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Showing posts with label end of 2013. Show all posts
Showing posts with label end of 2013. Show all posts

9 Social Media Resolutions for 2014

SocialmedianewyearsresolutionsYou know the drill — new year, new start. You may be planning to slim down, give up that gross habit or get your life in order in some way. But have you given any thought to your online world?
We're taking a look at your social media life with a list of new year's resolutions we'd like to see everyone keep, from posting fewer annoying photos to being a bit more positive across your networks.
SEE ALSO: 7 Tech New Year's Resolutions to Pledge Right Now
Take a look at our suggestions below. Have your own suggestions? Add them in the comment section below.

1. No More Humblebragging

Can we please make 2014 the year the "humblebrag" dies a much-needed death? While we're at it, let's also stop namedropping and giving blatantly insincere pleas for advice that are clearly just made to highlight a glamorous, exotic or exciting "dilemma."
If you're excited or proud about something, then just shout it out — your genuine enthusiasm will be better received than if you try to veil it with faux modesty.

2. Create Less #Foodporn

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Image: Flickr, Bryant Wong
We think it's fair to say that we're all fed up with looking at what everyone else is eating for lunch. Although it's oh-so-tempting to Instagram every single morsel that passes your lips, we suggest setting a #foodporn benchmark and stick to it.
Was the food you're about to eat prepared by a Michelin-starred chef? Is it presented in a way that has never been seen before by human eyeballs? Does the meal you're about to consume contain unicorn meat? If the answer to these three questions is "no," don't post that pic.

3. Check Before You Share

Misinformation has played a big part in major events in 2013, especially those first reported on social media sites. Before you blindly forward, retweet or share what appears to be breaking news — or even vital PSAs — hold back until you get verification.
The speedy spread of incorrect information in a crisis situation can be frightening, and in some cases, even downright dangerous.

4. Be More Positive

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Image: Flickr, Vitor CorrĂȘa Fogassa
With social networks only a touchscreen swipe away, it's tempting to use such platforms to speak your mind on minor annoyances, but we should all think twice about posting negative comments and updates.
We're not talking about major bad news that may be worth sharing with your online friends and followers — just the small things: not getting a seat on the train, your coffee order being wrong, sitting in traffic, etc. Are you really bringing anything to the conversation with such clichĂ©d #firstworldproblems?

5. Increase Your Privacy Know-How

Managing your privacy settings, levels and permissions on social networks is extremely important. In terms of the networks themselves, it saves you from sharing content you don't want to make public. In the case of apps and add-ons it protects the data and privacy of both you and your online friends.
As we post more and more content online and via mobile, safety and privacy is only going to become more important. Make sure you're savvy to privacy settings — and changes — in 2014.

6. Stop Sharing TMI Updates

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Image: Flickr, Vinche Chung
Whether it's your baby's bowel movements, workout stats, details of a medical condition or your fragile mental state, we've all seen more than enough cases of oversharing on social. Just because you can share something doesn't mean you should.
Think before you post in the coming year, and you might save your connections from seeing something they can't unsee.

7. Stop Obsessing About Numbers

Your follower or friend count is just a number. It doesn't define you, it doesn't change you in any way and, realistically, it means nothing in the wider world.
Instead of trying to rack up as many social stats as you can, concentrate on making the most out of the networks — and the people within them — that you already have.

8. Post Fewer Selfies

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Image: Flickr, Sarah Barker
Yep, we get it already. At a certain angle, in a certain light, you're gorgeous. We really don't need daily reminders popping up in our various social streams to continually confirm this.
With 2013 dubbed "The Year of the Selfie," maybe we could all make 2014 the year we become a little more selfless?

9. Take Time to Be Kind

A good deed a day IRL is a noble aspiration, but might not be practical. On social media, however, it's a bit more achievable.
Whether it's taking the time to comment on a photo that everyone else has appeared to ignore, forwarding on a plea to help find a missing cat in your area or just hitting "like" on someone's craft project, it really doesn't take much to spread a little kindness online.

