It’s Friday already!  You know what that means: it’s time to catch up on the search and social media news from this past week.  Let’s get to it:

Twitter adds Retweet function to web interface, tweeple revolt

Retweets, normally seen as “RT:” are simply a repitition of someone else’s tweet.  It’s been widely used by twitter users in order to repeat an important, useful, or otherwise interesting tweet while giving credit back to the person who originally said it.  This week, after some testing, Twitter released the new retweet function, but fundamentally changed how it worked, much to the chagrin of a vast majority of twitter users.

The difference is: when you retweet something (using the twitter web interface)  instead of “RT: @originalusername”, the original tweet will simply show up in your followers’ feeds avatar and all (regardless if they follow the person or not).  Another fundamental change is that the option to add to or change the original tweet is not a function of this feature.  These two differences (despite some advantages they may have) are the focus for most of the dissent.  Some users even suggested blocking users who use this feature as a measure to discourage its use.

Google Chromium OS project is official

Google recently (and officially) announced the coming of its open source operating system Chrome OS.  The announcement is not a big surprise, as it has been talked about for months now, and seems to be the next logical step for Google (who has their hands in just about everything these days).  It appears that the speedy Chrome OS is to be web based (looking and feeling more like a web browser) and probably won’t replace windows or other operating systems meant for hard drive based computers.  You can read more about the initial impressions about the launch on Search Engine Journal’s wrap up of the Chrome OS announcement.

Yahoo adds Social Content to search

Social and real time search continues to be a hot topic this week as Yahoo! adds real time functionality to its main search engine results.  Like a google news onebox result, when you search in Yahoo! for a topic that comes up with recent news results or buzz, you will now see a result for “Latest News” with options including: news, photos, videos, and Twitter.

Google to test new layout for search results

Google’s advanced features and search options have traditionally been kept hidden from users unless they click on a somewhat difficult to find button.  Soon, Google will be testing a new layout of search results that will make these features a static part of the layout.  The other main difference is the bolder blue “search” button (as opposed to the traditional white).  A screenshot of the new layout can be seen below (courtesy of searchengineland)

Youtube to get Subtitles

Youtube will be rolling out automatic subtitles for the user generated video website in order to make the videos more accessible to the deaf.  Mr. Harrinstein, The engineer in charge of the project, is also hearing disabled had this to say about the project:

“The majority of user-generated video content online is still inaccessible to people like me,”

The new feature will only be available on 13 channels at first, and while not perfect, the technology behind the automatic subtitle generator “should improve with time”.

The lighter side of Social Media

• A woman loses her benefits after posting photos to facebook of herself on vacation.
• Another woman uses facebook to her advantage by tracking down her attacker.
• A drunk Ninja impales himself on a fence…
• Here’s 5 “famous” last facebook updates (not real)…

It’s Friday again!  (Wow that week went quick)  It’s also already November, the cold is setting in, and Search & Social is starting to blend into one mashup of an industry.  Here’s what happened this past week:

Google Updates this week (a small sample):

Let me take this time to apologize for featuring so much Google news on these wrap-ups…Its becoming a trend that can’t be helped.  Here’s just a few:

• Google updated its search options by adding expanded snippets and image previews.  You can activate these option by clicking on the “+Show Options” button at the top of your search and selecting either “images from the page” or “page previews” for the images and longer snippets, respectively.
• A new e-commerce search product for e-commerce sites is now available (just in time for the holidays).  The product isn’t free, but seems to be a decent option for larger e-commerce sites looking to integrate an intelligent product search feature.
• Google Dashboard, another new product from Google is simply a snapshot of your use of select Google products.  It shows current Gmail conversations, Google Alerts, Recent Google Docs, and more.

Twitter getting ready for Retweets

Twitter tested integration of Retweets this week.  Not a “new” concept on twitter, it’s a feature that simply makes sense to add to the site.  Retweets (quite simply copying another user’s tweet) have generally showed up as “RT” followed by @(the user) and their tweet.  In screenshots of the recent test, however, the retweet will (instead) show up as an exact replication of the original user’s tweet in your follower’s feeds, avatar and all.  The only difference will be an added “retweeted by @(username)”.

Digg experimenting with Digg Trends

Digg is experimenting with a new front page voting method they call Digg Trends.  The application involves showing a trending story to a user that’s about to hit the front page.  The user can see how long before the story hits and is given an opportunity to choose if it is front page “worthy”.  This takes the voting mechanism to a whole new level for Digg, and time will tell if this becomes a full time feature.

