Ok, so not sure if anyone else is as excited as I am about this, but Pinterest is soon going to be introducing shoppable Pins. Yep, you heard right. The future has arrived! This is amazing, not just because it’s going to make my life sooooo much better (ever been in that place where you can’t for the life of you work out where someone has bought that dress or necklace they pinned? I have, it’s very annoying!); it’s also going to open so many doors for the hoards of brands that have been tapping into the benefits of using the social platform – it’s also going to see so many more start using it.

But that’s not all, not only will you be able to simply tap a button to buy ‘that dress’, you’ll also be able to save items for later and even buy ingredients for recipes! How Pinterest-ing!

Here’s how Pinterest says it will work:

See the blue ‘Buy it’ button? If your item shows this, you’re good to go! You can even use the price filter to hone down on the right Pin and also find the right colour within the Pin itself, just swipe! Score!

The app works with Apple Pay or a credit card and has the option to store payment information within the software itself via a third party so you don’t have to worry about tapping it in every time or that your device or Apple Pay will send your actual card number to the seller. Very simple and secure. Wowsers, these guys have thought of everything!

Unfortunately for the rest of the world, only the U.S. will able to start using the ‘Buy it’ option over the next few weeks and to start with, it will only be available on iPhones and iPads – Android users, standard that you get the even shorter straw, you won’t be able to start shopping just yet, Pinterest has promised you’ll see them in future releases – whenever that will be! Macy’s and Nordstrom are a couple of the brands already signed up, but if you’re a brand interested in how this can support your sales, there’s more info on Pinterest’s business blog.

Happy pinning and shopping America! We are so jealous!

Here are today’s Likes and Fails!

Likes

Google Play has increased its refund window on the play store to 2 hours. This means that you can now try out an app for 2 hours on your device and if you’re not happy with it you can get a refund from the store and it will be uninstalled from your device. They had apparently already been offering this service but now there has been an official announcement from the company. Before the change was made Android users only had 15 minutes to decide whether they wanted to keep the app. This is obviously quite a short period to get a feel for an app, and say if you were distracted by something like a phone call then you may miss the refund window.

Google have made a great decision in doing this, the two hour window is much more reasonable to return an app. So once you’ve paid and downloaded an app the page for the app on the store displays the choices ‘Open’ to open the app and ‘Refund’. the refund button will be displayed there for 120 minutes after the purchase. After this time it will change to an uninstall button which will mean you can no longer receive the refund. Also if you change your mind and decide to buy it again you can’t at this point receive another refund.

Fails

A father with a very ill 2 month old son has been working tirelessly on Facebook and other Social Media to help find his son a heart donor for a transplant which he desperately needs. Recently on Facebook the man decided to boost a recent post which involved a picture of his baby in the post. Obviously as his child is not very well and has a heart condition, he has medical tubes all around him, but it looks as if Facebook didn’t take this into account when they banned the advert because they thought it was ‘Graphic’.

As you can see from the image above the reasoning compares the image to scary, graphic images, which it clearly is not and clearly it brought up an emotional response from the boys father. He was upset that Facebook had described the photo of his son in this way as well as taking out crucial time from the advert posting.

Not cool Facebook.

As the story hit the media Facebook issued an apology and reinstated the advert on the site. However the father did say that noone from Facebook had contacted him directly and that he’d only heard about the apology through the press. So though they did the right thing by reinstating the advert they could have been a little more caring with these people’s feelings and sent them an apology.

Good morning, we’re here to bring you the hottest and the not-test in Social Media today. Today we’re looking at Sanpchat’s expansion plans as well as a Brazilian judge’s agenda to get Secret removed from Google and Apple app stores as well as all phones!

Likes

Snapchat is looking to expand their app’s offering. Currently the app has no way of generating revenue, so the first option one may think of is to introduce advertising to the app, which is one of the avenues that Snapchat will be exploring, but there are other plans too. The rumours are that Snapchat want to introduce a sort of ‘snap news’ to the app. The service is apparently to be called Snapchat Discovery and would allow users to read daily editions of publications as well as look at pictures and video clips associated with the stories by holding down on the images like you normally would in the app. The company has apparently been in talks with dozens of online content providers, with publications such as the Mail Online in talks to provide content on the app.

If Snapchat were to link up with other content poviders it would definitely make it more appealing to advertisers. The Snapchat Discovery feature will likely be the first feature of the app to offer ‘sponsored’ stories, another opportunity for brands to promote themselves and their advertisements.

