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For as much as some pundits like to believe that Snapchat poses a serious threat to Instagram, the popular photo-sharing site owned by Facebook is as popular as ever. Not only has Instagram seen its user base grow considerably over the past few years, the cumulative number of Instagram users continues to accelerate with each passing year. Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom recently revealed that Instagram now boasts more than 700 million users, according to a new report  from  The New York Times . Of that subset, an estimated 400 million users check the website or the app on a daily basis. Interestingly enough, approximately 560 million of Instagram’s total user base now resides outside of the United States, a data point which speaks to the site’s broad appeal across the globe. As a quick point of comparison, Snapchat currently boasts upwards of 160 million daily users. To help illustrate Instagram’s tremendous growth over the past few years, consider this: From June 2016 through D

Facebook’s CEO today asked the question on the tip of most of our tongues: are we building the world we all want? In just under 7,000 words, Mark Zuckerberg’s manifesto addressed the company mantra — connecting the world — while taking stock of the current political climate, socio-economic impact of globalization on its users, and the need to accelerate scientific research to address issues like climate change and pandemics. It was, in a word, epic. Zuckerberg’s plan, as you would expect, started with Facebook. The message revolved around community. Zuckerberg asked, and addressed, Facebook’s role in building “supportive,” “safe,” “informed,” “civically-engaged,” and “inclusive” communities. Here’s what he had to say. Supportive communities Our goal is to strengthen existing communities by helping us come together online as well as offline, as well as enabling us to form completely new communities, transcending physical location. When we do this, beyond connecting online, we reinf

Snapchat's corporate parent seeks to raise more than $2 billion for the fast-growing social media group in the tech sector's largest public offering in nearly three years, documents filed Thursday showed. Outlining the financial details of its initial public offering (IPO), Snap Inc. said it expects net proceeds of some $2 billion. It will offer 145 million new shares and sell 55 million from existing share owners, with an expected price range of $14 to $16, the documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission showed. The offering -- confirmed with a public filing on February 2 -- would be largest in the sector since the Chinese online giant Alibaba's US market debut in 2014. The listing would value Snap at between $19.5 billion and $22.2 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the deal. The move is expected to be closely followed by Wall Street and the tech sector, with other highly valued peers such as Uber and Airbnb also s

by Christian Neri This week's 'Skim is all about fighting for the next user: Why you should consider Facebook's low-bandwidth app, Facebook Lite; why Snapchat's fastest-growing demographic will surprise you; what you need to know about how the Super Bowl played out on social, and the brands and social networks that claimed victory; what big play Pinterest is making in search; how to convert Instagram users to buyers; how B2Bs tap into social; and much more... Skim to stay on top! 1. Facebook Lite hits 200 million users The social network's low-bandwidth world revenue  skyrocketed 52% in 2016  thanks to the lite version of Facebook's app, which makes it easier and more enjoyable for users with poorer data connections to sign up and spend more time on the platform. The social giant's revenue in "Rest of World" regions (those outside of US & Canada, Europe, and Asia-Pacific) ballooned to $839 million per quarter last year. Facebook Lite la

While President Trump has helped make Twitter a regular part of the national conversation, the business behind the microblogging service is not looking up. That feeling was only reinforced by the meager revenues the  company reported  on Thursday. Things look especially slow when you compare the platform to rival social media apps. As this chart from  Statista shows, after gaining hundreds of millions of users in its first few years, Twitter has only added 31 million monthly active users over the past two years. Facebook's suite of behemoths have easily surpassed that over the same time frame, while Snapchat has outpaced it as well (though it has  slowed recently , too). Now, Twitter serves a much narrower niche than Facebook, so the fact that it can't keep up makes sense. But even with that in mind, the company appears to be in a prolonged rut.

Rob Price   Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan.AP Mark Zuckerberg's wildly ambitious plan to treat and cure all diseases has made a step forward with the announcement that it is funding dozens of scientists over the next five years. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) is an organisation run by the Facebook cofounder and pediatrician Priscilla Chan, his wife.  Launched with a $3 billion (£2.4 billion) cheque book in September 2016 , its aim is to help "cure all disease" by the end of the twenty-first century, with a focus on investing in long-term scientific research that wouldn't necessarily pay off straight away. Part of the CZI is the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a medical research organisation — and on Wednesday,  the Biohub announced it is providing $50 million (£40 million) in funding to researchers, TechCrunch reports . The cash is going to 47 different people, to fund their research for the next five years with up to $1.5 million (£1.2 million) each. (More tha

Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images When Snapchat parent company Snap Inc. goes public next month, its sale will prove a windfall for a handful of executives who helped grow the company from a tiny startup to a $25 billion juggernaut in five years. That includes one unlikely addition: chief strategy officer Imran Khan. Khan, only at Snap for about two years, has been granted $145 million worth of shares, the company said in a filing on February 2. Those shares will likely be worth a lot more at the IPO price.  And  he was paid a $5 million bonus last year. Not bad for a guy who, not long ago, was working for "some bucket research shop." That's how one Wall Streeter described Khan's early career. (He did indeed work at a small company, called Fulcrum Global Partners, until about 2004; it  shut its doors in 2006.) Khan, 39, joined Snap in early 2015, in part to help chart the company's path to an initial public offering, though his official role has been to build up rev

Snapchat owner Snap Inc shot the opening salvo in its $3 billion initial public offering on Thursday, outlining aggressive expansion plans but offering new investors no say on how the company is run and no promise of profits. Snap's publication on Thursday of its IPO registration document sets the stage for its upcoming marketing campaign to convince investors to look past its widening losses and the firm grip of its founders, and focus on its rapid growth of active users. The number of Snap's daily active users grew to an average of 158 million at the end of December, up 48 percent year-on-year, Snap revealed. However, its net loss widened to $514.6 million in 2016 from $372.9 million the year before. While Snap will have time to polish its marketing pitch in the run-up to the IPO planned for March, some analysts were taken aback that the company was just beginning to reap cash from its product. "What surprises me the most is that it is still very early days when it c