#Newsfeed: A free MP3 download of Taylor Swift’s Reputation end up on Google Maps; Twitter suspends verifications after faux pas; Instagram will soon let users follow hashtags
Plus why it’s time to stop trusting Google search.
Step aside Yelp, there’s a new event and venue discovery app in town. Facebook has rebranded its standalone Events app as “Facebook Local” in the US, combining events and permanent places to a single search engine powered by Facebook’s 70 million business pages plus reviews and friends’ checkins. Inside Facebook’s main app, the Nearby feature that’s buried in the More tab is getting rebranded as Local] too, with the aim to “make it a lot easier to do certain kind of looks ups that are very common when making plans with friends,” Facebook Local product manager Aditya Koolwal told TechCrunch.
Read more about this rebranding here.
It appears Instagram will soon let users follow hashtags in addition to accounts. Spotted by social media consultant Pippa Akram, the feature could also begin to influence the performance of posts even further by adding to the platform’s algorithm.
Read the article in full here.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Taylor Swift’s latest album would face increased piracy. But it took an evil genius to start hiding free MP3s of the album on Google Maps. Ironically, the Google Map embed boosts the album visibility within Google Search… all of which boosts visibility to the link posted to Google Maps. Thus the cycle of increasing discovery continues, with one particular link has already been viewed more than 13,000 times, according to Google’s count.
Read more about this story here.
- Facebook relaunches Events app as Facebook Local, adds bars and food [via TechCrunch]
- Facebook added a ‘crisis donate button’ to help disaster victims [via Mashable]
- Facebook’s Not Listening Through Your Phone. It Doesn’t Have To [via WIRED]
- Facebook adds hundreds of thousands of new listings for apartment hunters [via Digital Trends]
- Artist’s ‘sexual’ robin redbreast Christmas cards banned by Facebook [via The Guardian]
- Twitter fixes another important problem with support for 50-character usernames [via TechCrunch]
- How Do You Get Verified on Twitter? Platform Suspends Blue Ticks After Uproar Over Charlottesville Rally Organiser [via Newsweek]
- Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ Gets More Than 1.5 Million Tweets in 24 Hours [via Billboard]
- Instagram will soon let users follow hashtags in addition to accounts [via Digital Trends]
- Imagining Instagram: Stories-first [via TechCrunch]
- I’m Instagram famous, and I have crippling body image issues [via Quartz]
- The Spice Girls reportedly set for 2018 reunion and new album [via NME]
- Get Your Free MP3 Download of Taylor Swift’s ‘Reputation’ — On Google Maps [via Digital Music News]
- Eminem guests on first episode of Rick Rubin & Malcolm Gladwell’s Broken Record podcast [via Consequence of Sound]
- JAY-Z convinced Beyonce to feature on Eminem’s new track [via Music-News]
- Noise grows over potential $3bn sale of EMI Music Publishing [via Music Business Worldwide]
- Spotify poaches Deezer’s CEO of EMEA, Michael Krause [via Music Business Worldwide]
- Musical.ly Is Crashing — Just Like Vine, Dubsmash & Snapchat Before It [via Digital Music News]
- YouTube finally blocks a known terrorist propagandist from its site [via Mashable]
- Snapchat’s epic strategy flip-flop [via TechCrunch]
- LinkedIn launches campaign encouraging Aussies to be more open at work [via Mumbrella]
- Join friends and family for a group purchase with PayPal’s new Money Pools [via Digital Trends]
- It’s time to stop trusting Google search already [via The Verge]
- ‘Nine is a content company’, CEO Hugh Marks tells shareholders [via Mumbrella]
- New York Times Best-Selling Author Simon Sinek on How Millennials Can Thrive [via Thrive Global]
JADEN JAM: You could own Paul McCartney, Lorde, Mac DeMarco, and Ed Sheeran’s shoes (and support a deserving charity in the process).