The Year in Facebook: Moving Fast, Breaking Less

Mark-zuckerberg-smilesIf there's one thing Facebook generates, besides selfies and baby pics, it's lots and lots of press.
The company has more than one billion users, one of tech's most recognizable CEOs (still only 29!), and enormous stores of your personal data. Like it or not, we all seem to have a stake, whether big or small, in what happens at Facebook's Menlo Park, Calif., headquarters. It makes sense, then, that the social network keeps us all, reporters and readers alike, busy week in and week out.
The company has a reputation for changing its product regularly, and this year was no different. Facebook's 2013 activities ran the gamut from the good (Graph Search), to the bad (Facebook Home), and, of course, the ugly (its misuse of an extremely sensitive image in an ad).
On the business side of things, Facebook stock experienced a resurgence as it collected a number of noteworthy headlines, including the company's first ever Fortune 500 Ranking (#482) and its one millionth advertiser.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined his vision for bringing Internet access to all corners of the globe in 2013, a pledge that could bring great opportunity to the masses — and a few more billion users to Facebook.
The company's motto remains "Move fast and break things," and Facebook seems to be breaking things with less frequency, while moving faster than ever. Here's a look back at the top Facebook headlines that kept us captivated over the past 12 months.

Tangling With the NSA

Facebook found itself in the middle of the year's top tech crisis when reports surfaced in Junethat companies like Facebook, Apple and Google were granting government access to private user data. Facebook denied the reports (along with all the other companies mentioned), but the NSA surveillance program, known as PRISM, dominated the headlines for many weeks following the initial allegations.
Following the revelations, it was Facebook's turn to share information. Less than two weeks after the original PRISM stories ran in the Washington Post and The Guardian, Facebook released its own report, claiming the company receives nearly 1,500 requests for user data per month.
An NSA protest takes place in Berlin.

In August, Facebook released its first ever Transparency Report, documenting the number of users included in information requests. (Facebook, along with other tech companies like Google and Microsoft, publicly asked the government for permission to provide even more details.)
In an interview with The Atlantic in September, Zuckerberg shared that the NSA's report affected users' trust in Facebook. "There's a lot of times where ... someone will criticize us in the press over privacy. What we've found is that stuff tends to not actually move the needle that much on the brand perception around trust," he said. "The NSA stuff did."

Facebook's Teen Problem?

It was a story line that took center stage during the company's latest earnings call at the end of October — is Facebook losing out on teen users? The stock dropped dramatically after CFO David Ebersman hinted that there might be a slight issue retaining younger teens on the platform. "Youth usage among U.S. teens was stable overall from Q2 to Q3, but we did see a decrease in daily users partly among younger teens," Ebersman said. And based on anecdotal evidence, it appears the conversation is one that teens themselves are struggling with.
The stock market reacted, erasing a 15% gain the stock was riding in after hours trading. (Some believe the stock drop was a result of Facebook saying it wouldn't increase the number of ads on the platform moving forward; in reality, both comments most likely caused the dip.) Either way, Facebook's mention of teen use declining, even within a small subset of "younger teens," coupled with Facebook's reported failed bid for Snapchat, doesn't scream confidence that teen users are using the site as much as they once did.
The moral of the story: It's something to pay attention to, says Brian Blau, research director for consumer technology at Gartner. "It's a serious issue and it's a long-term issue," he says. "If we do actually find out that there is a big gap there, a gap in usage, I'm guessing that Facebook will have some kind of answer for that. You can probably guess that if they're going to admit that there's a problem, then they're going to have a solution."

Home (Not So) Sweet Home

It's hard to believe Facebook Home was just unveiled in April, mostly because few people still talk about it. Facebook Home, which came pre-loaded on the HTC First (earning it the nickname "Facebook Phone"), works with Android smartphones to bring Facebook updates and features directly to the phone's home screen.
Some features of Home (like Chat Heads) have been a success, and were incorporated into later versions of the mobile app. Overall, however, Facebook Home received negative reviews, and rumors even circled that the HTC First, the phone that came with Home preloaded, has been discontinued. (An HTC spokesperson denied the allegation in September, but the phone's price dropped to just $0.99 in May.)
Facebook Home has been an abysmal failure," Blau toldMashable in September. "Maybe they had some really great ideas there, but they just didn't deliver it in the right package or the right way."

Graph Search Is Born

Graph Search rolled out in January, and may turn out to be Facebook's most interesting feature in 2014. There is a preponderance of personal user data on Facebook, and Graph Search is the first tool that really comes close to letting users harvest that information for personal use. It's a search engine within Facebook, and the smarter Graph Search becomes, the more benefit users will get from engaging with it.
A serious down side of Graph Search is that it's not yet on available on mobile. Seeking nearby restaurants that your Facebook friends Like is helpful, but less so when you need to be sitting down in front of a desktop or laptop to utilize the search function.

$FB Success

Facebook's IPO did not go as planned in 2012. In fact, it was rather disastrous. But that narrative is well in the rearview mirror, and those who hung on through the company's tumultuous first months on Wall Street are now reaping the benefits.
After closing on Dec. 31 last year at $26.62 a share, Facebook stock has nearly doubled, closing at $TKTK on TKTK. The company has a market cap north of $133 billion (more than four times that of Twitter), and more importantly, revenues continue to climb quarter after quarter. Facebook was listed on the Fortune 500 list for the first time this year at #482 and it should climb close to 100 places next year based on expected 2013 revenues compared to last year's list.

A Second-Screen Battle

There's a battle raging between Facebook and Twitter, and it's happening in front of your TV. The two companies are competing heavily to provide users with the best platform to discuss live television, a phenomenon known as the "second screen." When you watch The Voice or the Super Bowl, Facebook and Twitter want you talking about what you watch online, on their respective network, and that means having your phone or tablet handy to continue the conversation in the virtual world.
Facebook partnered with Fox Sports in September to bring user polls and comments to professional football and soccer broadcasts (Twitter has a similar partnership with ESPN). Facebook also sends weekly reports to major TV studios like ABC, NBC and CBS to fill them in on which shows are generating the most conversations online, data that should help with advertising revenue and show promotions.
It's an important area of focus for Facebook. Discussions around live television bring more users to the platform by giving them a reason to log in, but they also give advertisers confirmation that Facebook is a place to go for reaching an engaged audience. If users are spending the commercial break scrolling through News Feed, advertisers will want to be there — a fact that is not lost on Facebook.

Mobile Growth

Facebook is vocal about being a "mobile-first" company, and in 2013 it proved the words are more than just a Silicon Valley clichĂ©. The company reported $882 million in mobile ad revenue last quarter, nearly six times as much as Q3 2012, and mobile ads now generate 49% of Facebook's revenue total.
Facebook also added over 250 monthly mobile active users in the past year, and that number should continue to grow in 2014. Facebook was the only social networking app in the Top 10 most-downloaded list from the App Store on both iPhone and iPad this year.
A graph depicting Facebook's mobile users as of Q3 2013.
 Source: Facebook Q3 Earnings Report

The Rise of Instagram

Instagram's year was bigger than Facebook's in terms of major rollouts. The photo-sharing app, which Facebook purchased last year for $1 billionadded videos to the service in June,messaging to the service in December, and finally started monetizing with its first set of in-feed ads.
Instagram announced 150 million monthly active users in September, a significant milestone considering the app had 100 million actives in February of 2013. Facebook likely won't admit it (see the teen problem segment above), but it appears that Instagram is the company's biggest weapon against the rising popularity of Snapchat, the photo-sharing app that deletes user photos and videos after they are viewed.
Instagram's new messaging feature, Instagram Direct, now allows private sharing between friends within the app, in many ways mirroring the functionality that Snapchat provides, although the photos do not disappear.
And while the jury is out on whether Instagram Direct will strike a chord with users, the verdict is in on the platform's advertisements — users are not happy, at least in the comments. (Wenoticed this initially when ads rolled out and, based on the comments under recent ads, it appears their rage persists.) The ads are relatively infrequent, appearing approximately once a week from what we've seen, and receive thousands of likes, but they also serve as lightning rods for thousands of angry Instagram users.

