Buzzfeed has signed Google+ to sponsor a promotional campaign dubbed the GIF Feed. The partnership appears to be the perfect way for Google to show off Google+’s “Auto Awesome” feature, which which creates GIFs. “Most of the GIFs are shared by BuzzFeed, but there’s also a sponsored unit in the upper right corner which points to more Google+-sponsored GIF collections,” TechCrunch reports. 

The New York Times looks into Lulu -- a new app that encourages women to rate their experiences with specific men (be they ex-boyfriends, crushes, significant others, hooked-ups, friends or relatives) using multiple-choice quizzes. Welcome to the fast-emerging world user-generated people ranking! Beyond business models, “the service has provided a sort of ‘Take Back the Internet’ moment for young women who have come of age in an era of revenge porn and anonymous, possibly ominous suitors,” NYTimes writes. 

Exploring new territory (literally), Pinterest is now welcoming users to pin places of interest on maps. Place Pins, so-called, are intended to help user plan trips and create guides to favorite locations, and, at some point, generate some revenue for Pinterest. “Pinterest users already create 1.5 million destinations each day for a total of about 750 million,” the Los Angeles Times reports, citing Pinterest head Ben Silbermann. 

Potentially endangering Snapchat’s astronomical valuations, BuzzFeed calls out the messaging service for doling out possibly misleading usership numbers to the media. For instance, the startup just told CNet that its currently processing 400 million “snaps” per day. The number, however, refers “specifically to how many images have been received by users, not how many times users hit send,” BuzzFeed reports, after getting some clarification from Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel. “It’s still a very large number, and a number that’s climbing rapidly, but it’s a very different one from a sort of ‘upload’ figure.” 

In other Snapchat ruminations, Business Insider’s Henry Blodget considers what the messaging service would need to do to actually be worth the $3 billion that it reportedly turned down from Facebook. “We can estimate that Snapchat would have to earn about $120 million of profit to justify a $3 billion valuation,” Blodget writes. A source also tells Blodget that the startup plans to test advertising and virtual goods as monetization models. 

Even The New York Times is bending to readers’ ever-shorter attention spans. As such, the Grey Lab this week will begin blasting one-minute video news segments three times a day. “The New York Times is going bite-sized with its growing stable of video coverage,” Capital New York reports. “The New York Times Minute,” so-called, will also be subject to the latest news developments, and, hence, will be updated continuously.  

The early Xbox One reviews are in, and -- of chief importance to the media and marketing crowd -- critics are calling the console a fit all-in-one entertainment hub. “Microsoft has every intention of making the Xbox One the centerpiece of your living-room entertainment experience … And its first shots with the system are remarkably successful,” writes Polygon.com. "Jumping from game to TV and back again, or running TV in a picture-in-picture frame while playing a game, feels like a major step forward in set-top boxes.” 

Set-top-box maker Sling this week is rolling out a new iOS app, along with a new Sling channel for Roku players. “Additionally, the company says it's coming out with a Windows 8.1 app, but that won't arrive until December,” Engadget reports. As for the new app, SlingPlayer 3.0, it features a split-screen user interface, as well as new search and discovery features. “There's also a bigger emphasis on sports this time out,” Engadget notes. 

Following Google’s lead, Yahoo on Monday said it plans to add extra levels of security to the company’s business operation. “Even before [Edward] Snowden began releasing classified materials to journalists last June, Google grew suspicious that outsiders could tap its traffic between data centers and began encrypting that traffic,” The New York Times reports. Yahoo now plans to do the same. 

Unable to deny a deal worth roughly $7.2 billion, Nokia shareholders have approved Microsoft’s takeover of the Finnish smartphone maker’s Devices and Services unit. “The acquisition will see former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop return to Microsoft early next year to run an expanded devices and services team at the software giant,” The Verge reports. Elop is also reportedly being considering as the successor to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.