Platform Five – This week’s hottest social media platforms and tools
It’s time for our weekly look into the social media platforms and tools that have been making news.
As usual, about half of the news came from the bigger players like Facebook and Google, and the other half originated from ambitious startups trying to break into the space.
This week we’re going to specifically look at Deck.ly, Ge.tt, Facebook’s group buying venture, Instagram, Rupert Murdoch’s iPad newspaper and couple of bonus looks.
1. Deck.ly to give Twitter more character(s)? TweetDeck is one of the world’s most popular social media dashboards, especially amongst Twitter users, so the news of a rival Twitter platform being developed by the team behind TweetDeck came as a bit of a surprise. One of the features includes being able to send messages longer than 140 characters. More informational available at TheNextWeb.
2. Got files? Get Ge.tt – File sharing is the latest slice of the digital space getting startups excited, especially on the back of the increasingly popularity of DropBox. Ge.tt allows you to turn any web content into a file and share it in ‘real-time’. The simplicity of this service may make it a popular choice in the long run.
3. Facebook group buying on the way? Groupon continues to be the story of 2011 and Facebook seems to be taking notice with rumors of an impending launch of a service that will enable friends to buy things together. Startups are also all over the group buying phenomenon but adding little wrinkles. An interesting example from this week was Philanthroper which aims to be a Groupon for charities.
4. Instagram puts tags on itself - Instagram, the increasingly popular photo sharing service for iPhone users, continues to evolve and get better equipped for brand integration. The upgrade they made this week allows content to be ‘tagged’ giving it use and value outside of the Instagram platform. Keep your eye on this one.
5. The Daily given a launch day – Rupert Murdoch’s iPad newspaper, The Daily, is creeping closer to reality with an official launch day announced (2 February in New York). There’s been plenty of speculation as to what The Daily will actually consist of, and it looks like we’ll know for sure in a couple of weeks.
There were a couple of additional stories doing the rounds this week that are worth taking note of:
Dwolla – a more social version of PayPal – was in the news
Rumours were rife that a Facebook phone from HTC was in development
LinkedIn launched a nifty tool that allows you to visualise your networks
There you have it!
Until next time…
Check out the previous instalments of Platform Five here.
