In the name of transparency and user friendliness, Google just made it harder for app developers to make a buck.

On Facebook's Q1 2016 earnings call, Mark Zuckerberg reportedly said that, "Today, people around the world spend on average more than 50 minutes a day using Facebook, Instagram and Messenger." In 2014, that number was only 40 minutes.

From ad agencies to auto dealerships, has a mobile-first approach become the mark of a successful business?

Last year, the IAB updated its open real-time bidding standard in an effort to, well, standardize how native ads can be traded on exchanges, and other programmatic marketplaces. I know -- standardizing native ads sounds like a contradiction in terms. At least in the U.K., however, new research shows that the so-called OpenRTB 2.3 programmatic standard had a near-instantaneous impact on the market -- and the mobile market in particular.

Heard the one about the small city in Germany installing traffic lights on the ground so pedestrians don't have to look up from their smartphones? Around the world, it's one a growing number of responses to "Smombies": people who are so immersed in their smartphones that they essentially become brain-dead to their physical surroundings.

Apparently Twitter doesn't believe in the dictum of dancing with the one that brought 'ya. A year after partnering with Foursquare on place-based services, the social giant is expanding the program outside of the States -- with Yelp.

A quick Google search of the best virtual reality (VR) apps available on the market right now returns a series that can be broadly sorted into two camps: games and tours. Games show off the entertainment value of the new tech, and tours show how engaging and lively the visual components of VR can be. Neither of those two types of apps offers anything that you can't get somewhere else, though. Right now, the biggest barrier to mass adoption of VR is the development of content beyond the stuff that is really just a showcase, or that panders to early …

After a yearlong investigation, the European Commission is bringing charges against Google for its Android-related business practices. "We found that Google pursues an overall strategy on mobile devices to protect and expand its dominant position in internet search," stated Margrethe Vestager, the European Union competition commissioner.

Relying solely on cell phones for Web connections was once limited to the lower socioeconomic strata. Not anymore. Nearly one in five (18%) of households with annual incomes of $50,000 to $75,000 were mobile-only last year, according to a new study conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau on behalf of the National Telecommunications & Information Administration. That's up from just 8% in 2013.

Would today's news consumer prefer an accurate story that loads slowly -- or an inaccurate story that loads quickly? Well, the vast majority of U.S. consumers still value news accuracy above all else -- but, for most, load times are also pretty darn important.