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April 28 “Colleges turn to Snapchat geofilters to lure new students” — Universities are pretty much like any marketer, albeit one peddling a product with a very high price point. Snapchat’s popularity among youngsters is no secret. The app has a nearly 70 percent reach among the 18–24 demographic, according to comScore, and colleges are increasingly beginning to take note. Many universities operate active Snapchat accounts, even enlisting current students to operate them and offer viewers glances at various aspects of campus life. Several have also started tapping into Snapchat features like geofilters, which are special graphic overlays that Snapchat makes available based on location.

April 28 “Snapchat User ‘Stories’ Fuel 10 Billion Daily Video Views” — The majority of people using Snapchat’s application are making videos, fueling a boom in watching them, the company is telling its investors. More than a third of Snapchat’s daily users create “Stories,” broadcasting photos and videos from their lives that last 24 hours, according to people familiar with the matter. Now users are watching 10 billion videos a day on the application, up from 8 billion in February.

April 26 “Facebook is building a standalone camera app: WSJ” — Facebook’s latest move is a standalone camera app so users can create photos and video to share on the parent platform, according to the Wall Street Journal. One planned feature is to allow the app to live stream video taken in-app — an area Facebook has been especially bullish on lately. It’s speculated the new app is a response to falling rates of Facebook users sharing original content on the social network — down 15% earlier year, according to internal Facebook data as reported by The Information.

April 26 “Fluent: Half of Mobile Users Have Never Paid for a Gaming App” — Customer acquisition platform Fluent released the results of a new survey that analyzed the mobile gaming habits of 1,014 American mobile device owners. According to the report, 77 percent of respondents said they play mobile games multiple times per week, while 46 percent said they play mobile games every day. Overall, free games were found to be the most popular, as 50 percent of respondents said they have never paid for a gaming application.

Feb. 15 “How Dstillery Tracked 16,000 Iowa Caucus-Goers Via Their Phones” — Fusion reports about Dstillery’s ability to obtain the mobile device ID’s from the phones of Iowa caucus-goers to match them with their online profiles. How does Dstillery do it? It obtains information from people’s phones via ad networks. As Fusion reports, “when you open an app or look at a browser page, there’s a very fast auction that happens where different advertisers bid to get to show you an ad. Their bid is based on how valuable they think you are, and to decide that, your phone sends them information about you, including, in many cases, an identifying code (that they’ve built a profile around) and your location information, down to your latitude and longitude.”

Feb. 15 “Messaging is eating the app store: New Tribe app growing 80% weekly” — The new Quartz app tells you the news like a friend sending texts. Messaging apps command bigger audiences than social networks. And now Apple is featuring the one-week-out-of-beta video-messaging app Tribe in the coveted first or second place on the app store in 110 countries, and among the top 10 in the United States, the U.K. and India.

Feb. 11 “With Quartz’s App, You Don’t Read the News. You Chat With It” — Yesterday I wanted to revisit the New Hampshire primary results. I opened Quartz’s new app and was greeted with a text message: “Yep, it’s really happening: Trump and Sanders won big in New Hampshire.” To read more, I tapped a ready-made text reply containing a donkey, an elephant, and an American flag emoji. More texts, and more news, arrived. This is the future of mobile news. In the app you don’t read the news; you chat with it. Instead of headlines, you get messages that read like texts from a friend — if your friend were a news-obsessed but reliable source with an irreverent tone of voice.

Feb. 10 “Twitter has launched a 24-hour video ad option for marketers” — Twitter’s First View ad unit gives marketers a 24-hour promoted video at the top of the targeted audiences’ timeline.” The new format is being gradually introduced to what Twitter described as “managed clients” in the U.S. and will roll out globally in coming months. The micro-blogging site announced algorithm changes to its timeline that would make it an option for users to view tweets out of order.

Feb. 5 “Twitter is testing a button that serves up ready-made GIFs for users” — Twitter users may soon see more GIFs in their newsfeed, thanks to a dedicated button the company is quietly testing. It appears the social network is currently working on a GIF button that would allow users to select from a pool of ready-made animated images, so it could be easily added to a tweet to help convey their current mood. The addition of a GIF tool wouldn’t come as a big surprise, considering how Facebook and Tumblr have added GIF integrations to its platforms. Twitter is likely partnering with a third-party provider to supply the GIFs, but the company declined to comment on the specifics of the rumor.

Feb. 3 “Anonymous App After School Raises $16.4 Million One Year After App Store Ban” — What a difference a year can make. One year ago, anonymous messaging app After School was in the middle of a four-month-long ban from Apple’s App Store for violating the company’s safety guidelines. Now After School is alive and well, and cashing a really big check. The company, which has an app for high school students to post anonymously to their classmates, raised $16.4 million in a new round of venture funding.

Feb. 1 “Lawsuit alleges privacy rights violation by U. email service provider” — Four students at the University of California, Berkeley, filed complaints against Google for privacy violations relating to Google’s Apps for Education program, which provides Gmail and other Google products to educational institutions. The four plaintiffs alleged that Google illegally intercepted and read their university emails without their consent and then used information found in those emails to create tailored advertising profiles.

Feb. 1 “Facebook and Twitter: Users Process Mobile Content Faster” — Research done by Facebook and Twitter over the last year shows that even in short amounts of time, we are processing and absorbing a lot of information. Facebook found with Nielsen that 47% of the value in a video campaign was delivered in the first three seconds, while 74% of the value was delivered in the first ten seconds. Content consumption in mobile feeds is inherently different from content consumption on other platforms, such as desktop or TV — and even different than on mobile apps and sites that aren’t feed-based.

