It's not quite TV, but it's close. Yes, Pinterest is testing Explore -- an extension of its existing platform, which will feature auto-play versions of Promoted Video.

Encouraging developers to build more bots, Facebook is offering them free analytics, and an open invitation to join its FbStart program.

Facebook will now be better at tracking links shared on its platform, as well as rival social networks. That's thanks to a new deal to acquire CrowdTangle -- a social data-tracking firm popular among publishers like Buzzfeed, the BBC, and Vox.

Of course, Instagram is planning to add live video to its existing app. It's owned by Facebook, after all, and as CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on a recent earnings call: "We're putting video first." As Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom tells the Financial Times, "I think [live video] can enhance what we're doing."

Rightly or wrongly, what do Facebook's advertisers value more: dark posts or boosted posts? Some new research suggests that the choice is clear. Indeed, the average total spend per post for dark posts is $776.75 -- nearly twice as much as for boosted posts ($389), according to fresh findings from TrackMaven.

Of course you are. It's the Russian app that all your cool friends have been using to "filter" their social media in the style of artistic schools like Expressionism and Cubism.

That was fast. About a month after agreeing to buy Viv -- the AI firm helmed by the same engineers who created Siri -- Samsung is readying a voice assistant of its own.

This week, Facebook estimated that U.S. advertising grew by 62%, year-over-year. Pivotal Research Group, however, puts the figure at about 50%. What explains the difference? "We think the meaning behind the gap is open to interpretation, but indicates that there is an acceleration of spending by entities based outside of the United States targeting consumers inside of it," Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal, explains in a new note to investors.

Remember when Android actually had some competition from rival mobile operating systems? Those days are now long gone, as some fresh findings from Strategy Analytics make clear. In the third quarter, a record 88% of all smartphones around the world were running on Google's mobile OS, the research firm finds.

Worldwide, more people now rely on mobile gadgets than desktop computers to browse the Web, new research shows. Occurring at some point in October, the shift marks a major milestone in the way we communicate, consume and share information.