Today's Buzz

How a Facebook bug tied up the Internet
Visitors to numerous major websites were redirected to Facebook's home page for about an hour on Thursday, apparently because of a glitch in Facebook's third-party Web buttons. Although the bug was resolved, it raised questions about Facebook's increasing influence over the broader Internet, and on external sites' reliance on the network's Connect and Like tools, Mike Isaac writes. All Things D (2/7), NBC News (2/7), The Atlantic Wire (2/7)
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Network Update

Twitter says search tool is set to grow
Twitter will soon allow users to search for tweets that are more than one week old, and will gradually increase the size of its searchable archive, engineer Paul Burstein wrote in a blog post. Search results will continue to be determined by factors including retweets and favorites. "We'll be steadily increasing this percentage over time, and ultimately, aim to surface the best content for your query," Burstein wrote. Computerworld/IDG News Service (2/7)
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Ideas in Action

How Oreo built an Instagram following in 15 seconds
In the 15 seconds following the screening of Oreo's "Cookie or Creme" Super Bowl ad, the brand's Instagram following jumped from 2,200 to 22,000, says brand manager Susan Burris. The continuing campaign, which asks consumers to share photos so that they can be made into cookie or cream sculptures, has since boosted Oreo's following to more than 50,000. "We're not just launching an Instagram page, we're launching an engagement experience," Burris says. ClickZ (2/7)
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Louis Vuitton handbags join Twitter, start flirting
Louis Vuitton is seeking to humanize its handbags and men's accessories by having them post love poems to one another on Twitter. "Louis Vuitton is being inventive and creative by essentially giving their handbags a personality," Social Muse Communications CEO Christine Kirk said. Luxury Daily (2/7)
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Research and Reports

Social media is still a small part of retail, study says
People are interacting more on social media, but only 12% of consumers made a purchase through social media last year and only 18% bought something based on a referral from a social media source, a PricewaterhouseCoopers report says. "Our survey data shows that social media will, for the near future, remain a backwater sales channel, if you can call it a sales channel at all," said the report, which was based on a survey of 11,000 consumers in 11 countries. MediaPost Communications/Marketing Daily (2/7)
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Social brands put CEOs front and center
Two-thirds of the CEOs at the world's 50 largest companies actively engaged with customers on social media sites last year, an increase of 30 percentage points from two years earlier, according to a Weber Shandwick survey. That's a sign that marketers and PR professionals are realizing the value of putting company leaders front and center in social media campaigns, this article notes. "Having some kind of CEO presence on social channels is becoming an almost necessary part of doing business -- whether for brand image or company transparency," this unbylined article says. eMarketer (2/7)
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The Takeaway

10 easy ways for businesses to get started with Vine
Twitter's Vine video-sharing service is a good fit for business-to-business marketers, Kristen Galli writes. The short clips promote creativity and help to humanize brands, Galli writes. Featuring clips of staff or facilities, showing how a product is made or teasing events are all easy ways to get started with the network, she writes. SmartBrief/SmartBlog on Social Media (2/8)
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Social Shareable

A striking look at our world
The winners of the Sony World Photography Awards will be announced in the next two months, but the shortlisted images have been made public. The photos include portraits of Botswanan heavy-metal enthusiasts, amazing wildlife shots and some of the most startling news photography of the year. The Atlantic online (2/6)
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SmartQuote

Facebook can ruin your Thursday night of Internet surfing any time it wants." -- Adam Clark Estes, writing at The Atlantic Wire Share: