Banyan Branch

Here’s your weekly roundup of major news points from the social sphere:

• Facebook officially signed papers for an IPO, possibly coming in May. See reactions to Facebook’s IPO here. Can the social network keep growing?

• Pinterest is now on par with Twitter and Google for referral traffic.

• Facebook debuts a Timeline Movie Maker for its new profile layout.

• Twitter updated its policies on censorship in various countries. Founder Biz Stone explains how here.

• How many of your tweets are actually worth reading?

• Facebook‘s profile changes have boosted visits to its partner sites.

• Twitter rolls out branded pages to more companies, including NBC and Al Jazeera.

• President Obama hosted the first-ever presidential Google+ Hangout, fielding questions from YouTube, G+ and more.

• What did Seattleites tweet about during the snow & ice storm last month? KIRO TV included our snowpocalypse analysis here.

• Best Buy trades in celebrities for tech innovators from Instagram and Square for this year’s Super Bowl commercial.

• Which Super Bowl team is winning in social? ESPN breaks it down, with a little help from us!

• Bill Gates hosted a live webcast yesterday, fielding questions on the Gates Foundation’s latest efforts:

A Conversation with Bill Gates: Global Development Opportunities from The Gates Notes on Vimeo.

• While Apple gains in the smartphone market, Android still dominates.

• Microsoft lays off a part of its marketing staff in a restructuring of its marketing efforts.

• Google updates its privacy policy, and Microsoft takes the opportunity to show its advantages over the updates.

• YouTube looks at subscription-based services for its channels.

• Tumblr looks to hire writers and editors to talk about…Tumblr.

• Twitter and ExactTarget set up camp at the Super Bowl as a real-time hub for marketers during the big game.

• Looking to ramp up your social media strategy this year? Check out our list of suggestions for balancing your social media diet, and Soshable’s reading list.

• Need to refresh your Twitter background? We’ve updated our handy guide to creating backgrounds for Twitter.com to reflect the new profile layout!

• We took a look at LinkedIn for brands in our latest “What’s the Hype?” post. Get your company page up to speed with these latest features.

Have a great weekend!