Twitter is ramping up its mobile advertising capabilities with a new mobile apps install that will bring more ads into user feeds, as well as an acquisition in the programmatic mobile advertising space.

Amazon is letting consumers add items to their shopping cart straight from Twitter. All it takes is a hashtag.

Twitter on Tuesday turned in some healthy sales figures for the first quarter, though its net loss grew substantially compared to last year.

Mobile users of Google's search and YouTube service will soon see more targeted ads that take them straight to the installation pages for advertisers' mobile apps.

Twitter has taken a slow approach in the rollout of new ad products and changes to the user interface, but that's beginning to change. Following its deeper integration with MoPub, Twitter is expected to reveal a series of new ad products alongside a refined and more feature-rich user experience.

Apple will integrate music identification technology created by Shazam into the next version of iOS, but could go much further than simple song naming.

Aiming to play a bigger role in analyzing tweets and sharing the resulting insights with advertisers and other businesses, Twitter has acquired Gnip, its partner for the past few years.

Real-time chatter about television abounds on Twitter, offering a potentially lucrative opportunity for advertising. The social network is looking to make the most of it, announcing a series of deals Monday to better monetize tweets about TV shows around the world.

Deliberate status updates are losing luster as quick, impromptu, short-lived activity on social media gathers momentum. If the first phase of social media was a massive effort to share our online identities, this current wave is all about fleeting encounters.

Socialbakers, a social media analytics company from the Czech Republic that tracks online conversations, has raised $26 million (£15 million) in a move that values the business at close to $200 million.

Twitter faces growing pressure to attract new users and dramatically increase engagement on the platform. Can it ever rival the numbers and growth of Facebook?

Twitter Wednesday reported that fourth quarter sales more than doubled over the past year, but the company nevertheless spooked investors by acknowledging a slowdown in new user growth and in user engagement.

Twitter will give researchers access to its public and historical data to help them get insights on a wide variety of issues.

Twitter has reported its first earnings as a public company, revealing that sales more than doubled from a year ago, though it still hasn't managed to turn a profit.

Twitter is preparing to launch an ecommerce platform that will enable users to purchase goods directly through the site, according to reports.

The two major social sites, Facebook and Google+, are embracing opposite strategies for the future, but they are heading to the same place: To add social intelligence to everything you do.

Taking another page from social rival Twitter, Facebook launched a new Trending feature that will show users the most popular topics being discussed on the social network.

Burberry has reported strong results in the third quarter to 31 December and has said that its digital drive is outperforming other areas of the business.

The way consumers identify themselves on Twitter can now be used by marketers in their decisions to place ads in individual feeds, under a new expansion of the site's advertising program.

If one of your crazy relatives has ever posted an epic political rant on Facebook, you know that conversations on the social networking site can quickly spiral out of control. You can't take a conversation elsewhere--like off your relative's page, for instance--or start your own subthread. But Facebook has just bought social discussion start-up Branch with an eye toward developing a new product that will--hopefully--change how we talk to each other on Facebook.

Social media professionals need to have a specific set of communication and technical skills as well as varied experience if you expect them to be a strategic part of your business in 2014.