A Vanishing Snapchat Bid

Need validation that Snapchat is for real? The photo-sharing app had more total downloads for iPhone in 2013 than Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, respectively. The company claims that users send 400 million "snaps" — images or videos — per day, a number that exceeds Facebook's 350 million daily photo shares. Snapchat does not, however, share data on how many users it has in total.
So it's no surprise that Facebook showed an interest in the company this fall. The world's largest social network reportedly made a bid for the Snapchat — to the tune of $3 billion. That's $2 billionmore than Facebook paid for Instagram last year, another app that wasn't bringing in revenue when Facebook came calling.
The Snapchat guys are crazy for not selling if the rumors are true," says Michael Pachter, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. "Snapchat is a really interesting little service, but it's really hard to say that there will ever be a business model there."

Perhaps Facebook dodged a bullet; or perhaps Facebook's bid was validation that there's something legitimate to Snapchat. Either way, Facebook's addition of Instagram Direct may mean this courtship is over.

Internet.org

Zuckerberg is not the only tech figure responsible for Internet.org, but he is the most notable and outspoken. The Facebook CEO announced the initiative in August with the intention of bringing Internet access to the four-plus billion people worldwide currently without it.
Internet.org's supporting team includes Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera, Qualcomm and Samsung, and the goals include cheaper data plans and more reliable access, particularly on mobile devices.
Some criticized Zuckerberg for being to self-interested, tackling a problem that could also drive lots of business for Facebook. In theory, if the world has more Internet users, Facebook has more potential clients.
"The unfair economic reality is that those already on Facebook have way more money than the rest of the world combined, so it may not actually be proïŹtable for us to serve the next few billion people for a very long time, if ever," Zuckerberg wrote in the Internet.org mission statement. " 
But we believe everyone deserves to be connected."

With Zuckerberg's plan to bring the entire world online, and the speed at which the company continues to evolve, it appears Facebook won't be short of headline-grabbing developments in 2014. Or any time in the near future — provided it doesn't break anything that can't be put together again.

Twitter: What to Expect in 2014

Twitter-1-2

Seven years ago, Twitter was just a small, ragtag collection of hackers fighting over the basis premise of the company and struggling to keep the site from crashing every other day. Twitter has come a long way since then.
The company is on track to bring in more than half a billion dollars in revenue this year. It hasmore than 230 million monthly active users worldwide and some 2,300 employees in offices in San Francisco, New York, London, Dublin and Sao Paulo. It navigated a smooth IPO in November (unlike another social network that shall remain nameless) and is now valued at around $30 billion.
Twitter has grown up, but the business still needs to mature. The social network has just more than 53 million monthly active users in the U.S., significantly less than Facebook and only about a fifth of the country's total number of Internet users. Global user growth has slowed dramatically, both on a quarter-over-quarter basis and year-over-year. And while revenue is on track to nearly double this year from 2012, the company is far from profitable. It reported a net loss of $79 million in 2012 and a loss of $133.9 million in the first nine months of this year.
On the product side, Twitter recently made significant changes to the user experience on mobile and desktop, emphasizing conversations and visual content in the stream. However, those changes were quickly criticized by many of Twitter's oldest and most active users. Behind the scenes, Twitter is still painfully hesitant about approving new features and reportedly even considered killing off some of these recent changes shortly after their releases due to the negative reaction.
As Twitter begins its first full year as a public company, it will have to commit its resources to tackle these other issues — all while operating under the gaze of investors looking for Twitter to grow revenue and yes, turn a profit.

