Precisely when did we shift from the age of the desktop to the Mobile Age? I've heard a thousand answers to this question. During a recent chat, Nick Law, R/GA's vice chairman and Global Chief Creative Officer, said it happened around 2012, when Facebook made a hard turn toward mobile. "I think you can trace the switch to mobile to when [Facebook CEO Mark] Zuckerberg insisted on it, and Facebook went from a desktop application to a mobile application in like a year," Law submitted.

From Facebook to phone-makers to publishers to app developers, the entire mobile industry is essentially dedicated to one goal: getting people to stare at their phones for a long as humanly possible. Yet, as new research suggests, people are at least trying to exert some control over their behavior. For example, about half (47%) of U.S. consumers now report making a conscious effort to reduce or limit their smartphone usage -- mostly by keeping their gadgets out of sight, or disabling various attention-seeking features.

What does Tencent know that we don't? Over the past quarter -- as investors continued to unload Snap's stock, and analysts thought up colorful language to trash the company -- we now know that the Chinese tech giant gobbled up a roughly 12% stake in Snap. The news came to light on Wednesday in a quarterly filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

You wouldn't know it by looking at Facebook's latest earnings report, but retailers are pouring money into mobile video ads on the platform. Yes, among Nanigans' ad clients, spending on those types of units was up a whopping 40% from the third quarter of 2016 to the third quarter of this year.