Verizon this week is rolling out  “Verizon Selects” -- the carrier’s own ad-targeting program, SlashGear reports. “In exchange for sharing your data usage, such as location, Web browsing, and mobile app usage data, you’ll get targeted advertisements delivered to you by either email, text messages, or other forms of mobile advertising,” it reports. “Right off the bat, this definitely seems unsettling. “ 

Today’s Wall Street Journal features a detailed Q&A with Eric Schmidt, Google's former CEO and current executive chairman -- or, as WSJ calls him, the “search giant's peacemaker and explainer-in-chief.” The focus? Apple; the looming threat of an antitrust suit; the troubled advertising market; the continued rise of Android; and, of course, Schmidt’s recent collaboration with South Korean rapping sensation PSY. 

Along with a better mobile strategy, global expansion will be critical to the long term success of Facebook. As a New York Times reports, however, new markets present a host of unique challenges. Case in point: “An Austrian student group said Tuesday it planned to challenge Facebook’s privacy policies in Irish court … alleging that [Facebook] had failed … to adapt its privacy policy to the restrictions of European data protection law.” 

Felix Miller and Martin Stiksel -- who sold their music discovery and streaming site Last.fm to CBS for $280 million -- unveiled their latest project, this week. It’s named Lumi, and it’s “a site that wants to tackle the discovery conundrum yet again, but this time on the wider web,” TechCrunch reports. What is perhaps most unique about Lumi is that is doesn’t want access to users’ “social graph” to help them discover better content. 

In her end of year 2012 report, revered Web and technology analyst Mary Meeker estimates that the number of global smartphone users rose 42%, this year, to surpass 1.1 billion users. Yet, “Meeker points out that this is only the beginning since smartphones are just 24% of the total mobile population in China — as opposed to 48% in the U.S.,” The Next Web writes.      

It’s a big week for Soundcloud, the Berlin-based sound-sharing site. Along with a mobile-heavy relaunch, CEO Alex Ljung said Soundcloud’s tracks are now shared, listened to or uploaded by 180 million users every month. “Known as the ‘YouTube of audio,’ mobile will soon be the dominant platform for Soundcloud,” The Guardian writes of the service’s relaunch. 

Under the direction of CEO Marissa Mayer, Yahoo Messenger is undergoing a major transformation. Several features, including Public Chat Rooms, Pingbox and Windows Live Messenger interoperability, are set to expire this month. Yahoo is also expected to stop offering VoIP features, including Yahoo Voice Phone In and Phone Out, early next year. As a whole, “Yahoo is indeed in a period of great flux,” ZDNet notes. 

‘Tis the season to sit back and reflect on what we searched for, this year. “The U.S. presidential election became the most-searched item and Kim Kardashian was the most-searched person on Yahoo in a year when online searches were dominated by big news stories and pop culture obsessions,” Reuters reports, citing Yahoo data. Not surprisingly, the search term "election" topped the list of searches,  while the term "political polls" ranked eighth among Yahoo’s top ten search’s of the year. 

Strengthening its mobile hand, Facebook is reportedly in acquisition talks with Whatsapp -- an ad-free, paid multiplatform mobile messaging app. “As mobile becomes the most bloody battleground in the Internet’s game of thrones, you can see how such a deal could make sense,” TechCrunch writes. “For starters, it would be another way for Facebook to continue extending its touchpoints with mobile consumer.”