AP team says, “The European Union’s antitrust authority says it has approved Facebook’s proposed $19 billion takeover of the messaging service WhatsApp. The 28-nation bloc’s executive Commission said Friday the deal may go ahead because consumers will continue to have a wide choice of alternative communication apps they could use. Facebook Inc. runs its own mobile messaging service with its Messenger app but the EU found the merged entity “would continue to face sufficient competition.” EU antitrust chief Joaquin Almunia says “while Facebook Messenger and... [...]

Thiago Guimaraes says, “LinkedIn is perhaps the most overlooked social network. But overall it is actually more popular than Twitter, generally considered the number two social network in the U.S. The latest data shows a higher proportion of U.S. adults on the internet (22%) have used LinkedIn, compared to the percentage who have used Twitter. LinkedIn is a valuable platform for brands interested in its highly educated, relatively mature, professional audience. In a new report from BI Intelligence, we unpack data from over a dozen sources to understand how social media demographics are... [...]

Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai says, “Three months after Facebook was widely criticized for a study into user’s emotions, the social network has announced that it will be more careful when doing this type of research in the future. The company pledged to do things “better” and in “the most responsible way” by giving its researchers “clearer guidelines,” better training, and creating an internal review panel. But in the post published on Thursday, Facebook also failed to specify what these new guidelines are and whether they will ask users for consent... [...]

Tom Wentworth says, “It’s time to talk about customer experience on the web. If a woman is shopping for a new pair of heels and the store clerk offers her men’s loafers, she’d be frustrated and probably less inclined to shop at that store again. Online however, she brushes off the analogous experience as just another piece of irrelevant advertising. Why is our tolerance level for these poor experiences so low in person, but so high online? The best brick-and-mortar experiences are hyper-personalized. When you walk into a store, you rarely make it a few steps before someone asks if... [...]

Stephanie Walden says, “If you’ve ever wondered if it’s possible to converse in vernacular consisting almost entirely ofindustry buzzwords, look no further: We’re officially in the thick of Advertising Week 2014. The buzzwords are signs of an ever-evolving ad space, and never is that more apparent than during the annual conference, which attracts global advertising professionals to discuss the latest industry trends. This year’s event, which runs from September 29 through October 3 in New York, is full of opinions on the current state and future of advertising. A few... [...]

Mark Hoelzel says, “A convergence of three high-tech trends – precise ad analytics, programmatic audience-buying tools, and the stickiness of social apps – means social media is becoming one of the major ad platforms of the future. New data from BI Intelligence finds that US social-media ad spend will top $8.5 billion this year and reach nearly $14 billion in 2018, up from just $6.1 billion in 2013. Social will grow faster than all other offline ad mediums, andfaster than traditional digital formats, like desktop display ads and search ads”. THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL-MEDIA ADVERTISING:... [...]

Thiago says, “Social media is no longer just the realm of the young. Now, older sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest have more users in the 25-to-34 age bracket than ages 16 to 24, according to data from GlobalWebIndex. YouTube, Instagram, and Tumblr are among the few social networks that skew younger, with teenagers and early 20-somethings accounting for more users than any other demographic. Social demographics are shifting. Men are growing their lead on Twitter, while Instagram is becoming more gender-balanced”. This Is Who’s Using Social Networks Like... [...]

In his latest article on re-code.net, Peter Kafka reports, “Investors and analysts spent years clamoring for Facebook to start up an ad network, andearlier this year it obliged them. And now Facebook is rolling out another one. Caveat — this isn’t an ad network in a formal sense. But it’s going to be viewed as one, because in the big picture, it does the thing people outside Facebook wanted an ad network to do: It lets advertisers buy ads, via Facebook, on properties Facebook doesn’t own. Some of the details about Facebook’s plans have been leaking out for months, starting with a... [...]

Kurt Wagner & Jason Del Rey say, “Facebook first began testing a “Buy” button within the News Feed in July, and payments startup Stripe has been tasked with powering the technology, Re/code has learned. The “Buy” button, which allows Facebook users to purchase goods that are featured in ads or posts on the social network, is still in its test phase, but multiple sources said Stripe’s technology was supporting the button. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed Thursday that Stripe is the sole Facebook payments partner behind the test. A spokesperson for Stripe declined to comment”. Facebook... [...]

Jason Del Rey says, “Back in March, Re/code took the wraps off of Clinkle, the secretive payments startup that raised more than $30 million and hired and lost almost its entire executive team — all before launching publicly. The company hasn’t talked to us (or anyone) since our story, but in the past week or so,Clinkle redesigned its website, providing more information to potential users on what the service provides as it gears up for a rollout on some college campuses. It’s the first public sign of what they’re up to, and a lot of it confirms what we had previously reported. Here’s... [...]