A Richer, Effortless Experience

Despite the initial uproar over Twitter's redesign, the social network will likely only become more visual and interactive in the coming year. That means more prominence for pictures, articles, TV clips, ecommerce features, you name it. Profile pages should expect a redesign to "highlight more useful information," and direct messages — once a buried feature on the service — are becoming prominent and more visual thanks to a new option to send images.
These changes are intended to kill two birds — no pun intended, Twitter — with one stone: provide a more visual (valuable)platform for advertisers and boost user numbers and engagement. Just a few months ago, brand posts on Twitter were essentially just chunks of text with links or small images; now they look like full-fledged banner ads. Likewise, the Twitter feed increasingly resembles the News Feed on Facebook, which may help lower the bar for entry for users who are familiar with Facebook but still confused by Twitter."I definitely think we are going to see Twitter focusing on user acquisition, and develop ways to increase engagement with the existing user base and to attract new users," Clark Fredricksen, VP at eMarketer, told Mash. "Whether through partnerships with media, more engaging product enhancements like images in stream or other ways."
To that end, it's also likely Twitter will continue trying to explain exactly what Twitter is to new users. The company updated its about page to better explain how the service works; it unveiled adedicated account in November that offers a guide to the social network, though it hasn't tweeted much of late. In the same vein, Twitter introduced several new accounts, including @magicrecsand @eventparrot, which automatically notify users about people to follow or breaking news, respectively. Through such accounts, even beginners may eventually be able to get as much out of Twitter as longtime users.

Advertising Beyond Twitter's Nest

The year Facebook went public, it went on a monetization bender. The social network introducedmobile ads, sponsored posts in the News Feed, paid messages — remember that? — and prompted users to pay $7 to promote their own posts. These efforts were as obvious as they were flawed: Facebook needed to show investors its revenue potential.
Instead, Twitter's focus in the coming year will likely be expanding on two of its ad tools. The first is selling native adson other apps outside the Twitter ecosystem, thanks to the recent acquisition of MoPub, a mobile ad exchange. By moving beyond its own network, Twitter should be able to promise advertisers a broader reach than they would get otherwise. "Right now," Blau said, "Facebook ads are only on Facebook, but Twitter is moving pretty fast to break that."Twitter, on the other hand, will probably be more cautious when it comes to introducing new revenue-generating products."Facebook tends to innovate very quickly. They tend to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks," said Brian Blau, a social media analyst with Gartner. "Twitter is not as experimental."

The second big push, according to Fredricksen, will be to expand its self-service ad platform to more countries in order to spur international revenue growth. "One of the ways that Google and Facebook have seen huge increases in sales, particularly in foreign markets where they don't have sales teams necessarily, has been through their self-service tools," he said.
Beyond that, some speculate that the social network might eventually roll out more video ads through Vine or Twitter — or that they may introduce some new promoted product. Given how slowly Twitter moves, however, that might take a while.

Embracing the Second Screen

The T-word was dropped more than 40 times in the company's IPO paperwork. No, not Twitter.Television.
"By enhancing the activity related to their programming or event on Twitter, media outlets can drive tune-in and awareness of their original content, leveraging Twitter’s strength as a second screen for television programming," Twitter's team wrote in the S-1, essentially highlighting its pitch to marketers. The emphasis on television shouldn't be too surprising. Marketers spend $70 billion a year on television placements; Twitter (and Facebook) want a piece of that.
In recent months, Twitter has inked partnerships with CBS, BBC, A&E and others as part of the Twitter Amplify program to promote video clips like instant replays or exclusive behind-the-scenes shots that promote shows airing on television. Twitter has also supplied data to Nielsen to track engagement around shows on the social network, and Twitter has partnered with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and others to let subscribers view TV shows and movies via tweets.
"We expect Twitter to continue to develop partnerships with the media," Fredricksen said. "Partnerships in media are core to their Amplify program and their pitch to advertisers."
Given the importance of the second screen to Twitter's business, it seems likely television content will be featured more prominently in its app and on its website. As part of its redesign in November, Twitter introduced the option to see trending TV shows in the Discover tab, but these shows appeared far down on the page. We would expect to see this area receive higher placement in the coming months.

