The recession that ended a while ago doesn't seem to have ended. The "system" for foreclosing on homes is an unmitigated disaster. It has been a season of woefully bad news. So, in America, what this means is that the most pressing issues of our time are the changing -- and changing back -- of the Gap logo, and that SunChips' compostable bags are way too noisy. Good God.

The overhaul of Facebook Groups last week builds on the ideals of the 1980s and early 1990s. It's only halfway there, though, as it has the potential to be something much bigger.

Now that I've had a full 20 hours to process Facebook's latest announced changes, here's my takeaway: the moves are Facebook's recognition that it is a network, but a network full of individuals. As Mark Zuckerberg (you know who he is, right?) said on the Facebook blog yesterday: "The biggest problem in social networking is helping you easily interact with your friends and share information in lots of different contexts."

How old were you when you first learned not to talk to strangers? It's one of those rules parents try to instill at an early age, right up there with eating vegetables and not watching TV before finishing homework. In my adult life, I've fallen short in all regards. Anyone who's seen my photos on Foodspotting knows I don't eat nearly enough produce, I'm prone to playing Angry Birds when there's work to do, and it's part of the job to talk to strangers all the time. Beyond that, though, I'm realizing that I've been benefiting regularly by listening to …

One of my favorite parts of Advertising Week -- besides when it's over, and I can go back to the home office and take off the heels -- is the Future of Media Forum, which, as it turns out, is sponsored by this very publication: MediaPost's Media magazine (I swear that the first time I went, I didn't even know that.) It's an almost-two-hour-long panel featuring heavy hitters of the marketing and media world. So, here's what I came away with: that, partly due to social, perhaps the biggest disconnect we face in the marketing and media industrial complex is …

I've got a riddle for you: What's the hardest part about location-based marketing? Here's a hint: It's not the marketing. The challenge tends to lie in dealing with locations. This comes up all the time. Can locations accept mobile coupons? Does a brand have the right to run marketing around locations they don't own? For locations that are part of a chain, is the marketing the responsibility of the store owner or the corporate marketing group? While locations now offer compelling digital marketing opportunities thanks to advances in mobile media and devices, locations also cause a few wrinkles in some …

If you aren't in journalism, you may have no idea how big this is: but it's huge, absolutely huge that The New York Times' economics reporter Peter Goodman is joining the Huffington Post, in a shift that was announced yesterday. Trust me, in the macro-sense of the word, this is much more important than the news that Howard Fineman just left the decimated Newsweek for the HuffPo. The Goodman shift is the more important move of the two because of why Goodman says he's leaving. And it gets to the heart of how social media has changed the news business.

There's a new debate about Facebook that's making echo chambers implode. No, it's not whether "Catfish" or "The Social Network" will prove to be the better Facebook movie, or whether David Fincher's next movie will be a remake of his own "Se7en" with Mark Zuckerberg as the serial killer.

There's one thing I always try hard not to do when one of social media's big players comes out with substantial changes -- and that's to read what everyone else thinks about it before I form my own opinion. (Reading news stories is OK; reading everything about it on TechCrunch -- not OK.) Making sure to go wide-eyed and innocent into Twitter's redesign Tuesday was fairly easy. That said, I do have one big thought: that, as of this redesign -- which allows people to see more information about each tweet without leaving the service -- Twitter is finally a …

It's OK if you're not obsessed with mobile social media. I know I can get carried away, whether I'm spilling my Super Mayor confessions or taking too much pride in becoming the King of Disinfectant (take that, Lysol serfs!). Whether you're already sold on its importance or still could use more convincing, here are 10 reasons to love mobile social media.