Facebook Page owners this week have noticed that their Page Insights data has not been updated since last week, as far back as May 13. Facebook has confirmed the issue with The Next Web and is currently working on a fix.

“Page Insights data from 5/13 onward is currently delayed in Page Insights,” a Facebook spokesperson told TNW. “This is a known issue, and we are working to update our systems ASAP.”

In a thread on the Facebook Community Forum, over 30 comments were posted this Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday as users realized the issue has persisted for much longer than it should have. While the thread was started six months ago by a user seeing a similar issue last year, all replies on it have been about the issue from this week from users searching for an explanation.

The only reply from a Facebook Help Team employee by the name of “Aiden.” He pointed to a Help Center link with this explanation:

When you visit your Page Insights, you should see data about how people have been using your Page. It takes about 2 days for today’s data to start showing up. If your Page’s insights aren’t loading correctly, let us know.

Our Community Director Matt Navarra checked our own Facebook Page and found that it isn’t showing Insight Data past May 15. Another commenter noted that she wasn’t seeing data beyond the 13th until today, when it updated to the 15th — either way it’s still more than a week behind.

Given that this issue has been going on for 11 days, Page owners are understandably getting frustrated as they are unable to track their campaigns and promotions. This prompted us to look into the problem and get in touch with Facebook for a better explanation.

We’ll update this article when the company fixes the issue and if it shares more details.

See also – Facebook adds realtime Page updates and Graph Search insights for developers

Top Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Foursquare and Gnip on Thursday together announced a partnership that will see the former’s check-in data distributed to the latter’s clients. Foursquare is giving Gnip a real-time feed of the places where its users are checking in, which will naturally be anonymized for privacy purposes.

Details of the financial arrangement were not disclosed. That being said, we do know Gnip will charge its customers for access to data from Foursquare, which in turn will get a percentage of the sales.

So what information exactly will Foursquare let Gnip sell? Three separate pieces of data:

• Each check-in’s location (for instance, Stop & Shop).
• The time and date of the check-in (April 30, 2013 at 11:03pm GMT) .
• The gender of the person checking in (male).

Again, the check-ins are not tied to individual users. The technical-looking output looks like this:

Foursquare says it regularly gets requests from people who want to use its data for research. The company has worked with select academic institutions and press outlets on data research projects in the past, which it says have “shed new insight and to effect positive change in how the real world works.”

The Gnip partnership goes further, however, than just research purposes. For those who don’t know, Gnip is an aggregation company that provides data from dozens of social media websites via one API.

Foursquare will be joining Gnip’s growing list of premium publishers, including Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Disqus, IntenseDebate, StockTwits, and Estimize. Gnip says it is offering both the full firehose and filtered access of Foursquare’s data.

Foursquare envisions market research firms using it to get a real-time pulse on holiday shopping trends, and social media marketing agencies tracking the impact of a national chain’s Super Bowl campaign. Gnip says retailers will be able to study the results of local advertising campaigns, financial analysts will have another valuable data point to forecast seasonal sales, and real estate development groups will be able to better understand where they should develop new locations.

Researchers will also be able to use it for various purposes, including, according to Foursquare, “better understanding a neighborhood’s evolution as the types and popularity of local businesses change.” That’s the type of findings we’d love to hear more about.

“We are capturing this amazing signal about what millions of people are doing in the real world at every moment of the day in cities all around the globe,” Blake Shaw, Foursquare’s data scientist, told Gnip. “We have seen that when we aggregate check-in patterns across many individuals, we can measure features of cities at a higher resolution than was ever possible before. I think this data can act almost like a ‘microscope for cities.’”

It’s thus no surprise Gnip seems quite positive about the partnership: “With more than 35 million registered users, nearly 4 billion total check-ins, and over 75 million API calls a day, Foursquare is the location layer for the Internet, helping to connect people with places around the world.”

Top Image Credit: Andrew Beierle

Earlier Today, Twitter announced its Lead Generation product, making it easy for anyone to post offers to Twitter and have people claim them without having to leave Twitter.com.

Shortly after, a job ad posted to Twitter, with the ability to apply for the position without leaving Twitter.com was brought to our attention.

