Here’s this week’s round-up of social media (& tech) news. Come by each week for what I hope to be a fun & informative blog post on social stories that caught my eye throughout the week!

• This is huge. Getty Images, the world’s largest photo service, just made its pictures free to use. Now that’s one very impressive, forward-thinking way to tackle Internet copyright issues.

• A new study looks at device behaviour and finds most people use multiple devices a day, and if they start something on one device they’ll finish it on another.

• Pinterest is being transparent – details information requests from government. (Except government doesn’t turn to Pinterest too often to gather info).

• It’s a long-time coming but Facebook has finally released its news feed re-design, a year after some accounts got it as beta. My account has been with this ‘redesign’ forever! Mike just got his today. He says it’s weird. I’m used to it, lol.

Facebook’s rolling out its “new” redesign (even though I’ve had it for a year!) Photo credit: Mashable/Facebook

• This reminds me of Nexopia’s Recent Views function. Anyone remember Nexopia? lol LinkedIn has updated its ‘who’s viewed your profile’ section, adding personalized tips for how users can generate more profile views.

• Who does Yahoo think it is? The company will block Google & Facebook accounts from accessing its services. Yahoo you are irrelevant.

• Flipboard buys competitotr Zite from CNN, as the company continues to rapidly expand.

• Lol this is really stupid. 11% of Americans think HTML is an STD.

• An interesting take on the Newsweek/Satoshi Nakamoto mess. Poor guy. There should NOT have been a car chase for this story. Ridiculous.

• I thought this was interesting: Here’s what happens when readers choose the front page story.

UNICEF’s Tap Project gives water to children in need.

• Neat app making a real difference: If you put down your smartphone for 10 minutes, a child will get a day’s worth of clean drinking water.

• I’m so jealous of everyone who got to meet Grumpy Cat at SXSW. P.S. She hated meeting you. Lol!

• I’m surprised this wasn’t a rule before but Twitter now prohibits posting of sexually explicit videos on Vine.

• The Amazon effect: Staples to close 225 stores, focus on online sales.

• Ah-mazing. This photographer just made $15,000 in one day on Instagram.

• Check out this week’s Cat Saturday photos! My favourites are 1, 6, 13, 21, 30, 31!!

Thoughts on these stories? Tweet @ me or leave a comment below!

Linda

Follow @lindork