This Week in Social is a weekly digest of some of the biggest stories in social media marketing news. These stories are the show notes for the Brave Ad World Podcast. Each story is discussed at a deeper level on the podcast.

Student Discovers Facebook Messenger-Based Payment System (Read more at PC Mag)

Facebook is working on a friend-to-friend payment feature that will be available through the Facebook Messenger app. The feature is already built into the app, but it has not been turned on. It was discovered by Andrew Aude, a Standford student.

When it is available, users will be able to give and receive money using debit cards from within the app. Each user can turn on a PIN number to protect payment information.

Facebook wouldn't be the first service to offer something like this, but the fact that it would be Facebook would a be a big deal. For the most part, people are on Facebook and part of its ecosystem. A feature like this would provide a convenient option for friends to pay each other in an ecosystem they're already comfortable with.

It would also promote the adoption of Messenger and get users more used to turning to Messenger for peer-to-peer messaging.

Facebook hasn't commented on this, so there's no guarantee it will be rolled out.

Facebook Expands Mobile Audience Network (Read more at AdAge)

Facebook's much-anticipated expanded ad network has arrived for all marketers. Dubbed, Facebook's Audience Network, the social network's advertising will be able to display in all mobile apps part of the network. The number of apps that are included in Facebook's network has not been disclosed, but some of the more popular partners include Shazam, Zynga and IGN.

The ads will use Facebook targeting advertisers are already used to but will display as banner, interstitial or native units. Depending on objectives, advertisers will be able to use the ads to drive app installs, improve app engagement or link to a mobile site.

Driving traffic to mobile sites brings Facebook squarely into display competition with other major players, including Google and Yahoo. Facebook may give them a run for their money too as it offers unique targeting and reporting capabilities.

This is a significant move. It expands Facebook's ad inventory and continues to allow advertisers to view the social network as much more than Facebook.com, while decreasing the risk of soaring ad rates thanks to a lack of inventory. Between this and the launch of the Atlas ad platform, Facebook is looking to take a major display cut from Google.

Snapchat Confirms Ad Rollout (Read more at The Wall Street Journal)

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegal has announced that paid advertising is coming "soon" with ads that will be viewable for up to 24 hours within Snapchat Stories.

These ads will not be targeted in any way, but they may be an attractive option for advertisers looking to go after younger consumers.

Snapchat ads are clearly going to be a reach play and little else. That means, outside of its user demographic, these ads will offer little that other platforms don't and with less opportunities for marketers to measure, target and optimize for effectiveness.

The move seems to be more about appeasing investors than delivering something advertisers can really leverage. This will continue to be a challenge for Snapchat, which focuses on protecting user data and maintaining anonymity. Ads that feel too targeted and contextual could hinder that perception.

Private Social Networks Called Into Question (Read more at Recode and The Guardian)

Snapchat and Whisper's security and protection of user data have been called into question.

Let's start with Snapchat. 500 MB of Snapchat images were leaked, many of which were explicit. Although, no personal information was affected.

Snapchat had nothing to do with the hack. The images were obtained when a third-party service not endorsed by SnapChat called Snapsaved was hacked, not Snapchat.

In fact, Snapchat prohibits the use of third party apps like Snapsaved in its terms of use. Snapsaved worked by tapping into Snapchat's API to allow users to save photos shared on Snapchat.

The hackers worked by tapping into Snapchat's API, which Snapchat does not willingly give access to to third parties, but it still raises questions about why Snapchat's API is insecure.

While this wasn't Snapchat's fault, this certainly is not going to make users feel any more secure with the service, and it clearly points to a need for Snapchat to work more closely with developers to secure its API.

Whisper's problem, however, may be more serious.

The Guardian published a story saying Whisper provided location data to the U.S. Department of Defense, the FBI and Britain's MI5.

The Guardian had previously been a partner to help Whisper become more of a news source but has discontinued its relationship as have BuzzFeed and Fusion. BuzzFeed curated Whispers about certain topics in BuzzFeed stories.

Whisper has contended that some of the Guardian's information is untrue but that it has complied with law enforcement to "lower suicide rates." It says it does not collect nor store personally identifiable information from users and is anonymous.

If anything is learned from either of these stories, it's that anything that's online has the potential to be uncovered and shared no matter how secure it may seem. Regardless, private messaging has a serious PR problem on its hands.

News Quick Hits

Yahoo is finalizing plans to invest $20 million in Snapchat, which would put the ephemeral messaging platform at a $10 billion valuation. This strategy would mirror Yahoo's $1 billion investment in Alibaba, which gave Yahoo 40% stake in 2005. That investment yielded tens of billions of dollars. (Read more at The Wall Street Journal)
Pinterest is working with media companies, including eHow and Funny or Die, to promote Pin Picks. Pin Picks allow Pinterest to showcase topic-specifc collections of pins. This is a full campaign, but Pin Picks have been in testing since August. The co-marketing effort includes content to help users as well as videos to be distributed via YouTube. (Read more at AdAge)
Facebook is rumored to be working on yet another app that will allow people to communicate anonymously. The app would apparently mirror some of the same features found on Secret and Whisper, which both allow users to share anonymously. The app is expected to launch in the coming weeks. Facebook has notoriously required users to use their real identities on the social network. This would allow an alternative that offers the utility of anonymity. (Read more at The New York Times)
Facebook has introduced a new ad objective for small businesses and that is local awareness. Ads with the objective will be able to target users who are within a certain radius of the business. The ads will even allow users to tap to get directions. (Read more at Mashable)
Facebook has finally closed its WhatsApp acquisition for $19 billion. WhatsApp founders received their payment in stock, which means they're actually receiving a payout that equates to more than the original $19 billion price tag thanks to Facebook's stock performance since the acquisition took place. (Read more at AllFacebook)
Twitter has filed a lawsuit agains the FBI and Department of Justice to allow it to be more transparent with users about what kind of requests the government is making for user data. The lawsuit is to allow for a Transparency Report to be published. (Read more at BetaBeat)
Google+ has added a poll feature that lets users collect opinions from their followers on Google+. Polls can have up to five choices, each of which can be accompanied with photos. (Read more at CNET)
Groupe BPCE, France's second-largest bank, has unveiled a service to allow its customers to send money to each other free of charge with tweets. (Read more at AdAge)
Facebook has rolled out an update that supports stickers in comments on personal, group and event posts, but not Pages. (Read more at InsideFacebook)
Reddit has officially launched its first official app for the Apple App Store. The official version is actually Alien Blue, previously the most popular third-party app for the platform, which Reddit acquired. (Red more at The New York Times)
Twitter is launching Audio Cards that will allow users to embed audio in tweets, the same way users can add photos or videos. Audio can be turned on with a tap, and then the audio can be "docked" to allow users to continue listening as they scroll. The feature is available through iTunes and Soundcloud. (Read more at Gizmodo)
Twitpic is shutting down after it announced it was shutting down then announced it would not shut down. Now, it's happening on October 25, and users have until that time to export their photos. Agreeable terms could not be met with its potential buyer, according to Twitpic founder Noah Everett. (Read more at TechCrunch)