We believe it’s the first job listing to allows candidates to apply for the role without having to venture anywhere but the tweet page itself. We’ve attempted to get absolute confirmation from Twitter but the company’s response was “this isn’t something we can help you with.” Given the fact that Twitter’s Lead Generation features only launched a few hours ago, I think it’s fair to say this is the first.

Check out a screenshot of the job posting below and the link to it here. We woud have embedded the tweet but it seems the lead generation section isn’t a part of embedded tweets just yet.

Note: clicking “find out more” will send your email address to Demonware, the company hiring, and Zartis,  the recruitment software company behind the listing itself (Disclosure: Zartis is the company behind our TNW Job Board).

Expect to see many many more of these. And as more appear, expect job hunters to include links to their CV in their Twitter profile, as well as more information about their skills, interests and passions.

Update:

Zartis CEO John Dennehy has reported back to us to say “”I can tell you without any doubt: we’ve got a better response to the Twitter ad tonight than anything we’ve ever seen.” Given the fact that this is something of a novelty, it’s hardly surprising. But a sign of its potential as a recruitment platform? Perhaps.

Image Credit / ThinkStock

Nothing out of the norm so far.

However, within 24 hours, she’d received a video from a competing bank, Barclays, effectively singing for her business but also promoting Bespoke Offers, its new personalised UK shopping service.

Watch:

It was Old Spice that captured everyone’s attention back in 2010 with a similar idea, but credit to Barclays for working harder than other banks for business, and being creative with it at that.

Worth noting that Mel is somewhat of a “social media influencer” and that Barclays were probably aware of that.

Editor’s note: This article by Liam Boogar originally appeared on Rude Baguette, which covers the Internet and technology sector in France, combining breaking news with in-depth analysis.

Female-friendly social network Pinterest already announced earlier this month that after their big push in the UK, France was up next – according to this job post that appeared this week, “next” is now.

The standard Country Manager position, Pinterest is looking for someone with a strong social media background and the ability to research the market, localize the product, and build a team from the ground up.

However, what they don’t tell you on the job listing, is that the Pinterest team is coming to Paris this month.

Speaking with Sara Martineau, French community coordinator based out of San Francisco, she tells me that, after having launched the “Pin it Forward” campaign in the UK, “We plan to do the same for France in just about a month.”

In order to get a better feel for the market, “The team going to Paris to meet bloggers will include [Sara], and four other members of the Community Team.”

It seems that Pinterest is quick to roll out its expansion in Paris, so this job may not stay open for a long time – the team will be out in Paris from late may through early June, so if you’re looking to get an interview in, now may be the time.

Meanwhile, it seems that fellow social network Twitter has been delayed in its presence in France.

While some say there are already up to four team members working at the Twitter France office, an official country manager of France has yet to be announced – perhaps they’re waiting for some of the French tech drama to subside.

Hopefully Pinterest’s entrance into the market will be more welcome – they have yet to be pursued by the French government for tax evasion, but all things in due time.

Image credit: Thinkstock

Google on Tuesday announced a redesign of its Google+ social network for the mobile Web. The revamp is meant to bring the mobile version of Google+ in line with the last redesign of the service.

Here’s what’s new:

• Posts now appear as “cards” in the stream, making it easier to read, +1 and re-share them.
• We’ve also redesigned the Profile and Page experiences to include cover photos, larger tap targets, and much more.

More importantly, here’s how all that looks:

As you can see, posts are now shown as cards, just like on Google+ for the desktop. Furthermore, the right-most screenshot above shows the addition of cover photos, which both profiles and pages now utilize. Larger tap targets are only really noticeable if you’re using the social network on a touchscreen device.

Last week at Google I/O 2013, the company announced 41 new features that affect the Stream, Hangouts, and Photos sections of the service. An Android app update followed yesterday and the mobile Web version has been updated today.

Many have noted that the emphasis on cards makes the service look like Pinterest. Whether you agree with that or not, Google+ is now more consistent across desktop, apps, and the mobile Web, although the iOS app has yet to join the fray (though it has had cards for a while now).

Personally, I find the new design to be worse than what Google+ offered before. On my low-resolution monitor, there is simply less content displayed, which results in a lot more scrolling.

On a mobile screen that is usually held vertically, this may be okay. Still, just because something works on mobile doesn’t mean it should be forced on the desktop.