Acquisitions, Acquisitions, Acquisitions

With all the hype and speculation, 
Much of that money will likely go toward helping Twitter continue to scale through new hires, infrastructure investments and, of course, acquisitions. It may not have the resources like Facebook or Google to bid billions of dollars on startups like Snapchat, but Blau expects to see Twitter buy up businesses in the second screen space as well as companies that focus on natural language processing and analytics.it's sometimes easy to forget the real reason companies like Twitter go public: to raise money. Twitter raised just more than $1.8 billion from its IPO, a large influx of money though much less than the $16 billion that Facebook raised in its public offering. The company also secured a $1 billion credit line shortly before the IPO.

"Twitter is going to be on an acquisition binge," Blau said, noting that Twitter had previously been on a pace of buying five or six companies a year. "I don't think their rate of acquisition is going to slow down ... I tend to think it will be slightly more weighted to the backend."

Profitable? Probably Not

Twitter is expected to generate close to $1 billion in revenue next year as its ad products continue to mature. That marks impressive growth for the company, but it doesn't mean Twitter will achieve profitability.
Multiple reports based on interviews with bankers and analysts suggest that Twitter will continue spending aggressively in 2014 to scale and compete with other major social networks. As a result, anyone waiting for Twitter to turn a profit may have to wait until 2015

The Top Android Apps of 2013

Duolingo

Duolingo

Duolingo works to add interactivity and customized lesson planning to the language learning experience by rewarding users when they achieve goals, giving incentive to return for more lessons -- something your high school's Intermediate Spanish course never did.Pixlr

 Pixlr Express

A powerful, customizable photo editor that's more than just filters, Pixlr Express comes packed with the ability to color-correct, blur or layer images and stickers on top of one another. Just taking up 7.2 M of memory, Pixlr Express is more than worth the small amount of space it'll take up on your SD card.Nova-launcher

 Nova Launcher

With the release of iOS 7, Apple raised the bar for home screen design in 2013. For Android, Nova Launcher reaches the same bar. Fully customizable, performance-oriented and with a prime version at just $4, Nova Launcher is a great download for any android user.Reddit

 Reddit is fun

Reddit is fun is our preferred way of browsing and using Reddit on our Android devices. Easy to navigate, the app more closely resembles the web experience of Reddit than other popular apps -- which seem to be more focused on browsing rather than posting or commenting. Frequently updated with bug fixes and small updates, you can count on Reddit is fun to continue improving with time.Feedly

 Feedly

Now that our dear Google Reader has moved on from this world, we require a new RSS curation tool to fill our article-consuming needs -- and Feedly fits the bill. The app's design is heavily image focused, giving a reading experience closer to how we use the web than most news aggregation tools. Offering easy sharing tools and integration with Evernote, Instapaper and Pocket, Feedly is a fluid, fast moving hulk of a news app.Sleepbot

 Sleepbot

Whether you choose to use Sleepbot as a simple time log or a dedicated and powerful sleep tracker is up to you, but both options offer a rewarding experience for anyone looking to improve his or her sleeping habits. Sleepbot tracks your movement and noise levels, greeting you with a quiet alarm in the morning at your lightest level of sleep.Aereo

 Aereo

Straight out of The Jetsons, the Aereo app -- currently in public beta -- allows you to access your cloud DVR on your Android device, meaning you can watch your favorite television shows on your morning commute (assuming you use public transportation, of course-- Mashable does not condone driving under the influence of Breaking Bad). You can tune into your local channels and save up to 20 hours of television in the cloud.
Price: Free app; after free trial, subscription is $8 per month.
With the release of new operating system KitKat and the announcement that it hit both one billion activations and 50 billion app downloads, it's clear that 2013 has been a year of great news forAndroid.
In the past 12 months, we've seen the release of some truly remarkable new apps on Google Play, while some old standards got a much-needed revisiting. Here, we list our picks for the top Android apps of the calendar year.
the Year of Google
Our top choices for 2013 include a leviathan of productivity, a new breed of news reader and a sleep tracker. Check out these apps in the gallery above, and see if they're fit for a download.

