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You hear things about Facebook. You see things. As its audience matures, a subtle shift might be under way. Of course, numbers remain staggering. Facebook is heading toward the 800 million users mark, mostly by conquering new markets. The growth is distributed as follows: Middle-East Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin America grow by about 60% a year; Europe by 35% to 40%; and North America by 25%.

It now seems Facebook's usage is undergoing a split. Active Facebookers become increasingly engaged, spend more time doing more stuff, while "reasonable" users (over 25) become more reluctant and careful.

older people are joining in western markets, while a younger audience grows in emerging ones. More changes are under way as the internet spreads on both landlines and mobile devices: over the past three years, China added more internet users than exist in the US today. Furthermore, in the fastest growing markets, Facebook captures more than 90% of all social network traffic. So, for the near future, Facebook doesn't have a growth problem.

For SMBs, managing banking and payment processes is not as easy — or as secure — as it should be. So, coming out of stealth today is a Boston-based startup called MineralTree that is looking to fix both of these problems. Tomorrow, at the Small Business Banking Conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, MineralTree will officially launch its first product: A cloud-based banking and payment solution designed specifically for SMBs.

Backing the startup in its mission to create an easy payment solution for small businesses is a cool $1.5 million in seed funding, raised from .406 Ventures, which has enabled MineralTree to develop its payments solution and make its initial hires, partnerships, and customer acquisitions. The most notable of which is the startup’s partnership with Silicon Valley Bank in Santa Clara, California — the first financial institution to implement MineralTree’s solution and offer it to its SMB customers.

MineralTree’s Accounting Manager app is a web-based add-on to the SMB’s existing accounting system that businesses can use to manage payables, including entering payment information, associate payments with backup documents, along with the ability to prioritize, recommend and submit payments to the CFO or business owner for approval.

Nokia City Scene is a prototype app from Nokia Beta Labs that combines street maps, 3D panoramic views with gesture navigation and social network integration to provide what appears to be a powerful map discovery tool.

A user can transition from a top-down conventional street view to a Google Maps Streetview-like panoramic view with simple gesture-based navigation. In this 3D panoramic view, the phone user can read information about the businesses in the area in a text overlay. Check-ins by friends on Facebook and Foursquare is also available. The following cities are currently supported within Nokia City Scenes: London, Dallas, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Newark-Jersey City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle.

It is somewhat unfortunate that this powerful tool is only available for the Nokia N9 which is based on an orphaned mobile platform, the Linux-based MeeGo. Nokia has not said whether this app will be ported to Windows Phone (its current smartphone platform).

Google Maps is a big part of Milk’s first mobile app, Oink. And Rose wants to build in more Google technology in future updates.

Oink lets people rate and discover things in the places around them. It is a first step at creating a directory and recommendation system for things in the physical world.

Gartner, Inc. today highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that will be strategic for most organizations in 2012.

Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt.

A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

In the fourth quarter of 2011, 22pc of businesses polled in the sector were investing in social media marketing. This figure fell to 8.5pc in the first quarter of 2012 and to 6pc by the second quarter. Pearlfinders, a major business research company, spoke to more than 5,000 marketeers around the world about their budgets. “This represents an interesting about-turn. We saw investment in social media increase steadily throughout 2011, to reach the highest levels ever by the end of the year. However, as financial services brands embraced new methods for communicating with customers, they opened themselves up to criticism and negative sentiment,” said Anthony Cooper, Pearlfinders managing director.

putting spending on hold until they have developed a clearer picture of how social media can be harnessed to improve their brands.”

conversations directly linking to brands near impossible to control