This is a good move for the company which has now been running for 3 years and continues to grow it’s user base everyday. It will likely offer the app it’s first revenue, and help to build the company up even more.

Fails

 A Brazilian judge has ruled that Apple and Google must remove the app Secret from all of their local devices and app stores. The judge was reportedly pushed too far by one case where bullying and intimidation had been happening on the app and the only way to solve this was to order Apple and Google to remove the app locally. The app is usually used to anonymously share gossip, or personal thoughts without them linking to yourself.

If Apple and Google don’t agree to remove the app then they will penalized by the Brazilian court for around $9,000 a day, that’s not a load of money in terms of the amount of revenue these companies make, but it may be easier in the long run if the just remove the app from local app stores and phones to remove themselves from the charges.

The request is definitely one that the two companies can fulfill, they’ve removed apps from their respective stores before and they can technically pull or block software that is installed on their gadgets. Though this is only usually used if the there is a malware outbreak.

So we’ll have to wait and see if the companies remove the app, pay up or instead contest the ruling, which seems likely in the circumstances.

Here’s today’s Likes and Fails, with a look at Samsung’s new funny advert which pokes fun at iPhone users & a look at the Facebook hoax which is currently making the rounds regarding the missing MH370 flight.

Likes

Samsung’s most recent advert pokes fun at iPhone users, shock horror, they’ve never done that before! This time they’ve focused on the fact that the iPhone users are often ‘wall huggers’, implying that they’re constantly attached to wall socket because their iPhone isn’t so great on battery life. The advert is very funny, taking place in what looks like an airport it shows travellers slumped against a wall using their phones as well as Samsung users enjoying their S5s phones while they sit in waiting rooms and restaurants. The advert was launched by Samsung’s US branch along with the help of the agency 72 and Sunny.

Fails

A Facebook hoax has been fooling some on the site, and it plays on everyone’s fascination with the missing MH370 flight. The link shows up in a user’s news feed saying that a sailor has just found the missing flight in the ocean and that you can watch the video if you click through. Once a user has clicked through they are asked to share the link to their timeline before they can view the video, they’re then asked to do survey after survey to ‘watch the video’, but of course there is no video because it’s not true. Also watch out because some of the surveys ask for a mobile number which will subscribe you to an expensive text messaging service.

Family’s of the 239 missing on the plane are currently trying to raise $5 million as reward for any evidence of the flight, as well as putting it into a private investigation to find out what really happened on the flight so that they can closure.

Here we are, Monday afternoon, the weather is still fine and we’re bringing you the hottest Likes and Fails of today!

Likes

Adidas have launched a new app which allows you to customize your new pair of sneaks with one of your Instagram photographs! The app was announced on Adidas’s Instagram account and on their website. The instagram video they posted said that the app would be available in August 2014 and would easily allow you to transfer your Instagram snaps to their popular ZXFlux style trainers. They say that the app will be available on both Android and Apple devices at the release date.

But the option of adding your own photos to your trainers makes the possibilities endless. You could have your recent burger dinner, your beach #selfie, your snap of the New York skyline, literally anything on your feet!

Fails 

Apple are in a bit of trouble after a lawsuit has been taken out against the company after one previous user of the iPhone found she wasn’t receiving her messages after switching to an Android device. The case shows that the woman is seeking $5 million in damages!

The messages weren’t recieved by the woman because she had swapped the number from her iPhone onto a Samsung galaxy device and the messages she wasn’t receiving were all from friends who were using iPhones. The problem occurred because the iPhone uses an iMessage application in preference of text messages (because it allows for longer messages to be sent) the phone sending the message still thought that the recipient number was linked to an iPhone so it attempted to send the messages through the iMessage application which were denied by the new phone as it doesn’t have the capability to accept the iMessages.

In the lawsuit the complainant said Apple is retaining the messages sent to her from other iPhone users and won’t send them to her new phone. She also complains that Apple failed to disclose that switching to a device running something other than iOS would result in her messages going undelivered. The fixes that Apple had suggested to her, (getting her friends to update their version of iOS or getting them to delete and re-add her as a contact) were impractical and didn’t work according to her.

Apple have so far not commented on the case, and the amount of damages being sought does seem a little extreme, but hopefully this will make Apple work on a solution for this issue, and make them more aware of compatibility with other operating systems.

