Santa gets social, Apple gets topsy and Twitter users get a lesson in contempt of court

We’ve (and by we, I mean A Social Media Agency) launched a snazzy Twitter app just in time for you all to buck your ideas up for Christmas. SocialSanta.co analyses your tweets to work out whether you’ve been naughty or nice, judging on the number of times you’ve done a swear in the tweets that it looks through.

The app was built by the good guys at Forrk.co.uk, who are (in our totally unbiased opinion) the most wicked-fly web development team this side of Silicon Valley.

So, if you want to know whether you’ll be getting that Barbie Cadillac this year, or whether you’ll wake up on Christmas day to a lump of coal in your stocking, head over to SocialSanta and find out.

Man apologises for mugging on FacebookA man who mugged someone in New York in the 1970s has apologised to his victim after tracking him down via Facebook. Ex-mugger Michael Goodman said he stole muggee Claude Soffel’s bus pass outside the Museum of Natural History almost 40 years ago.Goodman clearly had an attack of conscience, and messaged Mr Soffel on Facebook apologising for his past actions. Thankfully, it’s water under the bridge now, as Claude forgave his attacker. Hooray!I think we can all agree though that the most impressive part of this whole story is that both men are active Facebook users.Apple buys TopsyIn an epic sneaky spying move, Apple has bought Topsy, a site which is essentially the Google of social media.Apple allegedly paid over $200m for the site, which analyses tweets to provide insights into trending topics and users’ interests. All in all, it’s a handy piece of kit. What’s more, it’s currently free to use (albeit in a limited form).According to an article on The Independent: “This means they have complete access to the micro-blogging site’s entire catalogue of tweets and linked content, an index that now includes more than 425 billion data points and stretches back to the first ever tweet in 2006.” Which means this access to Twitter's archives will now be in the hands of Apple.It will be interesting to see how this pans out, and whether Topsy will become a fully paid-for service. There weren't really any clues to the transition before it happened, however The Wall Street Journal (which broke the news) has said that it doesn't think the transition would’ve occurred without the blessing of Twitter.Facebook tweaks newsfeedIn what would appear to be an effort to keep up with Twitter, Facebook has updated its newsfeed algorithm in order to present users with more ‘high quality content’.The updated algorithm means that you can expect more news and story links to appear in newsfeeds, particularly on mobile. Hopefully this will mean Facebook will be toning down the amount of crappy page suggestions it crams your newsfeed with, but I’m not holding my breath.Apparently, if a story is super popular and creates a lot of conversation, it could end up appearing in your news feed a number of times, with the only difference being new comments from your friends.If it’s anything like it currently is on my newsfeed, it will just be people talking about the stories that appeared on Twitter three days ago. Informative.Attorney General to publish social media guideThe Attorney General is to publish a Twitter guide in order to try to prevent the site's users from committing contempt of court when commenting on legal cases, whether they mean to or not.The guide has been designed to ensure a fair trial takes place, with the same rules applying to Facebook and Twitter as they do to the media. Anyone commenting on a case or defendant in any way that could prejudice a trial could end up being prosecuted, and subsequently imprisoned for contempt.So next time you think you’re being witty when you’re talking about a trial case, maybe wind your neck in a bit and think about what you’re writing before you send it.Facebook introduces ‘unfollow’ buttonFacebook has replaced its crafty ‘hide all’ button with the easier-to-understand ‘unfollow’ button, allowing you to block all messages and posts from certain friends. Why you’d choose to do this and not just unfriend them altogether is beyond me and is, frankly, a bit mean. Surely it’s just for those people that still think that having over 1,000 friends on Facebook is super cool.According to Reuters, this allows you to block content from certain people without ‘offending’ them, as you would through the brutal de-friending process.I think it’s about time we took a long hard look at ourselves. It’s amazing to think that Facebook considers us arrogant enough to think that someone will be devastated if we unfriend them on Facebook. Give me strength.