While we are always told as job seekers and business owners to cultivate a strong and integrated social media profile, a lack of meaningful metrics make it difficult to understand whether or not our efforts have been successful. This task is made even harder by the sheer volume of social media outlets now available, as each has their own specific benefits and unique purposes for users.

Last month, Facebook introduced “Instant Articles” in order to help journalists and news sites to gain a wider audience. Google wasn't going to be left behind and yesterday in a blog post the search giant announced the launch of News Lab .

June 24, 2015 – Simplilearn, a leading global tech-ed company today announced a $10 million deal to acquire Market Motive, a Silicon Valley based digital marketing training company. The merged company, which has already helped more than 400,000 professionals in over 100 countries see $4 billion worth of pay raises, is turning its attention to an expanded presence in the U.S. where it can offer a turnkey solution to professionals trying to advance in their field and struggling college grads, under-employed and beleaguered by student debt.

MassInteract is the nations fasting growing Google Trusted Agency that provides Google Business View. Using Google Street View technology, customers are able to virtually walk around venues nationwide.

The best businesses online run on a number of third-party technologies that help power their analytics, customer messaging, marketing funnel , search engine optimization and social sharing. If you're building your first digital store, you only really need to worry about adding in the basics such as Google Analytics, a CRM and a payment gateway.

White label outsource SEO reseller HubShout, LLC announces the latest edition of its popular “Ask a Reseller” webinar series, which allows top resellers to discuss what strategies have helped them succeed in the digital marketing field We present these ‘Ask a Reseller' webinars so our reseller partners can learn from those who have done the trial and error and figured out what works and what doesn't.

Certainly for the employees, managers and partners of these companies, these events are significant. But for the greater local search industry, I don't see these as particularly big milestones.