Jan. 28 “Facebook to update ‘like’ button with emoji ‘Reactions’ in a few weeks” — Facebook’s hallmark ‘like’ button is to be extended with a ‘Reactions’ product that will allow users to respond to posts via emojis. Though fans of the thumbs up icon need not despair — the social network has promised that the new feature is intended to build upon the symbol, not replace it. Reactions will free users from the constraints of the like button (which can seem insensitive when applied to certain posts) and give them the opportunity to express a host of emotions.

Jan. 27 “The End of App Stores As We Know Them” — Uber isn’t just killing the taxi industry. Its relentless approach to distribution and scale is also putting a nail in the coffin of app stores. Smart companies like Uber are rewriting the app distribution rulebook. Instead of being a bland icon lost amongst millions of others, they’ve chosen to aggressively accelerate their growth through deep integrations with services that people habitually use. It’s the start of a mass migration from the app store which is set to kill a long broken model for good.

Jan. 25 “Bivid Location-Based Social Networking App Launches on iOS” — Following a beta launch of its platform in September 2015, Bivid has officially launched its location-based social networking app on iOS. Bivid allows users to share photos and videos from their daily lives, and discover content posted by others near their location, or around the world. Bivid looks to compete with apps like Yik Yak, but unlike Yik Yak, Bivid doesn’t allow anonymous posting.

Jan. 22 “Google paid $1 billion to be the default search engine on the iPhone” — Google is apparently paying Apple, by way of a revenue sharing agreement, a significant amount of money to remain the default search engine for the iPhone. The terms mean that in 2014, Apple received $1 billion from Google, according to a court transcript from the Oracle vs. Google lawsuit. Speculation has always existed about how much the search agreement was worth to the two companies, but the amount has come as a surprise, after Apple chief executive Tim Cook attacked Google and Facebook in 2015 for “business models that undermine users’ privacy.

Jan. 22 “The Fastest-Growing App” — Over the past few years, smartphones and tablets have completely changed the way we interact with media. We may still be listening to the radio, read the news and or watch television shows, but more and more often we’re doing it on our mobile devices or, to be more precise, within apps. Personalization apps (e.g. emoji keyboards or wallpaper apps) were the fastest-growing category in 2015. News and magazine apps were the second-fastest growing app category.

Jan. 22 “Sephora’s Virtual Artist brings augmented reality to large beauty audience” — In a reflection of augmented reality’s growing role in beauty, Sephora is bringing the technology to a wide audience via a new app feature that enables users to virtually try on different lip shades. The latest app update launched the new Sephora Virtual Artist feature, specifically designed using facial recognition software to allow users to test lip products and purchase directly in the app.

Jan. 21 “Uber wants to deliver your dinner” — Uber could soon be your go-to choice for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Uber plans to launch a standalone app for its UberEats food-delivery service in several major US cities. The app will let people order food from local restaurants and have it quickly delivered by an Uber driver. The mobile app is expected to launch by the end of March, according to the Wall Street Journal. The service will initially be available in cities including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Austin and Washington, DC.

Jan. 21 “Facebook launches Sports Stadium hub for you to chat about the big game” — As anyone trying to read their timeline during the recent NFL playoffs knows, Twitter has become the de facto place for people to liveblog their thoughts on sporting events. But now Facebook is making a play for the sports market. The social network tonight launched Facebook Sports Stadium, a dedicated section of Facebook that aims to serve as a central hub for all your second-screen activity.

Jan. 20 “Scratchy App Lets Users Scratch To Win Gift Cards From Fave Brands” — Like playing scratch-off lottery tickets but hate the mess afterwards? Check out Scratchy, a virtual scratch-off game that awards winners gift cards to their favorite brands. Scratchy was created to remedy the backlash against mobile advertising and challenges faced by ad-blocking technologies. When players sign up, they select 10 brands to follow. In beginning rounds, players scratch three of six tiles hoping to find 3-of-a-kind brand logos. Players can win direct rewards from $5 and up off purchases depending on the level they are playing.

Jan. 20 “Snapchat: The King of Millennial Micro-Moments” — In 2015, Snapchat put the world on notice that the app is an advertising force to be reckoned with — maybe the advertising force to be reckoned with. Named Adweek‘s hottest digital brand, Snapchat commanded a reported $750,000 for brands to place ads, and the millennial darling reported more than 6 billion videos daily. Snapchat will become even bigger in 2016 as brands learn how to apply the app to create micro-moments for the surging millennial population.

Jan. 18 “Whatsapp Drops Subscription Fee” — WhatsApp said it was doing away with subscription fees for its over-the-top messenger service. The approach to charging a fee after the first year of use was apparently not effective for the app, which has nearly a billion users around the world, many of whom don’t have a credit or debit card number. Ironically, it appears that such a massive increase in international scale is the major reason behind the shift away from a subscription model. Reportedly, many users in other countries worried that their service would be cut off if they were unable to pay the $1 subscription fee.

Jan. 17 “How Periscope Is Building A Community In The Midst Of Twitter’s Turmoil” — Here’s the trending narrative for Twitter: User growth has stagnated, and the product has not improved, at least not fast enough. But that isn’t the case with Twitter’s Periscope, the live-streaming video application the microblogging site acquired a year ago this month. Since its public launch last March, Periscope has had 100 million broadcasts. Nearly 40 years of video content is watched on the app every day, the company estimated. During its first four months, Periscope grew to 2 million daily active users. In contrast, Twitter over its first year, from 2006 to 2007, garnered only 50,000 weekly active users.

Jan. 13 “How Mobile Apps Stack Up Against Mobile Browsers” — Quixey, a mobile app search company, revealed that 32.6% of US mobile device users prefer to use both a mobile app and a mobile browser at different times. Taking a closer look, 19.6% of respondents said they preferred a mobile browser, and 23.1% of mobile device users said they favored mobile apps. Some 24.7% said they had no preference.