Yahoo playing catch-up with Music & Real Time Search

In response to additions by Google and Bing in the social search arena, Yahoo! has announced testing their own real time search feature.  With partner OneRiot (a real time search engine) Yahoo! hopes to be able to join in on the fun.  They will be testing with other partners as well, according to reports.

Yahoo! reportedly tweaked it’s video search feature to allow users to more easily find music videos.  The feature allows users to click on albums to find videos from a variety of sources for that specific album.  This report comes just after Google released it’s new music search feature, although Yahoo! claims this is nothing new.

Myspace Traffic drop costs Parent Company $100 Million

The recent drops in traffic for Myspace.com has failed to satisfy requirements of an exclusive advertising contract with Google wired.com reports.  The contract which depended upon a minimum traffic level, was done in 2006 for $900 Million which more than covered the $580 Million purchase price of Myspace.com by News Corp.  Failure to reach the minimum level of traffic will cost News Corp. in the area of $100 Million according to sources.

The Lighter Side of Social Media

• Woman sues employer for losing her facebook friends.
• Teens sue their school after being punished for “racy” photos on Myspace.
• If Myspace and Facebook were combined, it would look something like this.  TheOatmeal.com gives you: FaceSpace

Social media is amazingly powerful and social networking sites have been growing at unbelievably fast rates, and they are also starting to replace some mainstream news sources and even the search engines for some people. The fact of the matter is that many social networking sites, mainly Twitter and Facebook, are breaking many news stories before the news networks are. A perfect example was a couple weeks back when the news of the Jakarta bombings broke on Twitter because a user was staying in one of the hotels and tweeted right after the explosion. The power of the social web just keeps growing and is becoming a force that can overtake many traditional media outlets, it will also to continue to hurt the search engines. Here are some of the top stories of the week in the world social media.

Twitter

There has been some interesting news regarding Twitter, and one of the biggest things that is potentially very scary is the Twitter lawsuit. The Chicago woman had 20 followers on Twitter and she made a Tweet that Horizon Realty claims was damaging to their business. Horizon Realty has filed a $50,000 lawsuit against Amanda Bonnen for the Tweet that only a small group of people would have seen, that was until Horizon filed the lawsuit and now it is getting so much publicity that millions will hear about it and it will cause them a far bigger reputation problem that the tweet. If Horizon does win the lawsuit it will definitely change social media as we know it because people will start being scared of what they can and cannot say. Twitter also unveiled a new homepage this week, and the new homepage makes the site look and perform more like a search engine. This is just another reason that the search engines should start to worry or else they need to up their game if they want to stay around for the long haul. Real time search is the way of the future and Twitter plans on being right at the center of it all.

Charity in Social Media

This is an awesome story and shows how charitable the social media crowds can be, and this was all done by an amazing musician by the name of Josh Charles. Josh is from The New Orleans area and he was there when Katrina came through. He was evacuated like everyone else and when he returned he saw the devastation that Katrina left in one of the greatest cities in the country. It has been a few years and New Orleans is still in bad shape in many places, half of the population of the city is gone as well. So what Josh did is wrote a song about it that is called Healing Time. What makes this story even better is that Josh is selling the song for 99 cents via Amazon and every penny of that goes to charity to help rebuild New Orleans. Josh paid to record the song out of his own pocket and Amazon also agreed to not take a penny from the sale of the song through there site. This is one of the most amazing things a musician could do and I also gained a lot of respect for Amazon for being very cool about the whole thing as well. Kudos to both Josh and Amazon. Be sure to go download the song at Amazon – Healing Time by Josh Charles, every penny raised goes directly to a great cause. The Social Blade Show also played a part in giving this story more exposure on Thursday night by having Josh on and helping to bring more awareness to the cause socially.

MySpace Mail

MySpace is making the news again all over the web for their next move in trying to stay alive, this time it is in the form of an email service. MySpace decided to launch its own email service and this means you can now have your own myspace.com email address. Since the site has been losing so many users who are abandoning the social network they are doing everything in their power to stay relevant. They already plan on focusing on artists and gaming and this email service is their next offer to the community. The email service has a lot to offer since you will have unlimited file storage, one click embedding of pics and vids, and also an address book that automatically saves your contacts.

YouTube

Last week, the JK Wedding Entrance Video was an instant YouTube success generating over 13 million views in little more than a week.   Yesterday, the Official Google Blog showed how they “help[ed] rights holders [of Chris Brown's song: "Forever"] control their content on [youtube].” by placing “buy” links to itunes and amazon music stores.  The song is reported as “reaching as high as #4 on the iTunes singles chart and #3 on Amazon’s best selling MP3 list.”  As of today it’s #23 on itunes, and #7 on Amazon….sadly, cracked.com’s Official: “Worst Song Ever” is #1.