See also – Google targets mobile Web publishers with content recommendation tool built on Google+ activity

Top Image Credit: Kimihiro Hoshino / Getty Images

Facebook on Monday announced the release of its native Share Dialog, which lets iOS developers add sharing capabilities from the social network to their app with just one line of code. The feature is now available in the Facebook SDK for iOS, which you can download directly from here.

The Share Dialog also improves upon the iOS 6 share sheet by adding support for publishing Open Graph actions. While app developers will certainly appreciate that adding the functionality only requires one line of code, the real advantage is for users.

The Share Dialog means users can share activity from an app straight to Facebook without needing to login to the social network first. Facebook claims this eliminates one to three extra steps required for login when sharing via the feed dialog.

At the same time, it means Facebook users can tag friends, and overall use a better sharing dialog box from within apps. For users, Facebook says this translates into “a more meaningful and engaging” experience while for developers, the company says it means “even more people connect with your app.”

Ever since introducing the Share button, Facebook has been pushing it as a more expansive version of the Like button. It’s a smart move to keep Likes around while also offering Shares for those users who want to do more than just quickly show they appreciate a piece of content.

At the same time, because the Share button offers so many more options, it works great for spreading Facebook content with the potential of having it go viral. If you’re an app developer, you might want to be part of such an ecosystem, an idea which the company naturally wants to encourage.

In the grand scheme of things, this a small update to the Facebook SDK for iOS (this is version 3.5.1 while 3.5 arrived last month). Still, Facebook likely wants to break it out separately because the company hopes the dropped beta tag will spur some adoption from iOS app developers.

Top Image Credit: Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

It’s done, ladies and gentlemen.

As expected, Yahoo this morning announced its acquisition of blogging phenomenon Tumblr. The Internet giant has bought the six-year old New York company for “approximately $1.1 billion”, substantially all of which will be paid in cash.

The news is in line with earlier reports from AllThingsD, which first broke the news of sale talks between both parties, as well as the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Amusingly, the press release says:

“Per the agreement and our promise not to screw it up, Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business.”

Founder David Karp will remain at the helm as Tumblr’s CEO.

He’ll also be worth a heck of a lot more.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer even took to Tumblr to repeat the promise of ‘not screwing up’ the marriage. Time will tell; as for the deal, it is expected to close in the second half of this year.

First ever acquisition announced by animated gif :) @yahoo is acquiring @tumblr. finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-acq…#keepcalmandcarryon

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) May 20, 2013

As for Karp’s blog post on the matter, you can find it here. Don’t read it if you’re uncomfortable with the F-word. That would be ‘fuck’ by the way.

Meanwhile, Yahoo moved its corporate blog over to Tumblr. A great sign.

That’s the gist of the news, folks, although here are some interesting stats and figures from the press release while you make up your mind whether this is a brilliant or idiotic move, or somewhere in between.

With more than 300 million monthly unique visitors and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr is one of the fastest-growing media networks in the world. Tumblr sees 900 posts per second (!) and 24 billion minutes spent on site each month.

On mobile, more than half of Tumblr’s users are using the mobile app and do an average of 7 sessions per day. Its tremendous popularity and engagement among creators, curators and audiences of all ages brings a significant new community of users to the Yahoo! network.

The combination of Tumblr+Yahoo! is expected to grow Yahoo!’s audience by 50 percent to more than a billion monthly visitors, and to grow traffic by approximately 20 percent.

The deal offers unique opportunities for both companies. Tumblr can deploy Yahoo!’s personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love.

In turn, Tumblr brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more arriving each day) to Yahoo!’s media network and search experiences.

The two companies will also work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance the user experience.

Top Image Credit: Yahoo! Blog

Pinterest has announced an interesting piece of news that sees its popular social sharing site begin to categorize pins based on different types of content, while a share button for third-party mobile apps has also been launched.

“From your feed, you can tell when a pin has more information by the icon that appears below the picture,” the company explains on its blog.

Pinterest is starting out with three categories which will each get their own dedicated pins to help make it easier for users to identify the kind of content included. They will be used by an ten initial partners – including Etsy, Fotopedia and Snapguide — and the pins will also include further pertinent details for users, as follows:

• Product pins for things like clothes and furniture with pricing, availability, and where to buy (updated every day!)