Jan. 13 “Skype Brings Group Video Calls To Mobile Devices” — In celebration of its 10-year anniversary, Skype announced today the launch of free group video calling on Android, iPhone, iPad and Windows 10 mobile devices. The feature has been available for a couple of years on the desktop, for Mac and PC, but had yet to make its way to mobile. Though the company didn’t provide an exact launch date, interested users were offered a way to sign up for early access to the feature by filling out a provided pre-registration form. The form only asks for your email, Skype name, country and device.

Jan. 12 “Periscope Now Drops Live Video Into Your Twitter Timeline” — If you’re paying attention this morning, you’ll notice something new in your Twitter app for iOS. Instead of seeing a link every time someone you follow starts a broadcast on Periscope, you’ll see that broadcast, live, right in your timeline. Soon, you’ll see it in Twitter’s apps for other platforms too. In Twitter’s quest to be what you might call The Right Now Network — the place where everyone goes to see what’s happening at this exact second — what better way than by showing you live video in the stream?

Jan. 12 “Five questions about new social app Peach” — Who says Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Vine, Periscope, LinkedIn, Snapchat and Instagram are enough to quench a social media appetite? There’s a new social networking app on the block, Peach for Apple iOS devices. Launched on January 7 by Vine co-founder Dom Hofmann, the app picked up considerable buzz over the weekend.

Jan. 12 “Snapchat Gains Ground on Facebook in Number of Video Views” — Snapchat seems to be edging closer to Facebook when it comes to video views. The company reportedly hit seven billion daily mobile video views, which puts it just a billion short of the social networking giant. Snapchat has more than 100 million active users compared with Facebook’s 1.55 billion users, but the company known for its disappearing photos and videos has seen a marked increase in its video views. The jump in viewership has been attributed in part to the Snapchat Stories feature that lets users share video clips that are viewable for 24 hours.

Jan. 11 “Can YouTube, Snapchat and Amazon amplify Obama’s message? The White House hopes so.” — An engineer who breaks wine glasses in front of audiences to demonstrate scientific principles. A 26-year old fashion expert who came out as lesbian last year. A former professional gamer who uses his own animations to illustrate videos that tackle the issue of race. All three are YouTube celebrities with major followings who will interview President Obama on Friday about his last State of the Union address. Getting many Americans to focus on a formal speech the president is delivering to Congress — especially in a fractured media landscape — can be hard, and administration officials are constantly looking for ways to bypass the mainstream media to connect with the audiences most open to their message.

Jan. 6 “Snapchat Shutters Lens Store” — Snapchat has decided to close its Lens store. The social darling isn’t explaining the rationale behind the change, which comes just a couple months after it began selling lenses for 99 cents a pop. It did, however, assure users that they will still have access to all the lenses they previously purchased. Less than a year old, Snapchat’s lenses have proven to be a success with many of its users. Among other popular lenses, a “Puking Rainbows” lens dilates a user’s eyes to the size of large saucers, and then spews glittery rainbow vomit from their mouth.

Jan. 6 “Generation Z Digital Connections” — According to a new Refuel Agency survey, teens (GenZ 13–15) are more connected and tech-fluent than the generations before them, with Instagram and Kik the messaging applications that young teens are most apt to often use. Both appear to be used frequently by more young teens than Snapchat and Facebook Messenger. Despite its strong skew toward youth, Snapchat appears to be more popular among older (16–19) than younger teens. By contrast, younger teens were more likely than their older counterparts to say they spend most of their time on YouTube (73% vs. 60%) and Instagram (46% vs. 43%).

Jan. 5 “Twitter Considering 10,000-Character Limit for Tweets” — Twitter is building a new feature that will allow users to tweet things longer than the traditional 140-character limit, and the company is targeting a launch date toward the end of Q1 2016. Twitter is considering a 10,000 character limit. That’s the same character limit the company uses for its Direct Messages product, so it isn’t a complete surprise.

Jan. 5 “Twitter Launches Conversational Ads: Tweets With Call-to-Action Buttons” — Twitter recently announced its latest ad format: conversational ads. Similar to its poll feature, this ad format allows users to engage with the sponsored tweet via custom hashtags or call-to-action buttons.

Dec. 30 “10 most essential, can’t live without apps” — There are over 3 million apps in the Apple and Google app stores, but which ones are the most useful? We’ve posed the question to readers on Facebook and Twitter this year, and the ones that routinely topped the charts for us are productivity apps.

Dec. 29 “Facebook is testing multiple news feeds on mobile” — Facebook is testing multiple, topic-based feeds on its mobile app in place of one main News Feed. It’s the next step in a process started by the company in October when it began allowing some users to see specialized interest feeds on the web. The new mobile design borrows heavily from the way Facebook’s Paper app works, with the app automatically sorting posts from the people and pages you follow into different sections (and, perhaps, customizable ones) or feeds. While the traditional “News Feed” remains, it is supplemented with secondary feeds — like “Style,” “Travel,” and “Headlines” — that are just a swipe away.

Dec. 29 “Why messaging apps saw the biggest mobile wins in 2015” — While innovations such as digital payments and new social media networks gained plenty of traction this year, messaging applications were the real winners in mobile, thanks to adaptability that yielded features such as money transfers and ordering Uber rides. Mobile messaging has experienced a meteoric rise in 2015, boosted by the worldwide popularity of apps such as WhatsApp, Viber, WeChat and Facebook Messenger.

