So, today I'm trying to figure out Facebook. Not about whether I should invest in it when it goes public (I won't have the money), but about what the numbers on whether to advertise on it -- or not -- really mean.

As social media's popularity continues to reach new heights, with boys in short pants creating billion-dollar social businesses practically overnight, there seems to be a collective yearning to slow down the oversharing. Recent reports, blog posts, and editorials have expressed three general principles: we're sharing too much or too often; online relationships are not the same as relationships forged in person; and, there's a negative aspect to this that has either been documented or is theoretically worrisome.

Believe it or not, here, in this week that Instagram was bought by Facebook for a mere $1 billion, I've been struggling with the issue of what to write about. Partly this is because, as it is now several days after the acquisition, it has been covered to death. I've nothing to add. So, as I was mulling what to write about early this afternoon, I procrastinated by posting a comment on my local Patch site about a story discussing what platforms local authorities should use to give residents emergency notifications.

There's no way you missed this week's tech news: Facebook spent $1 billion to acquire Instagram, the mobile photo-sharing application sensation. This may be a factually accurate description, but it misses the heart of the story. What happened was, Facebook spent $1 billion to acquire a piece of itself.

Over and over, we've seen stereotypes emerge about digital media, with people making sweeping judgments about a particular social publishing platform without taking into account that it's the individual that dictates what goes on the platform, not the platform itself.

The world is full of temptations. According to the Bible, that's how the world has been since week one. Today, temptation is more accessible than ever, so it's hardly surprising that some institutions are trying to regulate how their members use the Internet. Yet exceptions can be made, and in one prominent case, it was a brand that inspired a loophole.

Forgive me for thinking that maybe April Fool's Day came a week early, but, hey, when you wake up first thing in the morning and read that there's a startup called Sh*tter, that will print your tweets on a roll of toilet paper, it's to be understood.

It happens while you sleep. One night, you're visiting your favorite website. Then, you wake up, visit it again, and you can't recognize it anymore. Did you enter the URL correctly? It's not your imagination: your favorite site has been turned into yet another Pinterest clone!

As faithful readers of this column know, lately I've been obsessed with stories, more specifically, whether some brands, in some categories, will actually have any to tell. If they don't, this will come as a huge disadvantage in a world in which brands, like people, have Timelines on Facebook. Seriously, though, can't you just picture a brand making a big deal on its Timeline about that new packaging or logo that no actual human in their right mind cares about? If telling stories is a problem for you, dear brand manager, the Social Media Insider is here to tell you …

The app Oink just joined the great pigsty in the sky, or wherever apps go to die. While many apps deserve to be put out of their misery, oftentimes I don't have the heart to delete an app. The app may have something appealing about it, or it may be an early version that's likely to improve. Such apps have something in common: they're all "Meh."