Google’s former try on a social network, Buzz, has gone through a slow, painful death behind closed doors, and it seems as if Google has finally decided to officially pull the plug on the service. After being unavailable to the general public for a year, Google announced on Saturday that all Google Buzz posts will be moved to Google Drive.

Twitter has announce on Wednesday the launch of Lead Generation Cards, a new feature that caters to consumers and has already created value for the social-media service’s advertisers. Lead Generation Cards are a new Tweet format that allows users to express interest in discounts and offers promoted by their choice of companies and other entities

You probably have a practical understanding of how Wikipedia works. To sum it all up, anyone can edit the information on a page, and they can do this quite quickly. These are the basic mechanics of how a wiki generally works, and Wikipedia just so happens to use it for their online encyclopedia. However, there are plenty of other purposes for this type of site. I’m here to offer a few suggestions for offbeat ways to use your own wikis.

The social network provides us with a means to communicate with our friends and loved ones, and we provide the social network with real, in-depth, accurate market samples that they can sell as a product. Even still, some businesses will go beyond Facebook’s usual advertising methods in an effort to target their desired market. They use a variety of tactics, and while they are not illegal they might be worth knowing about.

World travel is an exciting and adventurous activity, but one thing that hinders many from taking part is the language barrier. Fortunately, there are several iPhone foreign language apps that will help you translate simple phrases while you are exploring the globe. Here are five apps that will help you on your journeys.

Google announced at its I/O Developers Conference on Wednesday that Google+ will receive several new features that affect users’ Streams, Hangouts, and Photos. There are 41 features in total, and each one is aimed at the benefit of its users. The most notable of these changes is the redesigned layout for the Google+’s Stream. Revealed by Google’s Vic Gundotra at the conference, the redesign features new animations and cards that closely resemble Google Now, although a better comparison would be to Pinterest’s pinboard-like layout.

Xbox 360 users, soon you’ll no longer have to struggle with the awkward math that the Microsoft Points system currently offers. Microsoft recently told tech pub The Verge that it will ditch the system in preparation for its new console release. Instead of forcing users to convert their real-world cash to the imaginary currency, Microsoft will start using gift cards and vouchers holding real currency.

If you’re still interested in the wonderful world of chat rooms (or perhaps you just have a hankering to return to the days of IRC), then you might like these web apps that bring chat back to your desktop. These apps are targeted primarily at those of you who set up websites, but they may be interesting to those of you who don’t, as well.

Microsoft announced on Monday that it will directly integrate Google Talk into its Outlook.com webmail service – an unexpected maneuver on all accounts. The announcement came after Microsoft received user feedback specifically requesting the ability to chat with Google Talk contacts. Google Talk conversations done through Outlook.com will have to be text only for now.

BlackBerry announced on Monday at its 2013 BlackBerry Live keynote address that it will finally be releasing it Blackberry Messenger (BBM) for iPhone and Android over the summer. Up until now, the popular BBM service has been exclusively available only on BlackBerry-branded phones. The existing app allows users to bypass calling, text-message and data charges by communicating using text, photos, videos, and voice on WiFi, similar to other popular apps such as iMessage and WhatsApp.

Twitter spammers are annoying entities that are an unfortunate part of the service, and it doesn’t look like that they will be going away anytime soon. Until Twitter finds a way to automatically get rid of them, it will take some participation from its user base to keep the site clean and free from fake accounts, phishing scams, and nasty viruses.

It’s becoming apparent that cloud storage is the new standard these days, and Google recently recognized a need to help users keep their files in a unified space. with that in mind, Google announced on Monday that it is now offering 15GB of free storage across three of its most-used services: Google Drive, Gmail, and Google+ Photos. Google Apps users will receive 30GB across the three services.

Your favorite company has dropped the ball, and that $80 subscription you paid for didn’t exactly match its description. Worst of all, its website’s “Contact Us” link is a complete and total lie. All it leads to is a page full of canned answers that can be chosen from a list. Yeah. We’ve all been there. Sometimes, you have to do things another way.

Hipstamatic has released its new standalone iOS social networking app: Oggl. Oggl is a way for users to share their very best creative photos with the world, and upon closer inspection, it’s the natural evolution of Hipstamatic. In addition to serving as a social networking platform, the app allows users to capture images and add interesting filters just like its predecessor. However, the price tag for the app is better than the company’s maiden voyage — it’s free.

Google+ Hangouts On Air users (which you will become if you join the official MakeUseOf Hangout on Friday) will soon find that a few highly-requested features have been added to the service. As part of the update, users will now be able to start a live broadcast immediately without having to refresh, access recordings on YouTube right after a Hangout On Air session, and rewind live broadcasts.