Dec. 29 “Is Your Facebook Habit Becoming Dependence? ” — You can say no to a second glass of wine and have no trouble skipping the dessert course. But if you don’t hit up Facebook a couple of times each day you start to get a little itchy. You may be Facebook dependent — and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Research of Facebook users has been connecting a wide range of dots — from studies showing that heavy social media users have higher body mass indices and more credit card debt to other research suggesting that social-media addiction shares similar “neural features” with gambling and substance addictions.

Dec. 28 “Hottest app trends for 2016” — 2015 proved that apps are eating the Internet as users spend more time on their mobile devices than they do online or on other screens. The app ecosystem experienced tremendous growth, profitability and expansion as mobile devices became the new normal for delivering content, entertainment, transportation and much more. With new devices and platforms, every app publisher must evolve its strategy to be relevant across various channels and screens going forward.

Dec. 24 “The 15 most beautifully designed apps of 2015” — It’s that time of year again, when retrospective lists reign supreme and reflective musings clog your feeds. This post meets that description, but rest assured it will provide at least one thing to brighten your day: eye candy. Here’s our list of the 15 most impressively designed apps released or redesigned this year.

Dec. 22 “Google Plans New, Smarter Messaging App” — Google is building a new mobile-messaging service that taps its artificial intelligence know-how and so-called chatbot technology to catch up with rivals including Facebook in the fast-growing arena. Messaging services are among the world’s most popular mobile apps, with more than two billion users. But Google’s two messaging services — Hangouts and Messenger — trail far behind Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger and Tencent’s WeChat, the most popular messaging app in China.

Dec. 21 “You May Own Apple’s Phone, but You’re Using Google’s Apps” — Google has a decent lead over Apple when it comes to the number of people using its phones/operating system. But when it comes to the apps people use on those operating systems, it’s no contest — it’s Google’s world, hands down. Google owns five of the 10 most popular mobile apps in the U.S., and Facebook has three of them — including Facebook, which is by far the most popular. Apple has just two.

Dec. 18 “Nielsen: Facebook Messenger the fastest-growing U.S. smartphone app” — Facebook once again was the most popular smartphone app of the year among U.S. users, according to data from Nielsen. And its Messenger app was the fastest-growing title this year. Facebook’s app claimed more than 126 million average unique users every month in 2015, up 8 percent from the previous year. YouTube was the second-most popular app with nearly 98 million users, a 5 percent increase from 2014.

Dec. 18 “Wolfgang Puck, Food Network Feeding Mobile Appetite” — Eating on-the-go is taking on a whole new meaning, thanks to a growing body of high-quality food video created specifically for mobile devices. The smorgasbord of offerings include cooking show apps with favorite chefs, food travel videos highlighting cultural cuisine from around the world, and even apps that make it easy for people to become the stars of their own mobile food show.

Dec. 17 “Nielsen: Top Apps Of 2015 Dominated By Facebook, Google & Apple” — Nielsen has released a look at the top smartphone apps of 2015. Amazingly the top ten reflects the properties of just three companies: Facebook, Google and Apple. Nielsen also said that smartphone penetration grew to 80 percent in the US at the end of the third quarter. The most recent comScore data show penetration at roughly 78 percent. On the Nielsen list, the top two mobile apps of 2015 were Facebook and YouTube. Number three was Facebook Messenger. After that are four Google apps: search, Play, Maps and Gmail.

Dec. 15 “Pinterest to open up promoted pins to all U.S. businesses” — Pinterest will let any U.S. business buy its “promoted pins” advertising product starting in January, the latest step by one of the technology world’s so-called unicorns to build an advertising business worthy of its $11 billion valuation. Earlier this year, Pinterest began testing a self-serve system, mostly for small and medium-sized businesses, to create their own promoted pins just as big consumer brands do.

Dec. 13 “Cinema Apps That Help Bypass the Popcorn Lines” — The next big multiplex trend involves eliminating what some theater owners call the “popcorn pinch point.” The largest multiplex chains in North America, AMC Theaters and Regal Entertainment, are rolling out technology that allows customers to preorder and prepay for food and drinks from the comfort of their smartphones. The goal is to significantly reduce that pinch point — the time moviegoers spend waiting in line at the concession counter.

Dec. 13 “Here Are 4 Mobile Messaging Apps Marketers Need to Know About in 2016” — When it comes to messaging, Snapchat and Facebook-owned WhatsApp and Messenger are the go-to apps of millennials and marketers alike. But increasingly, a new crop of messaging apps is growing in popularity. Players like WeChat, Line, Kik and Viber are beginning to quietly capture the attention of brand marketers via sponsored stickers and chat bots reaching millions of millennials and teens.

Dec. 13 “Everlance App Tracks Mileage “Automagically” Through GPS” — Everlance, a mobile software startup launched this year out of Stanford University, has released a new Everlance App the company hopes will make tracking expenses and mileage as effortless as a single swipe. Everlance has grown quickly through word of mouth and is already logging over a million miles a week for its users. The Everlance app works by using a proprietary algorithm that automatically detects and records car trips while running silently in the background. By using data from your smartphone’s GPS, geofencing and other inputs, the startup has created a way for users to record their business mileage without having to use a cumbersome paper mileage log or having to remember to hit “start” on a mileage tracker.

Dec. 10 “This app lets you draw digital connections between physical objects” — Whether we like it or not, more and more of the world’s objects are coming online. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and NFC standards are all being used make everything from your car to your smoke alarm digitally connected. The problem is, how do we control and understand what all these objects can do? A group of researchers from MIT think they have the answer: an augmented reality app called the “Reality Editor” that lets you see and draw connections between real-life objects. You just point your phone’s camera at, say, your lamp or your radio, and its digital controls appear onscreen for you to manipulate.

