Facebook released research this week showing that it is far and away the dominant social network used in all circumstances and in all dayparts by mobile users.

Flipboard issued its 2.0 version release yesterday with an eye toward empowering users as editors. With the new release, the app is now engaging users more directly in the process of making new content. With the touch of a button, the reader can now tag specific articles and build magazines that can be made public for others to see or kept private for their own later use.

Discounting only goes so far, especially on the local level. The best group-buying services are already figuring out ways to capitalize on mobility by getting the offers closer to people when they and their phones are near the relevant merchant.

Gaming on tablets is so compelling that it not only is the preferred platform for people playing games -- it is devouring the time spent on other gaming devices.

After all the fighting over features, patents, and even cultural outlooks, it turns out that the average iPhone owner and Samsung Galaxy S III owner use their phones pretty much the same way. In a new study from the company Consumer Intelligence Research Partners, a survey of 500 owners of the iPhone and 500 owners of the S III revealed very similar usage patterns.

Finding a discrete place for the tablet experience between desktop and mobile will be one of the interesting marketer challenges this year. The Shopkick app is a good reminder of one of the key issues that marketers have finally understood and fully embraced in 2013: the tablet is not a phone.

With the Galaxy S4, Samsung is most clearly leapfrogging Apple in moving the mobile device from being personal to being truly intimate. The upcoming handset's emphasis on sensor technology to engage the user's movement, eye-gaze, physical attributes, and gesture mechanics try to make the device something more than personal.

The growing relationship between Twitter and TV was underscored in December when Nielsen struck a partnership with Twtter to create a new measurement tracking viewers' engagement with programs they watch. The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating will provide a standard metric for conversations about TV shows on Twitter. The new social TV rating will not roll out until the start of the fall 2013 season. But Nielsen separately today released findings pointing to a correlation between Twitter activity and TV ratings.

Who knew that Siri had a real salty mouth on her? I've been consigned this week to using dictation software to write my columns and posts. And I've discovered quickly that Siri doesn't mind inserting obscenities in messages when you're not paying close enough attention.

A new study from Siteworx shows that 65.7% of people surveyed prefer using the Web site to downloading an app specifically for the retailer. The survey also found that product reviews were the key driver behind people making purchases after using their mobile device for shopping.