Snapchat’s latest updates for iOS and Android includes “World Lenses.” Yes, “While its well-known Selfie Lenses change the way you look with dog ears and flower crowns, World Lenses change your surroundings,” TechCrunch explains. “For example, you can add a sleepy cloud that rains down rainbow puke if you point your camera at the sky.”

Facebook is testing what looks to be another Snapchat-like app. Flash, so called, was created by Facebook’s growth team for emerging markets where Wi-Fi har to come by. “Facebook boasts that Flash is ‘less than 25 MB’ in size, or roughly one third as big as Snapchat’s Android app on Google’s new Pixel phone,” Recode notes. “We’ve seen this play out before,” it adds. “Twice, in fact … In both instances -- first with Poke, then with Slingshot -- Facebook’s attempt to create a legitimate Snapchat competitor flopped.”

LinkedIn is rolling out “Sponsored InMail” -- a paid feature that will let marketers query its database of around 476 million users, and send them unsolicited messages via its InMail messaging system. More broadly, as TechCrunch writes: “It’s gloves off for social media companies that have patiently built audiences for their platforms and weaned them on steady diets of ad-free content: they’re all now starting to double down on ways of monetizing them.”

Pitting itself against LinkedIn, Facebook is testing a feature that would let page administrators create job postings and receive applications from candidates. “Based on behavior we've seen on Facebook, where many small businesses post about their job openings on their Page, we're running a test for Page admins to create job postings and receive applications from candidates,” a company spokesman tells Reuters.

In light of a probe by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK, Facebook has agreed to momentarily stop collecting WhatsApp user data. As the Financial Times notes: “WhatsApp announced it would share user information with its parent company Facebook for the first time in August, admitting that user data such as phone numbers and device details would be used to target advertisements on Facebook.”

A few months ago, Slack lost its head of marketing of less than two years Bill Macaitis, Business Insider reports. “The change comes at a time when Slack is battling two new big-name competitors, with Facebook's new Workplace service and Microsoft's Teams products both aiming to scoop up the business users that have flocked to Slack's messaging platform,” BI notes. “The lack of an experienced marketing leader could prove tricky for Slack as it looks to set itself apart from the competition.”   

Next week, Facebook’s Audience Network will begin serving video ads via apps running on Apple TV, Roku and other set-top box services. “Facebook is partnering with two publishers, A+E and Tubi TV, and will deliver ads to people who watch videos on those apps, on actual television sets,” Recode reports. “Facebook says this is the beginning of a test, and that it hasn’t yet worked out many details, like ad formats and lengths.”

Twitch -- the social-video gaming service owned by Amazon -- plans to start selling video ads that will run in broadcast partners’ live streams. Said streams are “delivered via [Twitch’s] new SureStream system that’s native to the platform,” Variety notes. As such, “Twitch is looking to generate more cash from the 2 million-plus video-game players who broadcast on its platform each month.”

LinkedIn just launched a new portal named Salary, which collects and analyzes salaries across jobs, worldwide. As ZDNet notes, the launch is part of LinkedIn's Economic Graph initiative. “Effectively, the Economic Graph concept is LinkedIn’s goal to digitally map the global workforce,” it writes. “This includes creating a profile for every working person, a profile for every company in the world, and a digital representation of every job and every skill set required to obtain those jobs.”

This summer, Facebook tried to buy Snow, TechCrunch reports. Snow, if you’re not familiar, is a Snapchat-like service from Naver -- the $25 billion-valued Korean firm behind chat app Line. Presently, “Snow has around 80 million downloads, and it is adding around 10 million more each month,” TechCrunch notes, citing comScore data. “That growth has also encouraged acquisition interest from Tencent -- the maker of blockbuster chat app WeChat -- Alibaba and others.”