Mobile apps are starting to stretch outside of their own silos and look for more services to bundle into the experience. One of the pioneers in using geo-fence alerts, RetailMeNot, has found that the shopping mobile moment also embraces looking for a quick meal.

If location targeting is an increasingly common feature of mobile campaigns, then demand for accurate location data is also sure to rise. Research released in May by Thinknear, the mobile advertising arm of wireless location services firm Telenav, found that only about a third of impressions that carry latitude and longitude data were accurate to within 100 meters of a user's actual location. And 42% were off by two miles or more.

Dating apps like Tinder have captured the hearts and minds (and mugshots) of Millennials, but can marketers use them to woo the coveted demographic? Yes, says a new report by IPG's Media Lab, which offers basic steps to that end. But it doesn't say much about whether the effort will lead to rejection or a lasting relationship.

In one survey of users, most said they preferred the transparency of banner ads on a site over the squishy labeling and sourcing of so-called "native ads." Sorry, media, consumers actually do care about your fundamental value proposition after all.

The Federal Trade Commission dropped the hammer on Amazon Thursday, accusing the retailing giant in a lawsuit of letting young children run up charges on their parents' credit cards through in-app purchases. The FTC is seeking a court order requiring Amazon to reimburse parents for unauthorized charges incurred by their children, and permanently banning Amazon from billing parents and other account holders without their consent.

Physically connected to the very rhythms of our lives, mobile media dayparts are more complicated than other platforms. Engagement is a function of time of day intersecting with certain kinds of content in variable circumstances.

Could Slingshot go the way of Poke, Facebook's previous attempt at a Snapchat-like app that it pulled in May after a year after failing to gain traction? Although Facebook is not likely to give up on Slingshot so quickly, it should realize that taking a me-too approach to creating apps is not a winning strategy. People are apt to stick with the original, even if it is known for being glitchy, like Snapchat. Facebook can't buy every popular app out there; its internal efforts should focus on apps built around new ideas and new purposes.

Isis -- the mobile wallet venture formed by AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon Wireless -- is getting a new name. The company on Monday announced plans to rebrand in order to avoid association with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, a Sunni jihadist group that has rampaged across Iraq and threatens to topple the country's government.

Digital downloads, once seen as a dire threat to the traditional album-based music business, are themselves being challenged by the rise of on-demand music and music video streaming. As these formats migrate off the desktop especially, they open up location-aware marketing opportunities.

Distracting ourselves from the TV screen with email look-ups, social chats and event browsing related to the TV show are one thing. But when programmers want to drive the distraction, discomfort sets in.