Why Viber? Simply, Viber is the messaging app with the greatest scale that is most open to being bought.

Kakao Talk: 150 million users,

Viber: still in its early days of making money, claims 280 million registered users and has raised no external money (that’s a big potential pay day)

rolled out Path’s first real revenue-generating feature with a shop for premium emoji-like “stickers.”

in the first 24 hours after the 3.0 launch, Path made more money than it had in its entire lifetime as a company, total (starting with its 2.0 version, Path has collected affiliate revenue from media sales generated in the app.)

universally lauded as beautifully designed and thoughtful, but has been criticized for possibly not quite making a big enough dent outside of the early adopter crowd.

he emphasis on subscriptions represents a gamble for a company that has seen a surge in its number of registered users this year, even as it has been pilloried over the unwanted texts and robocalls that it used to acquire them.

Path says it has 20 million users, bolstered by pre-installation deals with carriers around the world, though the company won’t say how many of them use the app each month.

Subscription fees represent a way for Path to stay free of advertising, one of the company's core aims since it launched in 2010.

Picking up your toys and going home is really not the best way to handle the frustrations of social situations.

Facebook is right for you... if you are building a community presence or want to reach as broad a network as possible. It is losing some traction among younger users, but with more than 70 percent of online adults actively participating in Facebook, it remains the most popular social media site by far.

high level of engagement.

G/O Digital, the digital marketing wing of Gannett,

eighty percent of respondents check reviews online at least once a week before they step into a physical store. Facebook is by far the top choice among social media platforms for this process: 68% vote it the number-one site, compared to Twitter and Pinterest’s 11% and 12%.

Deals and reviews appear to be the most effective tools in influencing Facebook users. According to the study, four out of 10 respondents say that an offer which could be redeemed in-store is the most likely tactic to drive them to make a purchase at a local business while only one in 10 people would do the same in response to a photo or video contest. Meanwhile, 80% of respondents say they would be more likely to purchase from a small business with positive reviews on their Facebook page

That’s because, as of mid-January, the social network will intensify its efforts to filter out unpaid promotional material in user news feeds that businesses have posted as status updates.

Businesses that post free marketing pitches or reuse content from existing ads will suffer “a significant decrease in distribution,” Facebook warned in a post earlier this month announcing the coming change.

More than 80% of small companies using social media to promote their businesses list Facebook as their top marketing tool, followed by LinkedIn and Twitter, according to a recent survey of 2,292 small businesses by Webs, a digital services division of Vistaprint

t'd be nice to regain some control of where our words are shared

the iOS app is a rival to Snapchat and WhatsApp that clearly hopes to foster a consent culture around mobile messaging

if people want to save any of those locally, they have to ask you for your permission

Together with Gina Trapani, the former editor of the blog Lifehacker, he is the co-founder of ThinkUp, a year-old subscription service that analyzes how people comport themselves on Twitter and Facebook

helping them become more thoughtful, less reflexive, more empathetic and more professional

list of people’s most-used words