Twitter is stepping into a new area of e-commerce by partnering with American Express to enable its consumers to buy goods by simply typing in a hashtag of an item they want to purchase. To start using the micro blogging service for shopping purposes, users are invited to sync their Amex accounts with their Twitter profile here, at sync.americanexpress.com/twitter.

Surprisingly enough, now the fastest growing social media platform is not Pinterest (as it used to be), but Twitter, as reported by GlobalWebIndex. According to the study conducted across the 31 markets, the micro blogging platform is gaining momentum now and getting more active users than other social media platforms—the site is followed by Facebook and Google+, respectively.

The mircoblogging site Twitter is going to allow posting micro-videos within tweets. The platform is allegedly going to enable its users to integrate up to six-second videos, created using Vine, with their tweets. The start-up service, which is believed to be a video-based rival to Instagram (now Facebook-owned), was purchased by Twitter in October 2012.

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.

Despite predictions that digital age would ‘kill’ TV, most consumers in the developed countries (particularly, in the U.S.) are watching TV more than ever, while laptops, tablets and mobiles, so-called «second» or «third screens», even enrich TV viewing experience. As the latest Nielsen’s report reveals, 85% of mobile owners use their tablet or smartphone while watching TV at least once per month, and 40%do so daily. More specifically, 41% use a tablet while watching TV daily, and 39% use a smartphone.

Social networks have become one of the most preferred platforms for launching new campaigns, but marketers do want to know how effective their promotions in such media are. To help brands measure the impact of their promotions  through Twitter Promoted Products, the micro-blogging service has teamed up with Nielsen—together, they have developed a “newest tool for our advertising partners, brand impact measurement for Twitter.”