Due to exceptional ad-buying efficiencies and shifting consumer tastes, the programmatic and mobile revolutions officially merged in 2015. Indeed, the vast majority (89%) of marketers say they used demand-side platforms (DSPs) to purchase mobile display this year, according to fresh findings from Forrester Research.

What is Facebook if not a single linear feed filled with all manner of personalized matter? Well, challenging its existential limits, the social giant appears to be testing topic-based feeds in place of a single News Feed.

Coming off a breakout holiday season, mcommerce is poised for a bang-up 2016. That's according to a growing body of forecasts, including a new one from Bizrate Insights -- a unit of Connexity, the marketing services company formerly known to the world as Shopzilla.

As pretty as its products are -- and as imperfect as its software is -- Apple didn't rely on hardware alone to get to the top of the mobile mountain. Samsung, however, has done exactly that, and now appears to be paying the price. In fact, as sources tell Reuters, the tech giant's disregard for software lies at the heart of its current struggles.

I've heard two diverging theories about the future of audience data in digital advertising. One is that walled gardens (platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube, etc. that attract loyal users and whose extensive audience data is coveted by and withheld from marketers) will open up their doors/data to marketers and advertisers. The other is that more and more walled gardens will pop up in the digital ecosystem as more companies take their cues from the success of the social and search giants.

Of course Google is building a fancy new mobile messaging product. I mean, it's still an unconfirmed report, but the tech giant would have to be blind not to see that messaging apps increasingly lie at the center of our digital lives.

In the spirit of the season, it's nice to see mobile giants getting along and making peace. But there's nothing altruistic about Facebook's decision to support Apple's Live Photos feature, which is available to owners of iPhone 6s and 6s Plus phones. Despite the name, Live Photos actually lets users capture a few seconds of video, including audio -- and we know Facebook wants nothing more than for people to be creating, sharing, and streaming more video.

So far, Facebook's app diversification strategy is working better than anyone could have predicted. Over the past year, in fact, Facebook Messenger grew faster than any other app, according to fresh findings from Nielsen. All told, the standalone app saw a 31% increase in users. And overall, Facebook's flagship app remained the most downloaded among U.S. smartphone users, Nielsen found.

What's more exciting than the incredible growth of mobile commerce? For sure, it's the fact that we're still in the early days of mcommerce innovation, and potentially game-changing developments now seem like a daily occurrence.

IBM announced the creation of the 100th MobileFirst app, a series of enterprise-grade apps created in partnership with Apple. With 48 apps released in the last month, the companies have now completed the goal they set when they first partnered last year.