Google formed a partnership with EdX, the not-for-profit online learning initiative, to jointly develop the edX open source learning platform dubbed MOOC.org (shorthand for massive open online courses). This new site for online learning will provide a platform for colleges, universities, businesses and individuals around the world to built and host high-quality online and blended courses.

A new study of cross-screen media consumption shows just how profoundly device use has complicated things for media planners in just three years. Usage is fragmenting across multiple axes at once: demo, day part, screen, and content type.

Even the best platforms demonstrate limits when it comes to identifying and addressing one target audience on one device, let alone reaching the same user across multiple platforms, according to Forrester Research Analysts.

Content marketing is meeting up with the massive distribution mechanisms, targeting and optimization technologies of programmatic advertising. Forget about defining "native" advertising. Now we have to wonder what "content" means anymore.

Facebook published a report Tuesday on its Web site with data on the requests the company receives from foreign countries about its users -- including the percentage of requests in which Facebook is required by law to disclose at least some data.

The omnichannel shopper is evolving about as quickly as both the technology and retailer reaction to these changes. A next generation of dynamic shopper tracking, however, may keep up.

Ad executive Alex Bogusky began a crusade to bring manufacturing back to the United States using data, video, and social media .

Some might think Matt Wallaert is a software engineer, but he's actually a social scientist with Bing at Microsoft. Wallaert believes that analysis of social interactions will continue to increase within specific product groups, as social interactions and data play a more important role in business, reports the Seattle Times.

Professionals are embracing the potential of customer analytics even as they struggle to integrate the data and calculate ROI, says one study.

Can math improve messaging? One company is throwing machine learning, natural language processing and algorithms at copy to find the optimal workding and phrasing to achieve specific direct responses. The machine just entered the creative bullpen.