(c) Can Stock PhotoIt has been a busy week in the digital/social world. With everything that has occupied our attention over the last week (Facebook Home, for example, and word that investment companies are pouring money into Google Glass app development), you may have missed some other interesting stories. These are some that I found particularly interesting. I save the stories from which I draw items for the Wrap at LInksFromShel.tumblr.com. Who knows? There may be a story in there that matters to you.

Financial services is the least trusted industry

Although results of Edelman’s 2013 Trust Barometer were released months ago, the world’s largest independent PR agency held something back. Just released is more data that shows trust in financial services has remained low while overall trust rose. Only 46% of respondents were identified as “trusters,” according to the financial services industry data Edelman has released. Financial services as an industry is trusted most in APAC, the BRICs and Latin America, but in North America and EMEA, trust is an issue (at 44% and 29% respectively), according to a Bulldog Reporter piece. The issues arise out of the bank scandals of the last year, with extensive media coverage helping educate the public and contribute to the decline in trust. Those familiar with the scandals said their low levels of trust were based on corporate corruption, a corporate culture driven by compensation and bonuses, and lack of regulation. The results reflect a public looking for more than strong company performance to build trust. Edelman SVP Laura Burke told PRWeek‘s Sarah Shearman that restoring trust will require “demonstrating good behaviors that are employee- and customer-friendly, as well as good at a societal level and looking beyond the numbers.”

LinkedIn, preferred social network of execs, acquires newsreader Pulse

The new generation of mobile news readers has attracted a significant following. I was a Pulse user until Flipboard for Android was released. My wife still uses Pulse, both on her phone and her tablet. Now comes word that LinkedIn has paid $90 million for Pulse, which lets readers skim through articles from a number of sources. The acquisition means LinkedIn is poised to become “the definitive professional publishing platform,” according to product chief Deep Nishar in a post announcing the purchase. Owen Thomas, writing for ReadWrite, explains that LinkedIn already publishes original, high-end articles, links to relevant business articles (in LinkedIn Today) and user contributions. “The only problem LinkedIn has on its current website is that its tools for reading, saving, and sharing content leave something to be desired. That’s where Pulse comes in.” The platform could also appeal to executives, who prefer LinkedIn for social media, according to a DHR International and Modern Survey, as reported by T.J. McCue on Forbes.

Flipboard adds 3 million users, generates half a million magazines

A couple weeks ago, Flipboard—another of those news-reading apps—announced that users would be able to create and curate their own magazines. The idea apparently resonated, since half a million of these personalized mini-magazines have been created since then. The app has also added 3 million new users, according to Sarah Perez of TechCrunch. Some users have taken the opportunity seriously. One magazine, “Modern Gentlemen’s Playground,” features nearly 2,500 items. Perez also notes that most people reading Flipboard around 9 a.m., with magazine creation happening around 1 p.m. and sharing of content at around 7 p.m. “You can almost see the flow of the content creation to consumption process at work here, starting with reading content, then magazine creators curating the articles for niche readerships, and finally leading to those who spread content further on social networks,” Perez writes.

What Digg learned about Google Reader users

When Google announced it would “sunset” Reader, its popular RSS news aggregator, Digg was one of the sites that smelled an opportunity. The once-popular news-sharing site announced it would start work immediately on a replacement service. Since then, Digg has surveyed some 17,000 Google readers to gather insights on how they used the Google site. PaidContent‘s Laura Hazard Owen reports that Digg blogged the results of the 8,000 some-odd responses it has received. “One stat that stick out,” she says, “is that 80% of respondents check Google reader ‘many times a day’ and that 40% subscribe to more than 100 feeds.” Kelly Faircloth of BetaBeat says that means the people who really care about Reader “are overworked bloggers.” So far, some 3 million Reader users have made the switch to Feedly, though Digg promises to “make sure we have some serious infrastructure in place to support (power user) usage for launch.” Another interesting survey result: More than 75% of respondents said they use Reader for both work and play.

