We’ve been following Google+ since Google launched it as an invite-only experiment and it always felt like the little brother to the juggernaut Facebook. Google has been doing their best to increase interactivity on the site while pushing it to everyone who has a Google account which might have lead to today’s news. Global Web Index released a report that monitored all the big social sites and reported that G+ has grown itself into the second most used social network in the world.

Twitter just announced a new video sharing service called Vine. Vine, a company they acquired a few months back, focuses on recording 6-second clips of life events that run on an infinite loop which can be shared easily. The videos record sound as well. 

(Sam Elliot voice.) The battle of filters. Instagram and Twitter. Both receiving updates. Who will push beyond photo boundaries? Defy the social networks? Bring the the “Like” and “Retweet” buttons to their knees? The road doesn’t end here, this is only the beginning. RAM…errr…

Anyways, both Twitter and Instagram did receive updates this afternoon. Instagram introduced a new filter called “Willow,” that to me, just looks black and white. Twitter on the other, included filters into their app for the first time, something we have been expecting. There are eight of these lovely little image enhancers, along with auto-fix and crop actions. And yeah, that’s pretty much that. Both updates are available, so hit up the links below so that your world can become vintage. 

Yesterday afternoon, the official Windows Phone Twitter account Tweeted the message we have included above. They asked for “Android malware horror” stories of yours, in an attempt to highlight one of the fake overblown problems that security companies and the media invented for Android. If your story was the best/worst (whatever that means), then they may have a “get-well present” for you. We’re assuming that means a free Windows Phone.

Unfortunately, for Microsoft, the campaign hasn’t exactly gone as planned. They are certainly generating buzz with it, but almost none of it is positive for Windows Phone.

Here are a few of our favorite Tweets from users who had some fun with this #DroidRage hashtag. 

Over the weekend, Falcon Pro, a Twitter client for Android devices, left beta testing and was released to the Google Play store as version 1.0. Initially launching as a widget, there were enough requests to turn it into a full blown app, that the developer obliged. After spending just a couple of days with it, and while exchanging feature requests with the developer, I can easily say that this is my new favorite Twitter app. 

Lately I have been trying to be more conscious of the reasons behind why I post something on a social network. As I near 19,000 tweets I am keenly aware that I share my thoughts more than most people. I am certainly not anywhere near having the most tweets, but as I have participated in social networks like MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, Path, Instagram, and others over the past few years I have adjusted how much I share and how I share it.

This morning, three very popular Android applications received updates that are completely noteworthy. For the music lovers in the crowd, Pandora got a major bump to version 4.0. Included in this version are a ton of new features like viewing station details, ability to edit your shuffle from the device, and integration with other social network sites.

For all you tweeters, both Hootsuite and the official Twitter application were updated as well. For Hootsuite, there is now an added Action Bar and drawer navigation, as well as the ability to AutoSchedule posts. As for the official Twitter application, tweets that are rich with content (pictures, videos, article previews) now appear right in the stream, photo streams through search, and a whole lot more.

Go grab them all if you haven’t already.

Play Link: Pandora | Twitter | Hootsuite

Cheers K and Dylan!

Echofon, one of the more popular iOS Twitter applications of all time, has been working on an alpha version of an Android app behind the scenes for a while now that we were just turned on to. In fact, the build is up to version 1.9 and was released over the weekend through their Twitter account.