Facebook is now allowing advertisers to better target their potential customers to improve the performance of their ads on the platform. The new option, Lookalike Audiences, is rolling out within Power Editor this week. On the Help page, the company describes this feature as a way “to reach new people who are likely to be interested in your business because they are similar to a customer list you care about.”

Facebook has unveiled the latest redesign of its News Feed, aiming to make it cleaner and yet more informative for the users. The two pillars of the latest changes are categorization and focus on visual content. The feed, which has grown cluttered over the past years, is now split into several sections, “All Friends,” “Music,” “Photos,” “Following,” “Games,” “Close Friends,” as well as any of Interest Lists or Friend Lists. With the stories sorted into these categories, it has become easier to keep track of everything that appears in the news feed.

Twitter has launched its Oscars Index to help the audience track the buzz and social conversation about this year’s nominees. The dedicated hub, launched by the micro-blogging service on the www.oscars.twitter.com platform, features colourful dynamic line graphs related to the 2013 Oscar nominees in six major categories. The graphs are based on the overall conversation referring to Academy Award Nominees on Twitter these days. “The Twitter Oscars Index reflects the ebb and flow of the movie-related conversations throughout the awards season, showing how positively fans are commenting on nominees on Twitter,” says the company on its official blog.

When social networking platforms and fashion brands unite for good, it may lead to something unexpectedly meaningful, as it has been the case with NY designer and philanthropist Diane von Furstenberg, who teams up with the U.S. non-profit vision benefits company, VSP and NYC Mission Society in a move to engage Pinterest users in a social charitable project #PinToGiveAndGet.

After seven long months of anticipation and constant checking out the black ‘beta’ version, today one of the earliest social networking pioneers MySpace has relaunched with a new fresh and sleek design, revised concept and irresistibly handsome co-owner Justin Timberlake in a suit and tie on the landing page of the website, exclusively presenting his new namesake single ‘Suit & Tie’ from the new album.

While one may anticipate some new ‘surprises’ from Facebook this year, such as intrusive video ads, blunt suggestions to make a gift or even more irrelevant sponsored posts in a newsfeed, instead the social networking site is testing a new paid service allowing users to send direct messages to those who are not on their friend list.