Dec. 10 “Americans are more likely to be happy giving away their personal data” — Every year, the UK’s telecom watchdog Ofcom releases a report on the state of the international comms market. This year’s report — which includes data from countries including the US, UK, France, Germany, and Japan — offers a number of interesting (if familiar) insights, including the decline of fixed phone lines around the world, the relative expense of mobile data in the US, and varying morning smartphone routines around the world.

Dec. 8 “This Weird Dog-Rating Twitter Account Gets 10/10” — Matt Nelson, a 19-year-old student, learned a fundamental lesson of social media when he started tweeting under the handle @matt___nelson two years ago. “The followers on my personal account were always easily entertained by my jokes involving dogs,” he says. Inspiration struck. What if he made an account that only rated dogs? Thus, on November 15, @dog_rates was born. Over the past two months, the account has ballooned to over 55,000 followers. Many of the photos are cute, of course, in the slightly manic way of @DailyPuppy, but that’s not the reason the account is popular. Nelson’s surreal, irrelevant, and often hilarious captions take it to the next level, a level that we like to call Weird Twitter.

Dec. 7 “How Many Apps Do Smartphone Owners Use?” — There’s almost always an app for that, whether “that” is a taxi service, food delivery or a video game. But with so many popping up all the time, how often are any of them being used? A Localytics survey, conducted by Research Now in October 2015, reports that 49% of US smartphone app users use six to 10 smartphone apps each week.

Dec. 7 “Girls Who Code Makes Its Way Into A Mobile Game” — A major factor that deters girls from pursuing computer science is the perception that coders are mostly white and male, according to a recent Google-commissioned Gallup survey. That’s why non-profit organization Girls Who Code has partnered with mobile game-maker Pixelberry Studios to tell the story of a young girl coder in its flagship game, “High School Story.”

Dec. 7 “Facebook takes on Periscope with live streaming video service” — Facebook has launched a new service that lets users stream live video on the social network. The tool has been tested by a select group of celebrities and high profile users have been able to use the service for several months. Some brand names are also experimenting with live streaming videos to promote their products and services. The stream will display the number of live viewers, the names of friends who are watching and real-time comments as they are written.

Dec. 5 “Need parking? Oil change? Gas? There’s an app for that” — By now, most people are familiar with ride-hailing services such as Uber and Lyft, which have become as ubiquitous as taxicabs in major cities. Lesser known are the on-demand valet and concierge services, which promise to solve your parking problem while in the process offering to fill up your gas tank, wash your car, change the oil or charge the battery.

Dec. 3 “Yahoo Messenger Is Now A Mobile Messenger Like The 18 You’re Already Using” — Yahoo Messenger might be the best messaging app no one will use. The company just released a completely revamped version of its messaging platform, focused on mobile, group messaging and image sharing. Yahoo isn’t a newcomer in the messaging space. The company first launched Yahoo Messenger in 1998 as an alternative to AIM. It was a desktop instant messaging app. But now, it’s a brand new world when it comes to messaging, and Yahoo has rebooted Yahoo Messenger.

Nov. 30 “Reading Our Minds: IBM’s New ‘Watson Trend App’ Predicts Hot Products for Holiday Season” — It’s a new “cognitive app” designed to reveal consumer preferences for what are destined to be the most desired holiday gifts. It’s also either cool or creepy, depending upon one’s point of view. It’s “a new way for shoppers to understand the reasons behind the top trends of the holiday season and also predict the hottest products before they sell out,” according to IBM

Nov. 29 “Under Armour is using neuroscience to shape its Nike-crushing fitness app plans” — Under Amour has made no secret of its desire to take on market-leader Nike as well as the likes of Apple with the creation of a digital fitness hub. In a bid to better shape the strategy it has turned to neuroscience in order to segment and serve the potential pool of 150 million people using its apps. The move began in earnest after it ploughed an estimated $700m into acquiring two apps; MyFitnessPal, a free app for tracking food habits and calorie intake and Endomondo, a Danish pocket-sized personal trainer. It adds to a collection which already includes wearable fitness trackers, the MapMyFitness workout app and a network called Record, where people can store data from devices like Fitbit and Jawbone.

Nov. 25 “Mobile App Users Reluctant to Share Location” — Privacy and security are critical to mobile users, most of whom have some understanding of how revealing their mobile data — including location — can be to advertisers, publishers, governments and other internet users. And for many, that means not using location services at all, potentially diminishing their mobile experiences.

Nov. 24 “It’s Thanksgiving, please pass the smartphone! ” — Whether it’s taking pictures of gatherings around the dinner table, posting pictures and tweets to social networking sites, looking up recipes for the best ingredient for a holiday dessert or checking the score of the football game, the number of uses for smartphones are just as varied as individual family traditions on Thanksgiving. In fact, four-fifths of people in the U.S. report having smartphones. And while smartphones may be a welcome guest at the Thanksgiving table, they wouldn’t be complete without apps — the technological gravy to this digital course!

Nov. 20 “Facebook Debuts New ‘Work Chat’ App” — Between its WhatsApp unit and Facebook Messenger, Facebook already dominates the mobile messaging space. Not content with its leadership position, however, the social giant just rolled out “Work Chat,” a new messaging app that is supposed to complement Facebook at Work.

Nov. 20 “Want to Dump Trump? New ‘Trump Trump’ App Blocks The Donald” — It’s political season, all right. A time for platforms and debates. For talking points and press conferences. And also, it appears, for a bit of cleverness. Developer Julio Castillo will probably poll well enough to make into the next debate (either party!) now that news of his “Trump Trump” app has hit the press. Earlier, Castillo had launched “K Blocker,” a content-blocking extension for iOS 9 that turns away all Kardashian-related content.

