This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.

YouTube’s Google+ Comments Ignite Controversy (Read more at SocialTimes)

Last week YouTube unrolled a Google+ linked commenting system, and as with any major update, this has come with a degree of controversy.

Google says the goal is to make comments more useful and personalized. However, users are upset about losing anonymity when they tie their comments to their Google+ accounts, and they’ve been very vocal. Some Reddit users have started a campaign for Google to reverse its decision.

YouTube comments have become known as being a cesspool of negativity and hate-filled comments. Understandably, Google wants to fix that because it has the potential to hold some brands and content creators back from truly embracing the platform. From a user perspective, it’s understandable that they’d be upset. Google is essentially forcing YouTube users to become Google+ users, which they may not want.

At the end of the day, it’s Google’s platform, and they won’t be reversing this decision anytime soon.

Twitter Launches Custom Timelines (Read more at AllThingsD)

Twitter has launched a new feature that allows users to create custom timelines around specific events, people and topics. For example, users can collect tweets about a TV show or a current event and follow how the situation is evolving. Essentially, it’s Twitter’s version of Storify.

Users will need Tweetdeck to set up custom timelines, and developers can create custom timelines using Twitter’s API. When users create custom timelines within Tweetdeck, they can then embed them on another web page if they like.

Twitter has done a poor job in the past of allowing users to filter events and topics. This has primarily been done through third party apps, and this update puts Twitter squarely against Storify, which retains the advantage of being able to incorporate Facebook status updates.

For brands and media organizations, this does offer the ability to pull in tweets about topics and embed them in other locations like a web page or a screen at an event. This was possible before but not through Twitter.

Snapchat Turns Down Facebook Acquisition (Read more at The Wall Street Journal)

This week it was revealed that Snapchat turned down a $3 billion bid from Facebook to get acquired. The reason is because multiple investors, including one that values the Snapchat at $4 billion, are also courting it.

Snapchat is only two years old, and it’s already shown its potential by building up a passionate user base of the much-desired teen demographic. Facebook has faced a decline in time spent by teens on its service, which it uses Instagram to overcome to a degree. Snapchat would be another platform in its portfolio to appease investors, advertise to teens, push teen users eventually to Facebook and snatch it out of the hands of competitors. Now, Snapchat’s future remains uncertain but looks very lucrative.

Pinterest Launches Its First API (Read more at AllThingsD)

Pinterest released its first API for developers this week. The long-awaited release allows third-party sites to embed Pins and make pinning content from the site to Pinterest easier. Zappos, Walmart, Random House, Nestle and Hearst are leveraging the service initially.

According to Pinterest, this is the first of many APIs to be released over the coming weeks, including the already-launched one that showcases top clicked pins and re-pins, one that displays trending pins related to keywords, a Most Recent API to showcase your most recent Pins on a site and Related Pins which will suggest other Pins people may like based on the content being viewed.

This may be another step for Pinterest to monetize its platform and attract brands. An API like this makes pinning more beneficial for brands and easier to implement. Plus, Pinterest will be able to gather data around which sites are showcasing which pins, allowing Pinterest to see how content is being disseminated.

News Quick Hits

Quora has announced a new analytics tool that will allow writers to see the number of views, upvotes and shares their posts have received in chunks of anywhere from days to months. (Read more at Mashable)
MySpace announced that it is laying off 5% of its employees. Business Insider estimates its entire workforce to be around 284 employees based off LinkedIn. (Read more at Business Insider)
Vine has officially launched its app for Windows Phone, which even comes with all of the features available for iPhone and Android, including the camera grid and front-facing mode, but the Windows version comes with extra features including pinning your favorite accounts to your homescreen. (Read more at AllTwitter)
Pulse, the social reader acquired by LinkedIn, is now fully integrated into LinkedIn’s mobile and Web properties, meaning users will be asked to sync their LinkedIn and Pulse profiles. This also means LinkedIn Today has officially been replaced and brings LinkedIn one step closer to being a content platform. (Read more at AllThingsD)
Amazon has integrated Facebook into its platform, allowing users to showcase what their friends have reviewed and browsed, share purchases, reviews and wishlists, discover products based on likes, and share notes and highlights from books. (Read more at AllFacebook)
Spotify is joining the social TV game with a partnership with Bravo that creates custom playlists for specific shows. Fans will be able to follow the playlists throughout each show’s season. Bravo will link to the playlists on Twitter. (Read more at LostRemote)
Twitter expanded its small- and medium-sized business self-serve ad platform to include businesses in the UK, Ireland and Canada. This gives them access to Promoted Tweets, Promoted Accounts and Promoted Trends. (Read more at The Next Web)
Facebook updated post-scheduling by reducing the number of steps needed to schedule a post. The previous process required more clicks. (Read more at Venturebeat)