What you may have missed this week:

• What to Make of Klout’s Updated Interface - Klout recently updated their offering to incorporate a new level of content curation and guidance.
• 'Flappy Bird' Creator Pulled Game Because It Was 'Too Addictive' - Flappy Bird, which became a global phenomenon, in recent weeks soared to the top of the charts in the App Store and Google Play, turning a shy 29-year-old Mr. Dong into something of a sensation among small, independent game developers. His notoriety grew further when he mysteriously withdrew the free game from circulation Sunday at the height of its success.
• Google closes $3.2 billion purchase of Nest - The acquisition brings with it the Learning Thermostat and the Protect smoke and CO detector as Google looks to make its mark in the smart home.

It is no longer enough for brands to simply publish to social media channels.

Join Frank Speiser, Co-Founder of SocialFlow, and Matt Moran, VP of Product Development at SocialFlow to discuss how a well executed paid social component can quadruple (or more) the effectiveness of owned and earned strategies in the battle for attention.

When: Thursday, February 13, 2014 at 2:00 PM EST

Presented by:

• Frank Speiser, @fspeiser
  Co-Founder, President, and Chief Product Officer 
• Matthew Moran, @subverthemasses
  VP of Product Development 

You will learn:

• Not all posts are created equal 
• How to evaluate the future value of your marketing message 
• How to find an audience that is not currently engaged with your brand 
• How to choose the winners and losers in your marketing messaging 
• How to build a case to increase your social media marketing budget

Click here to register for FREE

Here's what you may have missed this week:

• Apple Brings iBooks Textbooks And iTunes U Course Manager To New International Markets - Apple’s iBooks Textbooks and iTunes U Course Manager products are being launched in brand new markets in Asia, Latin America, Europe and beyond, bringing the total number of markets that iBooks Textbooks now reaches to 51, and the total for iTunes U’s Course Manager to 70.
• Facebook Teen Decline Is Real But Leveling Off - Facebook lost almost one third of its U.S. teen users in 2013, according to a newly released edition of one of the most comprehensive social media studies.
• iPhone Sales Broke 50 Million Mark Last Quarter - Apple is officially reporting its Q4 results on January 27. Meanwhile analysts have weighed in with their projections of sales during the period. There's not a huge amount of variation among the estimates: The range is 50 million to 59.73 million.

And some great stuff from great bloggers:

• Should You Take a Picture Right Now? By Daniel Zeevi
• The Smart Marketer Guide To Facebook's 15 Ad Types by Dennis Yu 

Is there something on this list that I missed? Let me know in the comments.

It's that time of year where the internet is crowded with "best of 2013" and other end of the year lists. Here are some of the best 2013 wrap ups to close out the year!

Here's what you may have missed if you weren't paying close attention:

• Facebook Brand Pages Suffer 44% Decline in Reach Since December 1 - Facebook’s December newsfeed algorithm change is so far punishing brand pages, regardless of how interested fans are in that page’s content. Analysts reviewed 689 posts across 21 brand pages and found that, in the week since December 1, organic reach and organic reach percentage have each declined by 44% on average, with some pages seeing declines as high as 88%.

This week TIME released their annual "Person of the Year" edition, an award given to Pope Francis for 2013. Since the announcement there has been a lot of buzz about the number of female awardees since TIME started this tradition in 1927, 89 years ago. Sadly you can count the number of female award winners on both hands.

Every year a person is given the namesake "Person of the Year" by, for good or bad, most affecting the news and our lives. Past winners include almost every president, international political figures, and business figureheads—but these are seldom every women. The women that have won usually made the cut due to their status by marriage (Madame Chiang Kai-Sheck shared her "Man and Wife of the Year" award in 1937 with her husband) or by hereditary (Elizabeth II in 1952). "American Women" as a whole also won the award in 1975 but that felt a little patronizing.

To address the backlash TIME has been receiving about being behind in the times by not recognizing the efforts of individual women around the world, Radihika Jones, Deputing Managing Editor of TIME, published an article to address the gender imbalance of the magazine's Person of the Year award. Her statements, however truthful and blunt, are a harsh reminder of what women are up against:

"It seems like too few women, over the course of nearly nine decades. But it’s a fair reminder that for much of TIME’s history, women seldom held the kinds of positions of power that would set them up for Person of the Year status. But we still haven’t seen a female President, nor are our corporate ranks exactly overflowing with female CEOs—two job categories that often feed the Person of the Year machine. As long as those imbalances exist in the real world, it would be wishful thinking to try to balance them on an annual cover of a magazine."

Love it or hate it—it's the truth.

I find this statement especially interesting considered the timing. Jones published this article one day after General Motors named Mary Barra as its new CEO succeeding Dan Akerson. This change in leadership makes her the first woman CEO in automotive.

In September I had the pleasure of hearing Akerson, then Chairman and CEO of GM, speak about the gender imbalance in automotive at the 2013 Michigan Automotive Summit—an event that change my perception of the industry. Akerson admitted:

"Right now they're car guys. Someday one of the Detroit Big 3 will be run by a non-car gal."

I think a lot of us saw this as foreshadowing to Barra's rise, she was already one of the highest ranking women in the industry, but I was surprised by how quickly this statement became a reality!

What do you think the new big trends in social media will be? Do you have any predictions for 2014? See how your predictions stack up against what the pros think with Social Media Today's Social Media Predictions for 2014 webinar...

In January 2013, a 6-second video app debuted as a free iOS app on the iPhone and iPod Touch; 11 months later, Vine is the most-used video-sharing app on the market, available for Android and the Windows Phone as well. Instagram video also came onto the scene this year. Facebook introduced hashtags, photos in comments, and followed up on its promise to cut the privacy setting “who can look up my timeline by name.” LinkedIn recently announced members can follow brands’ Showcase Pages.

We’ve seen many more social media leaders and changes emerge in a matter of months – and we should expect no less in 2014. As varied as the social platforms are, they are taking social media into deeper, more focused directions.

In a webinar hosted by Social Media Today, panelists will ring out old trends in social media, and ring in their predictions about where social media is headed in the new year. Join the webinar to hear about:



• Empowering your team with social media and the necessary skills as the need for social media managers continues to decline
• Leveraging the growing use of mobile with mobile friendly content and social ads
• Getting on board the fastest-growing social platforms as a necessity—not an option
• Communicating with your audience with more cutting-edge photo and video messaging
• Dedicating time and resources to a measurable social media strategy