This week’s most talked about social media tools

This is the 12th of a weekly series, in which every week, we look at five social media tools and platforms that have created some buzz over the last week.

This week’s edition is headlined by a site that combines photography with gamification, a badge that should make pitching to bloggers a little easier and a video status update site that is being ‘touted’ as the next big thing.

I reckon we should take a closer look, don’t you?

1. Your social photo activity ranked and rated thanks to Photorank.me – How many different online places do you publish your photos? Well, if you use Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Instagram or PicPlz you can now aggregate all your pics into the one stream and then see how your photos rank against your friends (criteria includes quality, popularity, audience etc). Check out the parent company’s about page for more information.

2. Generate a privacy policy for your website with Iubenda.com – In three simple steps, Iubenda allows you to generate a privacy policy for your website that ticks all the relevant legal boxes. It is in private beta at present but you can sign up for early access here.

3. Will video status updates be the next big thing thanks to Tout.com? The best way to describe Tout.com is ‘Twitter for mobile video’ – in other words, instead of communicating in a short text-based format, you are given the ability to share a 15 second video message with your friends in an instant.

4. Give your content a style and presentation makeover with Jux.com – Instead of telling you about this one, I’ve used it to create an alternate version of this post – what do you think?? And, here are another six reasons why you should consider using Jux.com.

5. Let people know if you accept pitches with BlogPitchingSymbol.com – Andy Merchant and Henry Elliss have launched a nifty way of telling people whether certain blogs accept content / story pitches. Simply feature a badge that says ‘yes, you do’ or ‘no, we don’t’ on your blog and it should make a lot of people’s lives a helluva lot easier. It also allows for some basic customization beneath the main text giving visitors an idea of the exact things you might want to be approached about.

Disclosure: I’m part of the broader team involved with this project.

Bonus links

It’s been a big week so let’s also tell you about some other new tools doing the rounds…

6. Booshaka.com – A ‘klout-type’ service for Facebook influence

7. Minus.com– Store and share big files for free (another DropBox alternative)

8. EmbedPlus.com – YouTube playback and editing on steroids

9. ShortStack.com – Build customer Facebook tabs and pages for free (detailed review coming soon)

10. Social Radar from  – Ifegy – Social media monitoring and analytics (detailed review coming soon)

That should keep you busy for a while!