Adario Strange says, “The top secret experiments at Google’s skunkworks operation, known as Google X, now reportedly include a strange new approach to display technology. Google’s experimental displays will come in all shapes and sizes and fit together in modular pieces, much like a set of Lego blocks, sources told The Wall Street Journal. Once connected to each other, the smaller screens will have the ability to form one seamless, larger display”. Google X Lab Working on Lego-Style Modular Screens, Report Says Mashable  [...]

Adario Strange says, “Not content to manage the news updates and friend connections of its over one billion users, the long arm of Facebook is now reportedly preparing to enter the world of mobile payments. According to a report from Techcrunch, Andrew Aude, a student developer at Stanford, discovered the as yet unreleased feature of Facebook Messenger by using the iOS and Mac OS X hacking tool Cycript. SEE ALSO: Here’s How to Turn Off Notifications in Facebook Messenger Posting the find on Twitter on Saturday, including screenshots, Aude claims the dynamic would allow Facebook Messenger... [...]

Katie Richards says, “It appears that among other big Yahoo news, the company may also be looking to get back into brand advertising. Ad Age reports Yahoo has reached out to a number of agencies and reportedly asked a handful of them to prepare campaign pitches for the end of the month. It seems Yahoo may be revving up to create a new brand ad. This could mean print, digital, and even TV campaigns. Yahoo reached out directly to these agencies according to Ad Age”. Yahoo Is Thinking About A Big Marketing Push, Including New TV Ads Business Insider  [...]

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... [...]