The Lighter Side of the Social Web

Here are some of the funnier stories that were hot over the last week. One of my favorites was seeing the kid get owned by Mentos and Diet Coke. I am sure that he will think twice about doing that again, but we know there will always be plenty of other people doing stupid things. William Shatner has been one of the nations top actors and entertainers for years now, and this week he delivered once again for us on Conan O’Brien. If you have not seen it then be sure to check out Bill reciting Sarah Palins speech as a poem. Here are some unbelievable pieces of artwork that were drawn with ball point pens and measure up to 10 ft. tall, these are just awesome and I am sure creating them is very time consuming. This costume is an instant classic and had to have easily been the best costume at Comic Con.

Social news sites and all of the other social networking sites are not going anywhere, in fact the communities are growing everyday and many of the top news stories worldwide first break in these social networking communities. Every week the social communities are buzzing with many big stories. Now, every Friday, we’ll bring you a weekly wrap-up of some of the biggest stories in the world of social media.

Breaking news from… Twitter?
Just yesterday, when the bombings in Jakarta happened, the first people to report on these bombing were Twitter users. This also goes to show how important social networking has become to society today, and it also enables anyone to bring breaking news to the web in real time. Real time reporting has been seen a lot in recent weeks and months via sites like Twitter and Facebook, another recent example were the Iran political protests and how the people caught up in them were able to update via social communities. That was important as well because it showed the power of the groundswell when many users turned their avatars green and also changed their time settings in Twitter to make it harder for the Iran government to try and block their citizens from reporting on Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter Hacked…again
That’s right, Twitter was hacked… again. This time, documents were stolen from an employee’s email and posted on numerous blogs around the web. Techcrunch has published some of the more interesting documents, while some of the other blogs held little back. Twitter has contacted lawyers, but they should know as well as anyone that when something catches on in the social world it is almost impossible to stop, this has been coined “The Streisand Effect” and it is something many people do not fully understand, but I would assume the folks at Twitter know about it all too well.

The fall of MySpace
Reports of MySpace showing a steady decline in it’s user base surfaced this week, as many people are running from MySpace and embracing Facebook. MySpace has recently been coined as the “ghetto” of social networking communities due to the unappealing layouts and rediculous page load times. Where MySpace has remained relevant is when it comes to a networking tool for musicians. Being a musician myself I have seen firsthand what is possible for bands networking and promoting themselves on MySpace. Perhaps MySpace should really target and focus on if they want to have a place in the future of social media. When bands and other entertainers embrace social networking amazing things can happen, and Myspace has helped launch a number of careers (for better or worse).

Real Time Search is still a hot topic
Real time search has been an increasingly hot topic and it is proof that the future of search will be geared more towards real time search results. Let’s face it, when you do a search you don’t want to find outdated information on the subject, most would prefer something that is totally fresh and relevant. Real time search has been revolutionized by Twitter and now many sites are implementing this concept, including Friendfeed, which is another popular networking site where you can integrate feeds from all of your different social profiles.

Integrating TV with Social Media
As more and more companies start embracing the social media phenomenon, we will see more technological advancements in the social world. One example of this is the new social network TV service Verizon is offering their FIOS customers. This application will enable users to watch TV together online and communicate with each other as they watch. The services will also be fully integrated with Twitter and Facebook as well as other user generated video sites on the web, such as Dailymotion and Blip.tv.

The lighter side of Social Media (this week)
Some of the more entertaining stories we have see in the social world this past week include a dancing bear that has been invading webcam chatrooms on Stickam and causing hilarity to ensue. The dancing bear prank was done by Ryan Perera, who thought it would be funny to invade random chatrooms for fun. The prank raised quite a few eyebrows in the social world because of how random and funny it truly was, and the folks in these chatrooms got a good laugh watching the dancing bear on cam.

We were also graced with some funny images that were a big hit on numerous social media websites and gave people some nice laughs, one being the man who cant afford beer and then we also had the humorous directions that involve a kayak. The Dairy Queen sign in this image is most definitely a huge fail on their part, but made many say WTF! Or was good for another chuckle to many others.

Here was an interesting image which shows 4 different Newsweek covers, and obviously you can see exactly why mainstream American media sucks (and the exact reason people are embracing social networks for unbiased news).

Last but not least in interesting social media stories we have the girl who was arrested for swearing during a 911 call. I’ll let the video do the talking.

Hope you enjoyed our wrap-up…until next week!