This week, Google have released Real-Time, an immediate analytics tool that shows you how many people are engaging with your content at any one time. Facebook push us to make better Pages and ReTargeter follows your followers.

I was lucky enough to happen upon Simon Berry’s ColaLife social media campaigning Q&A at Sounddelivery this week and was impressed by not only his original idea, its execution and his attitude to online, but also his obvious passion for ColaLife and its potential.

Google+ is integrated into Google search results in a (not so) shocking move. Kuapay pip NFC to the post with a QR code mobile payment system and Facebook Ads allow you to target people by postcode.

Facebook nears the 700 million user mark, Twitter launches Follow button and adds extra email notifications, new donating platform Givey is launched and a quick look at mobile usage figures among social networks.

This week Ash pledges to grow a beard to help save a million gallons of water and Ben and Jerry’s are similarly resourceful and save your left-over Twitter characters. Crowd-sourcing (and new tools!) take the pain out of content generation. We look at Storify – a tweet capturing tool, Philanthroper – a Groupon for good and new Facebook Non-Profit Resources.

This week’s beautiful bytes looks at how the launch of JustTextGiving, Likester and Unity could impact the sector and looks at an innovative use of Groupon for clever crowdsourcing.

I was reminiscing the other day about the joy of writing and receiving letters and my friend lamented that people send emails nowadays. Well that seemed pretty obvious – yeah, I suppose they do.But just looking at my personal email inbox today I can’t find any messages from people I know; every single one is a marketing message of some description.

Twitter launched UK office, looks to buy Tweetdeck. Everything Everywhere waives text donation fees and Marks and Spencer rewards Foursquare check-ins with charity donations.

Google encroaches on Facebook and Foursquare turf, pressure increases for Apple to allow in-app donations and getting buy-in for development of your online strategy

Swipegood makes donating even easier, Google updates offering to non-profits, check-in to Facebook events and Twitter may be soon to roll out brand pages

Facebook introduces a new version of Questions, Google takes on competition with NFC payments and Plus one Service and LinkedIn reaches 100 million members

Facebook upgrades like button functionality and adds suicide functionality. Also, how much are QR codes actually used and what is the #cookiepocalypse?

Have your Facebook ‘like’ buttons stopped working recently? How can you use Open Graph Meta data to improve Facebook activity.

This week: Biz Stone launches new Non-Profit, our obsession with Facebook grows and a look at how we engage with Facebook Pages.

After last weeks double serving, here’s this weeks equally fattening portion of beautiful bytes.

Over the last week, I don’t think there has been a day go by without someone in the office, or online, mentioning mobile marketing.

We’re finally through the 12 days of Christmas and only have 50 shopping weeks until the next one. For now, we can play with all the tasty information we got this Christmas!