From what many perceive to be its unclear purpose to its raging troll infestation, the social giant seems to be forever burdened by design issues. Now it's CEO is asking for advice.

Capping off a year of video investments, Twitter is rolling out 360-degree live streams through Periscope. Going forward, when users see a video marked with a LIVE 360 badge, they can interact with it to change what they see by moving their phone or swiping the screen -- all while watching live.

In 2016, Facebook once again took the lead as the top smartphone app, according to an annual roundup from Nielsen. In fact, the social giant had more than 146 million average unique monthly users -- up 14% from 2015.

It looks like Snapchat just shelled out upwards of $40 million for Israeli startup Cimagine Media.

A gloomy forecast for wearables isn't stopping tech giants from investing in the space. Google, for one, just revealed plans for two new flagship smartwatches. Consumers can expect the gadgets to hit shelves some time in the first quarter of next year, as Jeff Chang, product manager of Android Wear at Google, tells The Verge.

Facebook is adding several features to Live Updates for its Mentions service as part of its push for more public figures to share live video.

Surprising no one, Instagram just added several features that Snapchat users should find familiar. Yep, just like with Snapchat's geofilters, Instagram users can now augment their pictures and videos with customizable "Stickers" for weather, time of day, and physical location.

Call it a convenient feature or a desperate measure, but Twitter is testing breaking news push notifications. The feature -- first noticed by Buzzfeed -- is common among publishers trying to increase readership. Users with an appetite for unsolicited alerts might appreciate such services, but finding the right push frequency is a challenge. Too many alerts, and readers will run.

Continuing to take (steal?) inspiration from rival apps, Facebook is adding a split-screen group video chat feature to Messenger. Up to six friends can join a conversation while, of course, wearing Snapchat-like selfie masks. Also, up to 50 people can listen in, talk via voice, send texts and other media like GIFs and emojis.

What the heck is going on over at Evernote? The popular productivity app is walking back a proposed policy that would have given its staff access to users' private notes. Evernote tried to justify the intrusion as a check on the effectiveness of its machine learning technology. But -- big surprise! -- users protested the privacy invasion.