Nov. 17 “This app is the ‘hot new thing among jihadists’ ” — When ISIS terrorists want to hide what they’re saying, they are increasingly turning to an app called Telegram. The Berlin-based startup boasts two layers of encryption and claims to be “faster and more secure” than its competitor WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook.

Nov. 17 “Google App Gets Smarter, Can Now Answer Complex Questions” — Thanks to some smart programming, users of Google’s app can now get answers to multi-faceted questions. For instance, Google can now answer questions such as, ‘What was the U.S. population when Bernie Sanders was born?’ or ‘Who was the U.S. President when the Angels won the World Series?’.

Nov. 17 “Having an app isn’t enough: The next phase of mobile now that everybody has a smartphone” — The “Big Bang” moment for mobile came in 2007 when Apple released the iPhone. Less than 10 years later, mobile is now everywhere, and investors are questioning whether mobile is dead, saturated, or just the beginning of a new arms race between operating systems as every device and every company is considered “mobile.” So, what does mobile mean in 2015 when (almost) everyone owns a smartphone?

Nov. 16 “Yik Yak Shares User Information With Police” — Social networks that market themselves as anonymous mask users’ identities only from one another, not police. That’s the lesson revealed this week by a much-publicized arrest tied to Yik Yak — an app that allows users to post unattributed messages on forum-like threads. After students protesting racial inequality at the University of Missouri in Columbia forced the ouster of two of the school’s highest officials, threats appeared on the social network, which is popular among college students.

Nov. 16 “Google Gets Surprise Ally in Mobile-App Search Push: Facebook” — Google’s effort to keep its search engine relevant in a world of mobile apps just got a boost from a big rival. Facebook, operator of the world’s largest social network, on recently began allowing Google to crawl and index its mobile app. The agreement means that results from Google searches on smartphones will display some content from Facebook’s app, including public profile information. The listings will appear as “deep links” that will take users to the relevant part of the Facebook app.

Nov. 12 “Snapchat Signs Another Publisher: The Wall Street Journal” — The Wall Street Journal is going after a new audience. So, apparently, is Snapchat. The Journal will soon be joining Snapchat’s group of Discover publishers, the first major business publication to join Snapchat since it first launched Discover back in January.

Nov. 12 “YouTube Music standalone app launches” — YouTube has launched its new standalone music app. YouTube Music, which was once just a section of the general YouTube service, is now available as a free download on both the iOS App Store and Google Play.

Nov. 12 “Facebook goes after Snapchat with disappearing messages” — Facebook is experimenting with disappearing messages, a feature that would directly compete with messaging start-up Snapchat. The feature, which can be activated by tapping an hourglass icon in the top right of the chat window, will allow people to send messages that automatically disappear after an hour. A second tap on the hourglass will turn the disappearing messages feature off.

Nov. 11 “Facebook Wants To Dominate Your Home Screen With Its Notify App” — Facebook is after your home screen. On Wednesday, the company introduced an app called Notify that will send you push notifications about news, entertainment, and other timely information such as the weather. Notify, if adopted widely, may give Facebook even more control over the news and information we consume.

Nov. 11 “Google exec tells brands their zeal for mobile apps is all wrong” — There’s an app for everything, but that might not be a great thing in 2015, in Google’s view. For years, brands have been rushing to build apps for mobile. Your dentist had one. Allstate had one. Having an “app for everything” was considered a good idea and almost mandatory for the modern business.

Nov. 11 “How to use Google Maps when you have no phone service” — Google just officially launched its new offline feature for its Maps app which lets you download and save a segment of a map, so you can use it to find your way around even when you don’t have mobile data or Wi-Fi. It’s especially handy when you’re traveling and don’t have any cell service.

Nov. 11 “Welcome to the Future of Apps — It’s About to Get Personal”- Mobile users have limited attention spans, often jumping from app to app. It’s no wonder since there are literally millions of apps out there vying for their attention. This jives with data which found that 25 percent of apps are only used one time and that 58 percent of users will churn in the first 30 days of using an app, and 75 percent will leave within the first three months.

Nov. 9 “Facebook Folds Facial Recognition Technology Into Messenger” — Facebook is folding its facial recognition technology into its messaging app, Messenger. It’s the same tech used within Facebook to encourage users to tag their friends in photos. In Messenger’s case, the app will now look at your photos, identify who is in them, and encourage you to share those photos with those friends.

Nov. 6 “How much data are your favorite apps really sharing with third parties?” — Here’s an alarming statistic — on average, the most popular iPhone and Android apps are sending your data to three different online services. That’s probably three more than you were aware of. And while most people don’t think twice about agreeing to the terms of service of various apps, researchers found that this resulted in some pretty heavy-handed information distribution.

Nov. 4 “Facebook launching news notifications app next week” — Facebook’s next app will alert you to breaking news. The social networking giant is partnering with an array of big media brands to introduce an app called Notify next week. CNN, Mashable, CBS, The Washington Post, and Vogue are among the initial partners.

Oct. 29 “Nike Embraces Weather App in Campaign to Sell Gear Suited to Local Conditions” — Starting in November, Nike will begin placing ads in the Weather Channel mobile app, offering suggestions for cold-weather apparel based on local weather conditions. If it is cool and dark, an ad might appear for a reflective running vest and a base layer from its Pro Hyperwarm line. The in-app ad would then send consumers to Nike’s website, where they could buy the suggested items.

