10 million Canadians use Facebook via mobile daily

 

Facebook users in Canada have steadily increased their use of the social network on mobile devices. Mobile daily use has jumped from 9.4 million to 10 million between the periods of August 2013 and February 2013. Monthly use is up 15% from 13 million to 15 million. Jordan Banks, Facebook head for Canada, told the Canadian Press that people check Facebook on their phones around 20 times a day.

And while users complain about the presence of ads on their news feed, Banks said the one advertisement among every 20 posts ratio has not affected engagement numbers. "We have a really good sense of how people generally want to interact with the ads and the frequency they're willing to accept and (one in 20 posts) has been universally accepted as being a good ratio." Banks adds that majority of businesses use Facebook to communicate with their market.

Ubuntu smartphones set for launch this year

Canonical has announced that Ubuntu phones from Meizu and BQ will be available internationally before the year ends. Also, two “household names” will reportedly launch their own Ubuntu devices by 2015. Canonical told Engadget the company aims to have the top 50 apps running on Ubuntu before the end of the year as well. There are no details yet on the kinds of devices but there might be more information at Mobile World Congress.

Pinterest updates Chrome extension adds hovering “Pin It” button, right-click to pin capability

Pinterest released an update for Chrome extension to make it easier for users to pin images from different sites. Just hover your mouse over an image and the “Pin It” icon appears on the upper left corner. Pinterest is also helping you attribute properly by including the URL in the pin description if the image is in a blog post or article. Users can disable the feature through the Chrome extension.  

Pinterest has also added a right-click to pin feature for those who want a more inconspicuous option to saving images. The company claims these new features will be available on other browsers soon.

Breaking: WhatsApp sold to Facebook for US $19 Billion in cash and stock

Owners of popular cross-platform WhatsApp mobile messaging app resisted selling the company to Google a year ago for US $1 Billion stating numerous times that they were not for sale. Well, all of that has changed today as Facebook has purchased WhatsApp for cash and stock. This causes a tidal shift in the messaging landscape and gives Facebook access to 430 million WhatsApp users and the presence in mobile that they've long desired. 

Specfics of the deal need to be formalized but the transaction involves $12 billion in Facebook stock and $4 billion in cash for WhatsApp. WhatsApp's founders and employees will also get $3 billion in restricted stock.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says WhatsApp is on its way to 1 billion global users. This is huge global push for Facebook since WhatsApp is a familiar and trusted platform right now. Facebook also purchased popular photo sharing service Instagram $ 1 Billion in 2012. Facebook's stock fell 5% in after hours trading following the news of the acquisition. Some user may not relish Facebook owning their mobile messaging app, competitors include BlackBerry Messenger, which was the originator of this type of free SMS, voice and photo-capable messaging application. BBM is currently cross platform for BlackBerry, iOS and Android.