

7. Content Intake to Increase, as Videos and Gifs Auto-play on Twitter

Twitter has started to auto-play videos and GIFs as users scroll past them, with the audio being triggered only when users click on the video. The move was made to encourage “increase content intake" by users, and generate revenue from video advertising. According to eMarketer, revenue from video ad-marketing will increase to a little more than $9 billion by 2016. However, users will still have the option of deactivating the feature on their accounts. Gear up to take in more content.

8. Direct messages in Twitter no longer restricted to 140 characters

In a long line of major changes made to the service, the latest re-design allows direct messages in Twitter to break free of the 140-character limit, to increase Twitter’s function as a direct messaging app and a social network. The redesign is congruous with the earlier addition of options to receive private messages from unknown accounts on Twitter, as well as to broadcast group-specific messages. Although the character limit on private messages has been lifted, public tweets are still restricted to 140-characters per tweet. Is Twitter searching for a social life?

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9. Pulse redesigned for the active LinkedIn profile

LinkedIn's app Pulse, has received an update in its functionality, its appearance and its ideals. It will now function as a news tabloid that caters specifically to each LinkedIn profile on the app. The facelift, in particular, differs greatly from its earlier, RSS-style appearance, where a long list of information would be presented to the user, with little significance to relevance. The app's creator, Akshay Kothri, states that the new "cards-based" interface is designed to make browsing through the information a much more streamlined process. The update also collaborates with Newsle in interesting ways.