Twitter Adds Cards to Help Brands Register Emails

Twitter just took another step towards helping brands generate revenues from the social network.

The company announced a new feature on Wednesday called the Lead Generation card, which gives businesses a way to register users and their emails for promotions or memberships directly within a tweet.

When you click to expand the tweet, you'll see an option to sign up with your Twitter handle and connected email already filled out.

"The Lead Generation Card makes it easy for users to express interest in what your brand offers," Mitali Pattnaik, Twitter's product manager for revenue, wrote in a blog post. "Users can easily and securely share their email address with a business without leaving Twitter or having to fill out a cumbersome form."

The new Twitter card has been tested with a handful of brands, including New Relic and Priceline. Twitter plans to make the card available to small businesses globally in the future.

In recent months, Twitter has introduced a range of new Twitter cards to enhance the in-stream experience for users and businesses, including app cards, product cards and gallery cards.

Image by Mashable

Now You Can Comment on Facebook Posts Directly From Bing

Interacting with your friends on Facebook just got a lot easier — If you’re a Bing user, that is.

Starting Friday, Bing will show comments from Facebook relevant to your search in the sidebar. From that search, you can Like a friend’s post, comment, or see the original post in its entirety on Facebook.

For instance, my search for "New Kids on the Block" brought up several posts from my friends who are fans, one who was excited to hear a NKOTB song on the radio, and another who was excited to be going to an NKOTB concert this summer. So, if I happened to be looking for a friend to go to the concert with, I could potentially contact one of them.

You can also add your own Facebook post directly from Bing. So, I could post a status asking if anyone would like to go to the concert with me, or express my own excitement about the event.

Friday’s new Facebook feature is an extension of the social sidebar Bing introduced last year. That feature brings in relevant social results from networks such as Foursquare, Twitter, Facebook, and Klout that are pertinent to your web search. Previously, you were not able to comment on or Like those posts.

Image courtesy of Microsoft

Twitter Adds Tailored Trends to iPhone, Android App

Twitter updated its app for iPhone and Android Wednesday, adding the ability to view Trends from around the world or focus on those in your backyard.

Located in the Discover tab, the feature shows you what's trending on Twitter as whole. You can also drill down to tailored trends within the app. They're based on your location as well as who you follow on Twitter. The idea is that you’ll see trends specifically catered to your own personal interests.

With the update, replies to retweeted tweets within the app now include not only the person who originally tweeted the message, but the retweeter as well.

The new versions of the apps also added the ability to invite friends to join Twitter from within the app, improved playback of Vine videos, and a few other bug fixes and improvements.

You can download the updated version of Twitter for Android and iOS now from their respective app stores.

Image via Mashable