Reddit is certainly one of the fastest growing social networks around. The platform’s upvote feature has made the network the go-to website for anyone who wants to know the most important news of the day. It has also become an avenue where influential people connect to their followers to what is called an AMA (Ask Me Anything).

This week, the social networking site is expanding its range by becoming a content producer through Reddit Original Video. And if you’re thinking that it’s just another YouTube competitor, then think again. Reddit is positioning Original Video not as a user-generated platform but as a content delivery platform, which the company’s production team will create themselves.

By the looks of it, Reddit won’t host the videos on their own server and instead they will upload their videos to another site such as YouTube and capitalize on ads.  

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Facebook may now be transitioning to a new phase when it comes to its business model, well, at least for its chat app. The social networking giant today announced that its messaging client will soon have the ability to send money to other people.

Transactions will be completed using either a credit or debit card, which the user needs to register in his account before any money can be send over the air. Once a card is registered, Facebook will generate a PIN which needs to be entered every time the user wants to send money.

In terms of security, Facebook says the connection between your device and their server is encrypted so users need not worry about your sensitive financial information being compromised. At the moment, the feature is only available in the US and in the desktop and iOS version of the app.

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Twitter-owned Tweetdeck experienced a massive technical issue today as the platform experienced an XSS (cross site scripting) security flaw that enabled hackers to access users’ account and remotely access or implant JavaScript code.

So far, the hackers were able to add annoying pop-ups on a user’s Twitter feed or automatically tweet or retweet from a hacked account. Twitter has then advised users who were affected by the issue to log in and log out of Tweetdeck and check if the issue persists.

Unfortunately, there are still reports from users that the problem hasn’t been fixed. Twitter has momentarily taken down Tweetdeck in order to “assess” the security breach. A few hours after, the social networking site has issued a security fix and re-activated Tweetdeck for all users and issued an apologetic tweet.

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Have you ever had a friend who just can’t stop tweeting about everything that’s happening in his life to the point that it’s the only thing that you can see in your timeline, but you’re not too keen on unfollowing him/her because you’re afraid to hurt his feelings? Well Twitter has finally heard your agony and has introduced today the Mute function.

With the added feature, users can now filter their feeds by muting other users whose updates they deem not relevant. Once a user is muted, his tweets will no longer appear on the timeline although they can still see, reply or retweet updates from the person who muted them.

The user will also not know that another user has muted them and the process is fully reversible in case the person wishes to see the users tweets again in the future. According to Twitter, the feature will soon rollout to Twitter users on the web and the company’s mobile apps.

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We all know for a fact that Facebook and other social networking site is flooded by information from different internet sources and one of the main issues by regular users of the site pertains to stories being pushed down as newer updates come in. Fortunately, Facebook is now rolling out an update that solves this through a new feature called Story Bump.

Previously, Facebook evaluates the most recent posts on the network by ranking the posts based on a specific set of criteria including the number of likes and comments on the post, the relationship between the reader and the poster and the type of post to name a few. With the Story Bump feature, relevant posts will be pushed back to the top of the list giving them a second chance to be seen by the user and will effectively improve the overall user experience by providing users with content that is most relevant to them.

According to the engineering manager of Facebook’s News Feeds team, a lot of internal tests were done before rolling out the feature. To be specific, initial tests show that Story Bumping has increased the number of likes, comments and shares on stories from friends by 5%. It also boosted interactions for stories from Pages and public figures by 8%. Lastly, there was an increase of around 13% in terms of story visibility.

Aside from Story Bumps, Facebook also announced today the addition of a “Last Actor Signal” to its relevancy computations. This means that the social network will now evaluate the last 50 interaction by a user and utilizing this data to determine which stories should be on top of the news feed.

And last but certainly not the least, the social networking giant also announced that it will soon publicize its news feed algorithm updates the same way that Google and Bing are announcing their algorithm updates for its search engines. 

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Video on Instagram might have temporarily stolen the limelight from Vine these past few weeks, but the Twitter-owned video sharing app is back with a vengeance as it launches its biggest update since its launch in January.

The update aims to bring functionality that further enhances the app in terms of its usability and ability to connect people with one another. In terms of usability, the update brings a set of camera tools including a camera grid, focus capability and ghost tools that help viners shoot videos easier.

Vine is also adding 15 new channels where viners can submit their posts to or browse from the Explore screen. Each of these channels has their own theme and Popular feed which is a great way to get discovered on the network. There’s also an “On the Rise” section where people can check out other viners who are gaining popularity in Vine.

The update will now also allow users to easily “re-vine” their videos with a single tap on a button. Last but definitely not the least, the Vine app will now have an option to allow users protect their posts. People who want a little privacy in their account can now choose to only share videos to the people they are connected to.

Unfortunately, the 6-second time limit for capturing videos is still in place and there are still no in-house editing options available for the app. The update is now available to iOS users with the Android update to follow shortly after.

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Microsoft’s app marketplace for its operating systems (Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8) has made some great milestones this week. Not only has the number of apps available in the market place grown to 100,000 in just a little over 8 months but the Redmond company’s app store is also adding in its list of apps the first official app from Facebook.

The app is entitled Facebook 5.0 and is the first official app from the social networking giant. Before Facebook 5.0, there were only third-party apps available on the WP8 marketplace that users can install in order to check their Facebook profiles and most of these apps lack important features found in versions of Facebook in Android or iOS.

Microsoft representatives say that the WP8 FB app brings a different look and functionality that is unique to the operating system and maximizes the features of the tile-based Metro UI of Windows Phone 8.

The app was previously available as a beta version and was announced during Microsoft’s BUILD developer conference which was held two weeks ago in San Francisco, California. The app is now available in the Windows market place and is compatible with Windows Phone 8 and Windows Phone 7.5 devices.

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