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In the UK, users peaked at 28 million in October before declining to 26 million in March according to Nielsen data on home and work users. As of March, the Facebook website had no more UK users than it did a year ago, suggesting that its expansion has plateaued.

The firm counts the number of individual browsers on the Facebook website using any type of device, but it cannot count the numbers of people using the Facebook app. Nielsen said an app user would have to access the full website only once a month to register in its numbers.

On Sunday, the Guardian reported that Socialbakers, which produces Facebook traffic estimates for advertisers, had recorded falls in monthly visits in the US and Europe

the company has said that in developed markets, the number of users accessing from personal computers is falling, while traffic from mobile devices is surging. By Christmas, more than half its visitors – 680 million a month – were using mobile devices. Nearly a quarter of Facebook advertising revenue is generated by the small screen.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg told investors last year: "Someone who uses only our desktop product has only a 40% likelihood of using Facebook on a given day. But someone who uses mobile has a 70% likelihood of using Facebook on a given day.

Facebook made $219m in the first three months of the year, compared to $205m in the year-ago period.

Mobile ads accounted for 30% of total advertising revenues in the first quarter, up from 23% in the fourth quarter of 2012.

The growth of mobile is key to this shift, as it continues to drive both digital and overall growth of time spent with all media. In contrast, time spent on desktops and laptops is plateauing.

Time spent with mobile (that is, via smartphone, tablet or feature phone) has come to represent more than half of TV’s share of total media time, as well as nearly half of digital media time as a whole. The bulk of mobile time is spent on smartphones, at almost 1 hour per day, but tablets are not far behind.

The average UK adult will spend more than 8.5 hours each day consuming media in 2014. Of that total, 3 hours and 41 minutes will be spent online, on nonvoice mobile activities or with other digital media, eMarketer estimates, compared with 3 hours and 15 minutes watching television. The total reflects simultaneous media consumption—for example, if someone uses a mobile device for 1 hour while watching television, it counts as 1 hour for each activity.

time spent online (that is, via desktop or laptop computer) is barely growing at all. Online time will reach 1 hour and 52 minutes this year, a mere 4 minutes more than 2013. In fact, in a broad sense, media consumption time is flat with one exception: mobile.

This year, for the first time ever, the amount of time UK consumers spend with digital media (desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile phones) will surpass the amount of time spent viewing television

Tablet time will total a bit less than smartphones, at 44 minutes per day.

This year, tablet penetration is expected to reach 38.2% of the total population, well short of smartphone penetration.

eMarketer’s “time spent” estimates reflect blurring lines of media consumption. As in other markets, UK consumers are accessing traditional content on nontraditional channels—for example, television programming viewed on a tablet. In many instances, this may “count” as time spent on a digital device, but it reflects the fact that consumption of television content actually is rising thanks to a variety of nontraditional options that users have for watching TV and TV-like content.

Twitter use among UK seniors is a relatively rare activity

The relative complexity of setting up a Twitter account, added to the fact that few of their peers use the service, can be a turn-off for seniors when compared with Facebook’s relative simplicity and popularity.

Others attacked the allegedly pernicious influence of high-frequency trading algorithms that comb news and execute trades in nanoseconds.

algorithms that engage in high-frequency trading, or HFT: "It's not the fact that @AP was just hacked," he tweeted. "It's the fact that we have HFT algos reading headlines reacting to them."

Of UK internet users with a laptop, 91% multiscreened with such a device at least weekly while watching TV. For those with tablets, this dropped to 89%, and smartphone users came in at 83%. Perhaps the fascination with smart mobile devices ignores the fact that laptops fulfill users’ needs to use social media and the other activities pinpointed by BT at least as well—and some might say better than—tablets or smartphones.

Graph Search also enables the user to search, for instance, for "photos of my friends taken in national parks" or "photos of my friends taken before 1990".

Tom Stocky, another Google import, showed what appeared to be a market researchers' dream tool: the new feature allows users to ask, for instance, what TV shows are most liked by doctors (Grey's Anatomy, House, The Doctors), or software engineers (Big Bang Theory).

A search for music liked by those who like Mitt Romney revealed Johnny Cash. Obama-likers liked Michael Jackson.

Brian Blau, who tracks social media for the tech research firm Gartner, said the service offered a brand new way for users to experience Facebook. Confined to Facebook's eco-system, the service was not an immediate threat to Google but would gradually increase in importance, he said. "In the future, you know Facebook will figure out how to monetize this. It's going to change the way people think about search."

Under this model, content strategists realise digital strategies and UX requirements as the things our users read, watch and play with. In other words, we are really the architects of experiences.

Most agencies look at content strategists as the guys who audit content, test its effectiveness and generally specialise in its strategic and editorial underpinnings.This needs to change.

Content works best when you define it as anything that occupies your brand's space. Content strategy therefore works best when it's the conduit between user experience, strategy, creative and technology.

I recently worked with a bank that wanted branded content to help bolster waning sales of a low-rate credit card. But when we looked closely at the entire experience, we realised that content would do little for card sales. The application process was complex, dated and unfriendly.My recommendation as a content strategist was "fix your website then look at content". We built out a strategy, but it focused more on constructing an ecosystem for content than content itself. Put differently, it laid out scaffolding for good, hard-working content.

users remember fun, exciting or informative experiences that go well beyond any single piece of content.

The study goes on to say: "Publicly available evidence that the strikes have made the US safer overall is ambiguous at best … The number of 'high-level' militants killed as a percentage of total casualties is extremely low – estimated at just 2% [of deaths]. Evidence suggests that US strikes have facilitated recruitment to violent non-state armed groups, and motivated further violent attacks … One major study shows that 74% of Pakistanis now consider the US an enemy."

"These fears have affected behaviour. The US practice of striking one area multiple times, and evidence that it has killed rescuers, makes both community members and humanitarian workers afraid or unwilling to assist injured victims."

"Their presence terrorises men, women, and children, giving rise to anxiety and psychological trauma among civilian communities. Those living under drones have to face the constant worry that a deadly strike may be fired at any moment, and the knowledge that they are powerless to protect themselves.

The report highlights the switch from the former president George W Bush's practice of targeting high-profile al-Qaida personalities to the reliance, under Obama's administration, of analysing patterns of life on the ground to select targets."According to US authorities, these strikes target 'groups of men who bear certain signatures, or defining characteristics associated with terrorist activity, but whose identities aren't known'," the report says. "Just what those 'defining characteristics' are has never been made public." People in North Waziristan are now afraid to attend funerals or other gatherings, it suggests.

Fears that US agents pay informers to attach electronic tags to the homes of suspected militants in Pakistan haunt the tribal districts, according to the study. "[In] Waziristan … residents are gripped by rumours that paid CIA informants have been planting tiny silicon-chip homing devices that draw the drones.

"An entire region is being terrorised by the constant threat of death from the skies. Their way of life is collapsing: kids are too terrified to go to school, adults are afraid to attend weddings, funerals, business meetings, or anything that involves gathering in groups."George Bush wanted to create a global 'war on terror' without borders, but it has taken Obama's drone war to achieve his dream."