Apple Announces Top iPhone, iPad Apps of 2013

App_store-1Finishing the year atop Apple's App Store list has never been more competitive. The company announced in October that the App Store features more than one million apps that have combined for more than 60 billion total app downloads.
So, what does it take to reach the top? Apparently lots and lots of candy.
Candy Crush Saga was a star for iOS users in 2013, taking the top spot as the most downloaded free app on both iPhone and iPad this year. The addicting game was also the top grossing app on both iPhone and iPad, an impressive feat considering the app is free and relies on in-app purchases for revenue.
Candy Crush officially earned its crown Monday when Apple released its annual list of the top downloaded apps. The company does not break out specific download figures, but it did reveal a "Top 10" list for multiple categories, including top paid iPhone and iPad apps. Minecraft - Pocket Edition took the top spot on both devices in the paid app category.
Examining the lists for both devices gives a slightly better picture of how users are engaging with iPhones and iPads. Social media sites, for example, were some of the most downloaded apps on iPhone, but only one, Facebook, even cracked the top 10 on iPad.
Twitter, the company behind the year's most highly anticipated tech IPO, did not appear in the Top 10 on any list. Vine, the video sharing app Twitter unveiled in January, was #4 on the Free iPhone Apps list.
Snapchat, the photo-sharing app that automatically deletes images and videos after a recipient views them, was downloaded more times than Facebook and Instagram.
Based on the lists below, it appears as if iPads are primarily used for game playing — and gambling. Five of the top 10 highest grossing apps on the iPad in 2013 were gambling-related, including DoubleDown CasinoBig Fish Casino, and Slotomania HD; the other five were games.
Last year's most popular free apps for iPhone and iPad — YouTube and Skype for iPad, respectively — were both in the top five again this year.
Here's a look at the apps that kept us glued to our iOS devices in 2013.

Top iOS Apps of 2013

Top Free iPhone Apps
Top Free iPad Apps
Candy Crush Saga
Candy Crush Saga
YouTube
YouTube
Temple Run 2
Temple Run 2
Vine
Calculator for iPad Free
Google Maps
Skype for iPad
Snapchat
Netflix
Instagram
Despicable Me: Minion Rush
Facebook
iBooks
Pandora Radio
Facebook
Despicable Me: Minion Rush
The Weather Channel for iPad
Top Paid iPhone Apps
Top Paid iPad Apps
Minecraft - Pocket Edition
Minecraft - Pocket Edition
Heads Up!
Pages
Temple Run: Oz
Temple Run: Oz
Angry Birds Star Wars
Plants vs. Zombies HD
Plague Inc.
Angry Birds Star Wars HD
Afterlight
Notability
Free Music Download Pro - Mp3 Downloader
Angry Birds Star Wars II
Bloons TD 5
iMovie
Sleep Cycle alarm clock
The Room
Plants vs. Zombies
Bad Piggies HD
Top Grossing iPhone Apps
Top Grossing iPad Apps
Candy Crush Saga
Candy Crush Saga
Clash of Clans
Clash of Clans
Pandora Radio
Hay Day
MARVEL War of Heroes
DoubleDown Casino
Hay Day
Big Fish Casino
Big Fish Casino
Modern War
The Simpsons: Tapped Out
Bingo Bash HD - Free Bingo Casino
Modern War
The Simpsons: Tapped Out
Kingdoms of Camelot: Battle for the North
Slotomania HD - FREE Slots
The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle-earth
GSN Casino