Oct. 26 “Facebook Says Nearly One Third of Online Shopping Transactions Are On Mobile Devices” — Is 2015 going to be the year of when everybody stuffs their stockings using smartphones? New data from Facebook suggests that consumers are rapidly growing more comfortable shopping with mobile devices, particularly younger demographics — which could have implications for advertisers and retailers during the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Oct. 23 “Instagram takes on Vine with 1 second ‘Boomeramg’ videos” — Instagram has launched its third standalone app, Boomerang, letting users create one second looping videos on their mobiles. The app loops together 5 burst photos, playing them back and then immediately reversing the sequence for a “boomerang” effect.

Oct 22. “Instagram and Pinterest Dominate Mobile Traffic” — Mobile is central to our experiences online, and the reality is some social platforms are just better on mobile. Chances are good that you’re reading this article on your mobile phone, or maybe you’re simultaneously reading this and scrolling through Socality Barbie’s Instagram account that your coworker just G-chatted to you. Your mobile behavior probably isn’t too far off from some recent stats on mobile usage.

Oct. 20 “Instagram Remains Teens’ Most Important Social Network; Snapchat Gains Steam” — Instagram continues to be at the top of the heap when it comes to teens’ most important social networks. While Instagram remains popular with teens, Twitter’s influence appears to be declining, and it is now challenged by Snapchat.

Oct. 19 “Snowplowing? Lawn mowing? There’s an app for that” — Nancy Recksiedler can handle an inch or two of snow. The 71-year-old resident tries to clear the double-wide drive and sidewalk at her home or accepts help from a neighbor. But now, the retiree plans to have someone at the city show her how to download an app on her smartphone that is intended to give her and other Sterling Heights residents on-demand, Uber-like access to snowplowing, lawn mowing and leaf removal services.

Oct. 19 “Microsoft Skype for Business App Helps Offer 24/7 Access to Doctors” — MDLIVE, a provider of integrated telehealth services, announced that its platform will integrate with the new Microsoft Skype for Business client application, released with Microsoft Office 2016. The end result? MDLIVE will be able to provide mobile access and “unprecedented collaboration between” healthcare professionals, doctors, therapists and consumers.

Oct. 19 “The Guide to Visual Storytelling, Pinterest Edition Facts, stats, trends and thoughts” — Pinterest, Instagram, Tumblr and even publishers like The New York Times have redefined how marketers think about visual advertising. That definition, however, hasn’t quite met a consensus among marketers. The official Oxford definition can wait though. What can’t wait is your understanding of the inner workings of the visual Web.

Oct. 18 “Publishers Straddle the Apple-Google, App-Web Divide” — Apple wants mobile devices to be filled with apps. Google supports a world where people browse the web for most things. Now websites are increasingly caught in the middle of those competing visions.

Oct. 15 “Facebook’s new Notify app a news traffic game changer?” — Facebook is reportedly set to bring out a dedicated news channel within its app, called Notify, as the social media giant seeks to continue it’s attack on Google’s news traffic market. News aggregations and, ultimately, the control of news traffic is something that two of the world’s leading tech companies have been battling over for a number of years now.

Oct. 15 “Social Media Update: Adoption Trends, by Demographic” — More than three-quarters (76%) of internet-using adults — and almost two-thirds (66%) of American adults overall — use at least one social networking site, according to the latest social media adoption report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Oct. 14 “Facebook vs. Twitter vs. Snapchat: Who Will Win the News Wars?” — It’s no secret the traditional news industry is on the ropes. Recently, the BBC slashed another 1,000 jobs. Viewership on US news networks like Fox, CNN and MSNBC has dropped 19 percent since 2009. Newspapers have cut more than a third of their workforce in the last 25 years.

Oct. 14 “New Instagram-Like App Embeds Heart Data for Social Sharing” — An Instagram-like app called Biogram lets users embed heart rate data into a photo distributed to social media via a photo-sharing network. Developed by using ResearchKit, the Biogram app will help researchers better understand how publicly sharing biometrics influences personal relationships and experiences in a social community.

Oct. 13 “Watch Out, YouTube: Facebook Is Finally Building A Video Hub” — Pushing into territory dominated by Google’s video platform, Facebook is testing a dedicated spot for people looking to watch video on the social network.

Oct. 8 “Social Media Use Divides Along Class Lines” — Despite the spread of cheaper, Web-connected gadgets, the country still faces a stark digital divide along socioeconomic lines. While usage rates have increased considerably across all demographics over the past ten years, consumers with higher household incomes are still significantly more likely to use social media.

Oct. 8 “From sadness to wow, Facebook launches reaction buttons beyond like” — Like it or not, Facebook’s trademark “like” button is set to get more expressive. Users will soon be able to do more than “like” posts. They will be able to love them and express sympathy, anger or sadness with animated emoticons. “Dislike,” however, is not one of the options.

Oct. 7 “Facebook offers 3 new second screen tools for broadcasters” — Facebook has launched a number of second screen tools including voting buttons, custom icons and a photo submission app, to help broadcasters encourage interaction from the new generation of ‘second screen’ viewers.

Oct. 7 “Smartphone Consumers: Most Use 1–6 Apps a Day, 61% Access Browser” — The app vs. mobile website dilemma continues. For the longest time, many major retailers have found that their customers prefer mobile websites over their apps, no matter how much better the app is for an interactive experience. But it looks like the tide may finally be turning a bit.

Oct. 6 “The New Mobile Mantra: Study Examines Behaviors & Preferences In Mobile Application & Browser Use” — Millward Brown Digital has launched The New Mobile Mantra, a study that examines the current landscape of consumer mobile device use, particularly the preferences for applications (apps) versus browsers, and uncovers a new mantra: Acquire, Engage, Elevate.

Oct. 6 “Happy Birthday Instagram” — Today, Instagram turns 5 years old and to celebrate this milestone, we’ve taken a look back at how it has become one of the fastest growing communities in the world.