Walmart turns to brands to provide content

Listen to people talk about content marketing and the conversation is certain to be all about online content. Walmart doesn’t see much difference, and its “Print Plus” program could provide inspiration for any organization that distributes print. Of course, not every organization distributes 80 million weekly copies of its publication, as Walmart does with its circulars. By passing smartphones over the ads in the circulars, customers will see recipes, how-to videos and other content. Walmart is counting on the brands whose products are sold on the retailer’s shelves to provide much of that content, according to Jack Neff of AdAge. In fact, one executive expects Walmart itself will produce less than 15% of the content to which customers will have access. There’s no word on when the program will roll out, but it sounds similar to Metaio’s Augmented Reality tool, Creator, although nobody in the AdAge article uttered “AR.”

Restaurants dominate social media conversations

Social media chatter about brands is surging, according to the PQ Media/uperVU report, Top 100 Brands in Social Media World Wide 2013. The world’s top 100 brands produced 56.7 million online and mobile social media mentions during the last half of 2012, while social media impressions reached 83.59 billion. “Only three product categories over-indexed the broader social media average score of 100, according to the index (as reported by Pizza Marketplace: “Restaurants led with a score of 338, followed by Beverages (223) and Consumer Technology (178).” These categories generated 70% of social media share of voice, the report says.

Is the new resume just 140 characters long?

Recruiters have been at the forefront of social media since its earliest days, so it was no surprise when I started noticing tweets containing job listings. Companies have set up Twitter accounts just for jobs and recruiting agencies have established accounts for their own offerings. The response from job-hunters has included 140-character resumes and six-second videos (the limit for a vide on Twitter’s Vine service). One tweet shared in a Wall Street Journal article by Rachel Emma Silverman and Lauren Weber comes from a job hunter who tweets, “Communications guru, social media socialite, creative, outside the box thinker, multi-tasker, looking for a career in #atl @tesume @hireme” The trend is so hot that a Boston company has turned exclusively to Twitter for a social media marketing job, accepting only candidates whose tweeted resume included the hashtag #socialCV. The experience has led the company’s chief marketing officer to consider abandoning the resume process. “The Web is your CV and social networks are your references,” he says. Others in the field see Twitter as the best approach at an initial connection. One career resource site owner called it “the new elevator pitch.”

For Domino’s, critical tweets produce positive results

Domino’s Pizza sponsored the TV show Splash, which has been subjected to a flood (pun intended) of criticism and derision, some of which was aimed at the sponsor But Domino’s marketing director, Simon Wallis, said the negative coverage was positive for the company. “You would rather have people talking about it than not,” he told John Reynolds of PRWeek. “Twitter comments help drive a lot of interest in the brand.” Since the tweets didn’t reflect poorly on Domino’s itself, the criticisms were detached from the brand, he said.

President Obama abandons Google+

Whether he’s actually doing the tweeting and updating himself, U.S. President Barack Obama has a strong presence across multiple social media platforms. On Twitter, posts appear several times a day and at least twice daily on Facebook. But what about Google+? According to Michio Hasai on TECHi, the last post on the president’s page appeared in January. “For some reason, (the administration has) abandoned Google+. They weren’t ever extremely active on it in the first place, but it either isn’t worth the trouble or there’s something negative associated with it. Nobody knows for sure what motives them to stay off the network, but the fact that they have is telling,” according to Hasai. “Whatever the reason, their lack of a recent presence on Google+ should dismay those in Mountain View. The most followed man in the world has dismissed their network. That’s not good.”

Student arrested for an Instagram post

A Canadian student has been arrested and is poised to stand trial for sharing a photograph via Instagram. The picture was of a piece of street art showing Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafreniere appearing to have been shot in the head. The 20-year-old student, a “supporter of the student movement” in Canada, says she simply walked up to the painting and snapped a picture. “I think the person behind the artwork should be in my place,” she said. “All I did was take a photo.” The police claim that more than the single photo factored into the decision to proceed with the arrest, but “the gathering of many elements posted by her,” according to a police spokeswoman. Still, you have to worry about the very idea that sharing a picture of somebody else’s art via a social network could land you in jail. Read more in the Huffington Post article by William McGuinness.