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For the first time since the launch of Piper Jaffray's semi-annual report on the habits of American teens, Facebook lost its spot as the most important social network among teenagers. Facebook's popularity among teen users has been on a steady slide, with many complaining that its size, privacy risks and tendency to incite drama has made it a "social burden." Just 23 percent of teens now deem Facebook the most important site, down from 42 percent from a year ago, according to Piper Jaffray's survey. Facebook is tied with Instagram -- a social network a third its age, with a tenth as many users -- as the second most important social media service among teens. Twitter came out as number one. The survey, which polled 8,650 teens, looks bad for Facebook, but it's not all good news for Twitter: Its popularity among teens has actually dropped 4 percent since the spring. And while Facebook might be less likeable to teens, there's evidence they're still using it more than any other social network. A quarter of teen social media users are on Twitter, 94 percent have Facebook profiles and 11 percent have Instagram accounts, according to Pew's 2013 report. Also, remember, Facebook owns Instagram. The real winners of the Piper Jaffray survey are a bit harder to tease out. Certainly Instagram can celebrate -- the percentage of teens who consider it the top social site has nearly doubled in a year. The big growth of the "other" category suggests services like Vine and Snapchat, not specifically mentioned by the survey, are also taking off. Facebook, once the dominant social networking service, is facing competition from more niche sites, which seem to have real cachet among younger users. Facebook's attempt to replicate its way to lasting dominance doesn't look to be paying off. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly insisted Facebook doesn't have a teen problem. He assured investors in July that Facebook had signed up virtually the entire population of American teens, whom he noted were using the site as actively then as they had in the preceding year-and-a-half. Using and joining Facebook is one thing. Liking it, however, is another.

We didn't get a new verision of Android at Google I/O, but it's not like there weren't enough already. As Apple pushes on into the beautiful iOS 7 future and brings the lion's share of its user-base along, there's still a lot of Android users stuck in a multiple OS-ghettos. Apple's walking into the launch of its new iOS7 with a whopping 93 percent of users on the current operating system, with virtually everyone else just one version behind. Android on the other hand is almost an even split between current versions and the past two. It's this kind of unified user base that really gives Apple an edge especially when it's diving into a brave new design world like iOS 7. Meanwhile, kids in the Android slums weep silent tears onto Gingerbread screens. What's wrong with fragmentation? DeGusta does a fine job of explaining how fragmentation screws over Android owners in terms of security and app development. he says as one example. On the flipside, he notes that Apple iPhones are updated on day one of a major iOS release, simply because Apple enjoys a direct relationship with its phone owners. On the other hand, Android has to dig through unmotivated cell phone manufacturers and conservative carriers send an update. DeGusta concludes.

In looking at the way that the internet is performing across the world in 2013, it’s very clear that many countries are hitting their stride and growing in terms of their adoption of broadband. However, that growth comes at a cost: according to Akamai’s latest State of the Internet report for the second quarter of 2013. Overall, the number of unique IPv4 addresses has swollen to over 752 million — approximately 18 million more than the first quarter to create a 2 percent increase overall quarter-over-quarter. While it sounds like a small number in the grand scheme of things, Akamai noted that the number of unique IPv4 addresses is slowly dwindling. As major gains continue in developing nations like Tanzania and Mozambique, the IPv4 address pool is quickly becoming exhausted. While the size of the web is getting bigger, internet connections are also becoming faster. The global average connection speed saw a 5.2 percent increase quarter-over-quarter to 3.3 Mbps. Even more important is the number of countries that have a connection speed of less than 1 Mpbs, which has dwindled to just 11 from 18 in the fourth quarter of 2012. Overall, this indicates that developing companies are increasing their average internet connection speeds, and already-developed nations are improving their infrastructure. The Global average peak connection speed increased just 0.1 percent to 18.9 Mbps, but more countries than ever are passing the 10 Mbps connection speed mark. However, the increased sophistication of global internet networks has lead to the U.S. becoming outmoded in the top tiers of connectivity. While the U.S. remains eighth in average connection speeds, it no longer registers in the top 10 for peak connection speeds (which it has been left out of all year) and now rests at 10th in overall high broadband speeds. America is lodged in a flat period for broadband growth while smaller, developing countries to reach better connectivity. It’s high time to get gigabit networks deployed, or risk being left in the dust.

Hollywood likes to paint movie pirates as freeloaders without morals, but maybe those so-called dastardly downloaders are simply under-served. A new website called PiracyData.org tracks the most pirated movies of the week, as reported by TorrentFreak, and taps into Can I Stream It? to show whether file sharers could have bought or rented the movie online instead. As Piracy Data's chart below shows, four out of the 10 most pirated movies cannot be purchased legally online. Out of the remaining six movies, three are available for full-priced purchase, but not for rent. None of the top 10 movies can be watched through subscription streaming services such as Netflix. On its face, it looks like a missed opportunity for the movie industry. Viewers may feel pushed toward piracy when they can't purchase or at least rent the movies they want to watch. But it's also worth noting the release timing of these movies. Every single movie on the list came out this year, but is no longer showing in major theaters. With the exception of three films, most of these movies are now in an awkward stage where you can buy them on DVD, but cannot rent them online. DVD sales are plummeting. People are growing accustomed to pressing a button and streaming a movie instantly. The idea of withholding new movies from digital rental just to juice DVD sales looks increasingly antiquated as people move beyond the optical disc. For disposable films that people only want to watch once, a mandatory $15 or $20 purchase is undesirable as well. Of course, there are exceptions. People do have rental options for The Lone Ranger, After Earth and This is the End, yet they remain popular to download on BitTorrent. Unscrupulous freeloaders do exist, and are not going away. But when the only legal options are DVD or mandatory purchase, it's no surprise that potential paying customers will turn to piracy instead.