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If Facebook were a country it would boast the third-largest population in the world, behind only China and India, while the Social Network has more members than there are people in Europe, according to SocialBakers. In addition, the Coca-Cola brand alone has nearly 100 million more fans on Facebook than there are residents of the US. And brands Starbucks, Converse, Red Bull and Oreo each have nearly five times the number of fans on Facebook than there are people in the UK.

Facebook earns some very strong positive scores among consumers when compared to its social networking peers, but a low trust score could be an area of concern as the company seeks to go to the market with an IPO, according to E-Poll Market Research.

More than one third of UK consumers now read marketing e-mails on their mobile devices, rising significantly to over half among 18-to-34 year olds, according to a new report published by digital agency Steel London. The research also finds that many people who read marketing mails on their mobiles do so to screen them for later reading on a PC or laptop. In light of this, Steel says brands need to rethink their marketing strategies to find the sweet spot that maximises consumer interest across both types of screen.

Unilever has opened a Customer Insight & Innovation Centre in Mumbai, the first such unit for the company in India

Samsung and HTC will increase their share of the UK smartphone market over the next year, but not BlackBerry and Nokia, whose diversified product portfolio strategies do not appear to be paying off, says YouGov.

Men in India may install more smartphone apps than women – 16 applications a month compared to just 11 – but there’s substantially higher usage of apps by Indian females, driven mainly by chat apps such as WhatsApp Messenger.

Around six in 10 global consumers are concerned about their addiction to – or over-reliance on – technology, according to a global survey conducted by Euro RSCG for the This Digital Life report. And half of respondents worry that digital technology and multitasking are impairing humans’ ability to think deeply and focus on one task at a time. Also,  46% admit that being online distracts them too often. In addition, one third say being online interferes with their family life.

Build that app and they will come, right? Wrong. There are more than 1 million applications in app stores and developers are finding it ever harder to get discovered, and downloaded. So, what does it take to be a success?