This week's need-to-know social-media news.
For business owners who use LinkedIn as a tool for recruiting employees, some good news: the professional networking site has improved its LinkedIn Jobs service, making it easier for job searchers to find specific positions in specific areas -- ideally yours. In addition to a redesign, it has added new features, including a greater number of search options when looking for open positions. Job seekers can now search for jobs by country, zip code, industry and function.
One of LinkedIn's main features, of course, is the ability to see your degree of separation from various people with whom you'd like to connect. The new LinkedIn Jobs makes it more obvious how you're related to recruiters and companies so that you can see who might be able to help you land that job you want.
Pinterest valued at $2.5 billion.
Pinterest just closed a $200 million funding round, which values the online scrapbooking site at $2.5 billion. Though it isn't certain yet what the money will be used for, chief executive Ben Silbermann says, "Our focus is on helping millions of people discover things they love and get inspiration to go do those things in their life." --
New startup aggregates social data for 'digital business cards.'
The founders behind Austin, Texas-based startup Icon know it's a tough sell these days to get people to sign up for yet another social network. Instead, they launched a platform that aggregates information about users from LinkedIn, Twitter and other existing profiles. One nice feature: Each user has a digital "business card" that others can download and use to make connections. --
Microsoft improves search results for Facebook photos.
Despite the launch of Facebook's Graph Search, Microsoft is continuing to forge ahead with the ability of its search engine, Bing, to find Facebook photos. The Friends' Photos feature allows users to search for specific photos and albums that are hosted on Facebook -- provided they have permission to see that content on the social network itself. Microsoft updated the feature with a slideshow view and improved user interface. --
Your Twitter could outlive you.
Starting next month, you'll be able to tweet from beyond the grave. Or, rather, the LivesOn app will tweet for you. The app's website claims that it will scan your Twitter history and learn your likes, your syntax, and so on, in order to construct tweets for you after you've shuffled off this mortal coil. The company's tag line: "When your heart stops beating, you'll keep tweeting." --