Digital Week in Review: Google, Facebook, and Foursquare Sara Molnick Published: December 21, 2012 2 min read Categories: News The digital world is still standing as Google updates it Panda algorithm for the 23rd time, Facebook expands its nearby feature as well as launching a paid message option, and Foursquare incorporates Facebook recommendations into its platform. Google’s 23rd Update to Panda Google has confirmed that they will be doing a data refresh to their Panda algorithm, making it the 23rd update the algorithm has receive since February of 2011. The update will affect about 1.3% of English queries. Read more about it here. Facebook’s Expands its Nearby Tab on Mobile Apps Facebook is now expanding its nearby feature on Androids and iOS mobile apps. The update to the nearby feature will enable users to see where their friends have checked in and what recommendations they gave that particular place. How will this affect businesses? Facebook encourages business to update their Facebook page: include basic information, such as your address, store hours, phone number, and details about your business. Most importantly, encourage connections from customer such as likes, check-ins, ratings, and recommendations. Perhaps Yelp will now become a thing of the past as people start using Facebook to find a place, or rate a place. Foursquare Integrates Facebook Recommendations Foursquare will now be incorporating the new Facebook nearby features into its app. In a recent blog post, Foursquare says that by expanding your recommendations to include your Facebook friends who are on Foursquare, you’ll get even better personalized insights when you’re deciding where to go. Now, it’s even more important to update your information on your Facebook page. Facebook Testing Paid Messages Facebook recently announced that they are testing out a feature that will allow users to pay to send direct messages to another user’s inbox. As of now, Facebook has a two-folder system. One folder holds the messages that friends and other close connections send. The other folder holds messages that users receive from people who don’t share mutual connections. Now for a small fee of $1, a sender will be able to reach a targeted user’s first folder, aka the folder that is more prevalent to a user. Unfortunately, companies cannot pay to send messages to consumers. So instead of this feature being a possible marketing tool for businesses, it it more for professionals looking to connect with people they met at a conference or other networking event.