Making Sense of a Manic Monday

Whenever Facebook unveils a new feature, you can be sure everyone will take notice.

If Google launches a new service, it's going to dominate headlines.

When Apple announces any updates, a frenzy hits the news and blogosphere.

But what about when all three online giants make announcements on the same day? Besides being inundated with updates in my RSS feed, I was left struggling to decide which one to cover in today's post.

So instead of prioritizing, I'll give a brief rundown of what all three companies announced on Monday.

Thinking outside of the (in)box.

Facebook unveiled a revamped version of their messaging system. While rumors flew that this was designed to compete with Gmail, Facebook claims this new messaging system is not an email killer.

The new messaging focuses on being a social inbox with seamless messaging and a conversation history. Users will also receive an @facebook.com address based on their username. Other features include off-site emailing, compatibility with other systems, and integration with SMS and mobile Web apps, all of which will take place on this new message platform.

Turning up the location-based heat.

Google is once again venturing further into the location-based arena with Monday's release of Hotpot, a Yelp-style recommendation engine. Hotpot takes all of their existing Google Places features like reviews and ratings with a friendlier user interface. Hotpot allows users to link and recommend services directly from their account, as opposed to aggregating the data from outside services like Yelp or Gowalla.

Beatles and iTunes come together.

After years of going back and forth, the families of the Beatles have finally agreed to sell the back catalog of songs to iTunes. Rumors had been swirling that the Beatles would finally be landing on the music service, and those rumors were proven true with Apple's announcement Monday. And if you go to iTunes, you'll notice that Beatlemania has taken over iTunes both musically and visually.

So as you can see, it was a very busy day for anyone covering the latest tech and social media news. Hopefully, this gives sheds some light on a very busy Monday.