• Recipe pins from your favorite bloggers and websites that include cook time, ingredients, and servings

• Movie pins with content ratings, cast members, and more

As well as effecting new pins going forward, existing pins will also be categorized to make things more organized. The move is one that will be of particular interest to brands and companies that are looking to tap into the strong community of users that frequent the site.

Companies that use the new pins are not being charged to do so, a Pinterest representative told GigaOm, but the move is being made to make links more “actionable”. That, essentially, is designed to increase engagement and traffic that brands see from the site, and its a crucial element for Pinterest as it continues to explore strategies to draw revenue from its estimated 48 million monthly users worldwide.

Pinterest says that “this is just the beginning” of their efforts to make pins “more useful” and that we can expect to see more changes over the next few months.

One of those additional changes is the introduction of ‘Pin it’ buttons for other companies’ mobile apps, to make sharing content to the site all the more seamless. For now, that’s limited the aforementioned ten partners, but other companies can get the ball rolling by visiting the dedicated developer site here.

Pinterest users that want to enjoy the new categorized pins need to install the ‘Get it now’ button at the top of their home feed.

What do you think of the new buttons – do they improve your user experience on Pinterest?

Headline image via hydropeek / Flickr

Instagram on Thursday reminded all its users that today is the day its new “Photos of You” section is being turned on for everyone. This means everyone who can currently see your profile is now able to see all the pictures that you have been tagged in.

The feature was first announced two weeks ago but was only available if you chose to opt-in. Now it’s available for everyone, but thankfully you can choose whether photos others add of you appear on your profile automatically or only once you select them.

If you don’t want pictures of you to show up automatically, turn on the option to manually select which photos appear on your profile by following these three steps:

1. Go to your profile and tap the icon for all photos you’re tagged in.
2. Tap the Android menu icon or the iPhone wrench icon in the top-right corner.
3. Tap “Add Manually.”

These instructions remind us that Instagram is still not available for Windows Phone nor BlackBerry. We still think this will change in the coming months, as bringing in more potential users is always more important than adding incremental features like this one:

The new “Photos of You” section is clearly influenced by Facebook, Instagram’s parent company. The world’s largest social network has been keeping track of photos people are tagged in for years. On Instagram though, only the taker of a photo is able to tag people in it, unlike on Facebook where other people can suggest tags of themselves or others.

It’s also one of those features that will be useful whenever Instagram finally decides to offer a full-blown website. There needs to be more on those large screens than just photos and ads.

See also – An inside look at Instagram’s brand new cleaner, more professional logo and Thanks to Facebook Home, HTC First is the first phone to pre-load Instagram

Top Image Credit: Elliot Bennett

Yahoo on Thursday announced a new partnership with Twitter that will see tweets brought directly into the company’s homepage newsfeed. The new integration will be rolling out “over the next few days” on Yahoo’s US site, available to both desktop and mobile Web users.

Yahoo says it plans to include “relevant and personalized tweets” alongside its stories. If the partnership bears fruit, however, it’s fair to say Yahoo will look to expand it to its mobile apps as well as overseas.

If you’re in the US, here’s what to look for on the Yahoo homepage (notice the third item in the middle column):

Yahoo’s justification for the inclusion of tweets is fairly straightforward. The company sees the social network as a source for news, and since its homepage is still largely centered around delivering just that to its users, adding Twitter support is just one of many steps in its attempt to become relevant again.

“Updates direct from politicians, celebrities, media outlets, and other publishers have become an important source of real-time news and information,” Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer said in a statement. “140 characters can connect athletes with their fans, capture live chatter from the red carpet, and inspire global debate.”

Details of the deal were not disclosed, though if money was exchanged it’s very likely Twitter was on the receiving end as Yahoo has more to gain in this case. If its editors can keep up with the constant stream of content on the social network, and choose pertinent ones in a timely manner, Twitter might be able to give Yahoo’s homepage new life.

That being said, Twitter also gets quite a bit from the deal: Yahoo users will not only be exposed to more tweets, but they can also discover interesting people and publishers to follow on Twitter. Details on how the integration will work on Yahoo’s homepage were not revealed, though it’s likely Twitter users will be offered more personalized content if they’re signed in.

Top Image Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images