To make virtual reality a mainstream experience, startups like Facebook’s Oculus are going to need Hollywood’s help, CNet suggests. “As VR technology begins its march to store shelves, manufacturers like Oculus are recognizing the potential for their immersive technologies to deliver the works of Hollywood,” it writes. Indeed, “Oculus … has built its own video watching program … called Oculus Cinema, [which] is intended to both show movies and also help users get comfortable watching the screen for hours at a time.” 

Hinting at things to come for U.S. consumers, a large French bank has tapped Twitter to let customers transfer funds via tweets. “The move by Groupe, France's second-largest bank by customers, coincides with Twitter's own push into the world of online payments as the social network seeks new sources of revenue beyond advertising,” Reuters reports. “Twitter is racing other tech giants Apple and Facebook to get a foothold in new payment services for mobile phones or apps.” 

Facebook is making some changes to its iOS and Android apps, like automatically enlarging users’ most-Liked pics on their profiles, TechCrunch reports. “There’s also a new ‘Uploads’ tab that shows all the photos [users] posted in one place, so [their] friends don’t have to dig through pics scattered in different albums like before.” According to Facebook, it remains the top mobile platform for photo browsing. 

Not surprisingly, venture capitalist and early Twitter investor Marc Andreessen remains incredibly bullish about the microblogging platform. “Twitter has become the central nervous system for public communication," Andreessen tells CNET. "It's how everybody from the Pope to the president of Iran communicates." That said, he thinks Mark Zuckerberg is probably the best CEO at the moment, citing Facebook’s financial performance as evidence. 

After Vic Gundotra, longtime head of Google+, jumped ship in April, it was widely believed that social network was doomed. Yet, according to David Besbris, Google’s new head of social media, nothing could be further from the truth. Regarding the Google+ team, Besbris tells Re/Code: “We’re the largest we’ve ever been.” Regarding Google CEO Larry Page, Besbris insists: “He’s going to continue working on building [social] stuff … he’s very happy with it … The company is behind it.” 

Facebook has appointed Joel Kaplan as its latest vice president of global policy. “Kaplan, currently the vice president of U.S. Public Policy [at Facebook], succeeds Marne Levine, who will be moving over to Instagram to be its first chief operating officer,” The Washington Post reports. “Kaplan, a former senior aide in the George W. Bush White House, was tapped to lead the company's Washington office in 2011.” 

Nieman Lab considers “The Serial” -- a new podcast series produced by the same folks behind This American Life. “Each week, Serial will release an hour-long episode that tells the next installment in the story of a 1999 murder,” it reports. “The Serial team is hoping this suspense will be addictive and help to turn "This American Life" listeners into Serial fans as well.” Meanwhile, in addition to airing the first episode during This American Life’s usual time slot, Serial will be reaching out to its audience via Facebook, Twitter, and email newsletter, plus the occasional on-air shoutout from "TAL" …

Bloomberg launched a new politics site, this weekend, and at least one rival thinks the new property impressive. “The new Bloomberg politics Web site has a fresher feel from the rest of Bloomberg’s otherwise stodgy-looking site, with bright pastel colors, large graphics and extra-large video players,” Politico writes. On the content side, “the new vertical from Bloomberg helmed by [media veterans Mark Halperin and John Heilemann] is distinct from its Washington coverage and is mostly based in New York.” 

Facebook is reportedly ready to add a friend-to-friend payment feature to its Messenger service. As TechCrunch reports, “All Facebook has to do is turn on the feature, according to screenshots and video taken … by Stanford computer science student Andrew Aude.” Having formerly served as president of PayPal, Messenger head David Marcus is no stranger to the payments space. Now, “Facebook Messenger payments could compete with Venmo, PayPal, Square Cash and other peer-to-peer money transfer apps.” 

By some accounts, Twitter doesn’t give Mac users much love. “It’s not much of an overstatement to call the Twitter for Mac app neglected,” The Next Web writes. “It’s missing loads of features that have come to the Web and mobile app versions of the service.” Yet, that made this week’s Twitter-for-Mac update -- including support for viewing and posting multiple photos in a single tweet and attaching pictures to a direct message -- that much sweeter.