The weekend read

Friday the 13th has always been a lucky day for me. No ducking out of the paths of black cats or avoiding ladders here. And you're lucky enough to have my curated list of great finds and leads I shared on Twitter this week. Will you find something to make you smarter by Monday? Fingers crossed....

• Superstition ain't the way: Traffic on Pinterest didn't change over Thanksgiving and Cyber Monday, but retail sales via the site jumped 260% that weekend.
• Black cat creeps in: And a new study suggests that Pinterest now accounts for 20% of all social shares of news, gaining ground on Facebook and Twitter.
• Unlucky in....December? A new study suggests we post less on Facebook during the dark months. Does Facebook have seasonal affective disorder?
• You can make it look like an accident: LinkedIn's blog looks at the role of social media in college admissions.
• 13th floor: Fan Bridge built a free tool for YouTube called Channel Pages, and suggests here ways to use it to build more fans for your biz.
• Friggatriskaidekaphobia: Feedly just announced a beta channel you can join to test out new features in the works.
• Just stay home: Google is allowing selected brands to turn Google+ posts into display ads.
• You won't get here walking under a ladder: You're probably seeing your own year-end review on your Facebook profile. Now see the U.S. and world aggregate year-end review for what we posted on Facebook in 2013.
• Crystal ball: Have you looked at Nielsen's new Social Guide measurements for Twitter and TV? A good reference to add to your data troves, and you can read more about the ratings process here.
• 13th take: Recorder with Tags is an app that adds time-coded notes to audio while you record.
• Lucky break: You can now add pictures to direct messages on Twitter.
• Share that superstition: Google Translate is now in 80 languages, expanding this time to more African and Asian languages.

I count myself lucky that you show up here every Friday, 13th or not. Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for reading!

(Photo from Clio20's photostream on Flickr)