Oct 6 “Why some 13-year-olds check social media 100 times a day” — More than 200 eighth graders from across the country allowed their social media feeds to be studied by child development experts who partnered with CNN. This is the first large scale study to analyze what kids actually say to each other on social media and why it matters so deeply to them.

Sept. 29 “Trends accelerating mobile app development” — Cloud technology, better security and location-based services are among the trends driving a surge in application development. Among the other trends: the Internet of Things, marketing and the rise of mobile commerce.

Sept. 29 “Reporta, a new app, offers journalists a lifeline in hazardous situations” -Journalism, never the safest profession to begin with, has only gotten more hazardous in recent years. But a new app just might help cut down on the dangers, especially for those working in isolated and hostile areas.

Sept. 29 “Shot wants to be the Instagram of virtual reality” — Whether it’s a technology giant like Google or a small startup, nowadays everyone wants a piece of the VR pie. Shot, for instance, was created by a group of friends from Spain who wanted to bring a social aspect to virtual reality. Through a Kickstarter campaign launching today, Shot promises to make it easy for people to create VR content on an iPhone — which can then be shared with friends via an app.

Sept. 29 “What Are the Top Social Media Trends? Video Rules Facebook, Men Joining Pinterest, and More” — Let’s face it: social media trends are what every brand marketer and advertiser needs to stay on top of to reach consumers wherever they gravitate. MDG believes there are five key social media trends marketers should be taking seriously.

Sept. 29 “Twitter may remove 140-character limit” — Soon you may be able to wax poetic on Twitter beyond 140 characters. The social media service is working on a product that would allow users to share content longer than 140 characters, technology news service Re/code reported.

Sept. 28 “Millennials’ Top Mobile Apps, by Share of Time Spent” — Instagram and Snapchat might be rising in popularity with youth, but they don’t hold a candle to Facebook in terms of overall time spent, at least among the 18–34 population, according to a recent comScore study.

Sept. 25 “Mobile app advertisers now have video ad option on Twitter” — Twitter’s mobile users are watching a lot of video and now mobile app marketers can purchase video ads with an app download call-to-action on the social media platform.

Sept. 25 “Smartphone users spend almost all their time in their 3 favorite apps” — Smartphone users are spending more and more time in apps, and less time using their browser. But not all apps are created equal. According to ComScore statistics, charted here by Statista, U.S. smartphone users spend half their time in their single favorite app — we’re guessing that’s Facebook for most people, based on other usage stats.

Sept. 23 “Why Facebook wants a ‘dislike’ button” — Last week, Facebook revealed it was developing a much-sought-after ‘dislike’ button, giving it even greater insight into the likes and dislikes of its users. New research from Global Web Index sheds light into why the social network is so keen to get an extra layer of emotional data from its users- but what cost to brands?

Sept. 23 “Washington Post to run every daily story on Facebook Instant Articles” — The Washington Post is going to make everything it publishes — 1,200 daily articles and wire reports — available via Facebook’s Instant Articles. The Post’s entire publishing output will “live” in two places online. On the Post’s own digital properties, as well as on Facebook’s servers.

Sept. 22 “Websites Attract Bigger Audiences, but Users Spend More Time in Apps” — Here’s a paradox of modern digital life: Users spend a growing majority of their time in mobile apps, but websites attract bigger audiences. That conclusion emerged from comScore Inc.’s most recent report on use of mobile apps in the U.S.

Sept. 21 “Move Over Butt-Dialing, Here Comes Brain-Phoning: IBM and Xerox Say Brain-Controlled Apps Are Next” — Researchers from the two tech giants claim new headsets and more powerful phones are paving the way for brain-controlled smartphone apps. Across the world researchers are developing smartphone apps that are controlled using brainwaves. Applications include brain-driven software for dialing numbers, as well as for messaging and calling contacts.

Sept. 21 “How Google Will Know You Better Than You Know Yourself” — Google has updated a patent for a wrist-worn device with removable headset with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office that has multiple sensors and can collect data such as heart rate, skin conductivity, movement rate, and frequency.

Sept. 19 “New app offers ‘books for the Snapchat generation’ ” —

“Umm…why do u have Claires phone?”

“Well if u must know i sat down on this park bench to read”

“And sat right on someone’s phone. Claire’s I’m guessing”

“What r u reading?”

That’s an excerpt from a book meant to be read on an iPhone or Apple Watch. It’s available on an app that launched this week called Hooked.

Sept. 18 “How Google Now, Siri & Cortana Predict What You Want” — Google, Apple and Microsoft all have agents that want to be your personal assistant. But how well Google Now, Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana can predict your needs depends on how much you want to share, how wedded to particular platforms you want to be and, in some cases, how much you actively want to help make those predictions happen.

Sept. 17 “Twitter hands its first-ever brand emoji to Coca-Cola ” — Coca-Cola is the first brand to have been presented a Twitter emoji, with an icon that features two of its glass bottles with the red label and white swirl. The emojis show up when consumers tweet the hashtag #ShareACoke.

Sept. 14 “Donate to political candidates via tweet” — Twitter is full of people spouting their political views. Now it can let them make political donations as well. Twitter announced Tuesday it is partnering with electronic payment service Square to enable anyone in the U.S. to make a donation directly to political candidates or causes through a tweet.

Sept. 13 “Facebook Looks to Bring Virtual Reality to Mobile Devices” — Facebook is vying to bring virtual reality to your phone. The social network is working on a stand-alone video app that would support 360-degree or “spherical” videos, people familiar with the matter said. The format, typically compiled from multiple cameras, allows users to change their viewing perspective by tilting their phones.