Here’s your weekly roundup of major news points from the social sphere:
- Apple loses another iPhone 5 prototype in a bar!
- Always evolving, Facebook kills Deals & Places, makes photos bigger and faster loading, and partners with Spotify and others to launch a music platform.
- Meanwhile, Google+ struggles with slowing growth and declining traffic.
- The U.S. Department of Justice moved to block the AT&T and T-Mobile merger.
- Tumblr approaches 10 billionth post, hit 13 million uniques in July and manages to piss off fashion brands right before New York Fashion Week.
- Zynga debuts its latest monster, Adventure World.
- BlackBerry can’t catch a break!
- Blogger gets a much-needed redesign of its user interface.
- Are daily deals headed for extinction?
- Alaska Airlines premieres the mobile boarding pass. Smartphone travelers everywhere rejoice!
- As fans everywhere anticipate the upcoming season, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers become the first NFL team to replace paper playbooks with iPads.
- Beyonce & Jay-Z’s baby announcement sets a new Twitter record of tweets per second!
- Why is ESPN so anti-social media? (Check out their new policy here.)
- (LAST DAY!) We’re up for a SXSW PanelPicker session and would love your vote there.