It’s Friday, the sun is shining, and we’re bringing you today’s Likes and Fails, could today get any better? I think not. Today we look at Gmail hitting 1 billion android downloads and we cringe at #mirin.

Likes

Gmail has passed 1 billion downloads on android. A Google executive today announced the milestone which was actually passed a couple of days ago – but the official announcement cements the news.

This news makes Gmail the first android app to hit such big numbers, well, that’s if you don’t include the background Google Play services app. It’ll be interesting to see which app is the next to hit the big 1 billion. Some think that it could be the infamous Flappy Bird when it returns to the play store this summer.

Flappy Bird was removed from the store earlier this year after the creator of the app couldn’t deal with the extreme success of the app and the fame and intrusion that came along with it. Recently the creator had a change of heart and will be bringing back a ‘better’ version of the app this Augusty. So we can look forward to getting frustrated at that soon. Also coincidentally the creator tweeted yesterday that he’s been working on a new game and attached an image of the gameplay, which is very similar tonally and graphic-wise to Flappy Bird. See below:

I am making a new game. So people can forget about Flappy Bird for a while. pic.twitter.com/JcUsd7FJvg

— Dong Nguyen (@dongatory) May 15, 2014

Fails 

One of the most cringey hashtags we’ve ever heard of has become a thing on Instagram. #Mirin is the culprit, and no it’s not the hashtag for the asian cooking ingredient, which is what I initially thought. It’s in fact, are you ready for the cringe?, it’s short for ‘admiring’ as in admiring someone, but they write the hashtag themselves, as if you should be admiring them. Unsurprisingly the hashtag has mainly been picked up by Gym rat type people, who seemingly spend their lives in front of the Gym mirror.

The cringe continues, most pictures include an over muscle-y shirtless man looking chuffed with himself or in a new turn for the tag, shows meals associated with training or just generally men looking for attention. It’s not all the men though, when scrolling through Instagram there is the occasional image of a woman in fitness wear.

Basically what I can ascertain from #Mirin is that it’s pretty much the new #fitspo. All I can say is I hope none of my friends ever post a picture along with this hashtag, they’ll be promptly un-friended!

Here are today’s Likes and Fails!

Likes

Sightly less of a Social Media-y one, but still within the media world, some impressive news for Android the smartphone operating system owned by Google. It looks as if in 2014 they will make it to 1 billion sales of Android devices! This puts them ahead of Apple and their iOS devices, and if they do reach the milestone it will give them a 45% share in the mobile device market. Though it may be winning the market share it seems that Apple are still winning in terms of profit margin as Android devices are generally cheaper.

Nice work Android!

Fails 

Trolls from beloved (not really) website 4chan have started up a campaign to make a ‘Bikini Bridge’ the next big thing online. Following on from the popularity of the ‘Thigh Gap’ a user decided to start up the trend of a ‘Bikini Bridge’ as a popular look for women. The user posted the below message and it was quickly picked up by online news sites and many other places as well as #BikiniBridge trending on Twitter. From the original posting it seems like there is no actual gain or awareness for doing this and seems a bit pointless really, so I don’t really know what else to say, apart from it being a bit of a waste of time really.

Here at A Social Media Agency we thought we’d make our own personal list of our favourite videos that took the internet by storm in 2012. Here we go:

1. Dumb ways to die. (Metro Australia)

I think this is one of my favourite online videos of the year, or possibly decade.  I’m sure you’ve heard it all before so I’ll just put it hear for your aural and visual enjoyment.

2. Catch the Ice dude. (Stupid German guy)

I think the best thing about this video is watching it with someone else who hasn’t seen it before, and watching their reaction.

3. Felix Baumgartner’s freefall. (Red Bull)

Red Bull created this fantastic world record attempt of the highest freefall ever. Taking Felix to the edge of space and dropping him out for thousands of people’s entertainment.

4. Gangnam Style (PSY and YG Entertainment)

It had to be on the list. You can’t mention 2012 viral videos without this instantly springing into your mind. Go on give it another view. Not like it needs it after becoming the first ever online video to rack up over 1 billion views.

5. Caine’s Arcade (Caine and Nirvan Mullick)

Last but not least,  a non- YouTube entry, Caine’s Arcade, a heart-warming documentary about a boy following his humble dreams whilst bringing joy to all those around him. I couldn’t let this one slip out of the top 5. There is now a follow up video which documents the hype surrounding Caine and the video.