Facebook just announced its latest data of Facebook Messenger, indicating that its monthly active users are over 800 million. Along with the the popularization of Instagram and WhatsApp, Facebook keeps leading the social networking market.

From the data, we can see the rapid development of Facebook Messenger. Its Monthly active users were 500 million in November, 2014. It turned to 600 million in March, 2015, and 700 million in July, 2015. By the end of 2015, its MAU reached 800 million. Facebook Messenger performed better since it split off from its parent firm.

In the past year, Facebook Messenger itself made a great change. It became an independent Messenger to log in Web. It launched video calling, Messenger ID, message request features that intended to replace the traditional calls. It offered payment function and intergrated to be a third-party app.

“The mission of Messenger team is to make Messenger a better platform to communicate for people and enterprises from all over the world,” wrote in a blog of David Marcus, the vice president of product.

We can judge that Facebook is ambitious from its announced its trends of 2016 FM:

1)The disappearance of the phone number; 2)Thread are the new apps; 3)We are the social beings;4) Innovation matters;5) It’s all about delight

Facebook gradually put its focus on the FM from its products.

Besides Facebook Messenger, its parent website’s MAU are over 1.5 million. Instagram obtained 400 million monthly active users, while WhatsApp obtained 900 million monthly active users.

It is reported that Apple claimed its revenue of App Stores in 2015 made another record, exceeding $20 billion.

Apple charges 30 cents as commission from each dollar that users spent at App Store. It indicated that App Store contributed $6 billion income for Apple in 2015. The rest of the revenue went to its developers.

Such figures showed that App Stores play more important role in Apple revenues. Till September 2015 fiscal earnings, Apple received $233 billion revenue, among $53 billion was its net income. There are 1.5 million applications available at App Store which enhances Apple hardware’s attraction. It helps consumers to distinguish Apple products from its rivals.

App Store was initially made for iPhone in 2008. Apple added the applications which were compaitble with iPad then. Last year, Apple explored the software market for Apple Watch and Apple TV STB.

Among the news release Apple made on Wednesday, it claimed App Store revenue was over $1.1 billion during Christmas holiday and New Year’s Day. Its revenue realized over $144 million on New Year’s Day.

App Store grows with a rapid speed. There is sign that its growth slows down a bit as well. Its revenue of App Store increased by 50% in 2014, while it just increased 40% in 2015.

Apple stressed that App Stores created 1.9 million jobs in United States, three-quarters of the job opportunities belong to developers, software engineers and entrepreneurs.

Oculus claimed it will offer a free Rift VR to its Kickstarter supporters. Oculus sent emails to its Kickstarter supporters today, claiming it will offer free Kickstarter version Rift VR to those 9,522 supporters who bought Rift DK1 in the crowdfunding of Oculus Kickstarter in 2012.

The supporters will receive this Rift VR sent by Kickstarter by Feburary 1^st. If any countries or regions are beyond the distribution of Kickstarter, Oculus will deliver them to the supporters.

The appearance of Kickstarter Rift VR and Oculus Rift VR look nearly the same, but Kickstarter version will be the first round to ship. They will be packed with the mark of Kickstarter. The Kickstarter version  is also binding with EVE: Valkyrie and Lucky’s Tale as Oculus Rift VR does.

Since Oculus launched the crowdfunding project on Kickstarter, the enthusisam o to Oculus Rift VR by its supporters are beyond Oculus’ imagination. Luckey claimed he would be contented if they could sell 300 units of Rift DK1. Finally , they got $2.4 million funds. They set $ 500,000 for the goal for crowdfunding. About two years later, Oculus was acquired by Facebook at $2 billion. It upset some of its supporters either.

Facebook planned to acquire a few more VR enterprises before it officially releases Oculus Rift. Facebook teamed up with Samsung to launched Gear VR in 2015.

Waiting for another 24 hours, the Oculus Rift consumers can preorder such VR device. But Oculus doesn’t release its price and date of delivery yet.

Yahoo made statement that it shut down its subordinated Yahoo Screen which is an online video content on-demand platform. It indicated Marissa Mayer’s effort of promoting Yahoo business and attracting new users for mainstreaming video service came to failure.

Investors are not satisfied with Yahoo’s performance. Mayer faces much pressures to improve its performance. The end of Yahoo Screen might be the sign that Yahoo would take out more changes or end more products. Yahoo sent out warning notifications since October that it would narrow down the concerns in the following months.

Yahoo Screen was launched by Yahoo in October, 2011 that a platform offered on-demand Yahoo tv series, movies and network tv. This platform was released anterior to Mayer was appointed as its CEO. Mayer considered this service as an important part develop the mainstreaming video service.

Yahoo acquired the copyright of Community and Saturday Night Live and the broadcast right of NFL. It invited Katie Couric to joined Yahoo Screen as well.

Yahoo did not confirm whether it will cut jobs as the end of Yahoo Screen. Katie Couric keeps reporting daily news so far.

Yahoo is taking measures to restructure its business. There were failures under Mayer’s leadership in the past three years. She failed to help the company to stimulate business development.

It lost several senior managers recently. The share price of Yahoo declined nearly by 40%. Yahoo is looking for potential buyers to sell a tract of land that locates in Santa Clara, California. Yahoo planned to build new headquarter there.

Facebook is now testing a new feature that it allows users to browse different themes of feeds. Such new feature is only available on News Feed.

Those different themes of feeds are posted by different users or webpages, such as fashion and travel. It has no sign that News Feed will make any change so far.

Such new feature was discovered by Jason Stein, the CEO of Laundry Service.

Facebook spokesman claimed in the statement:” We have received feedback from our users that they wish to check the customizable interest-based themes with new options on Facebook. Therefore, we are testing some new feeds so that the users could check the posted feeds by other users or webpages. You can click Favorites, then Bookmarks tab to find those feeds.”

AdWeek reported that Facebook keeps testing the similar features since October.

Some users claimed that they could see the “Theme” option to choose ” Food”,”Health and Gym” ,” Animals and Pets” and “Sports” in the sidebar of its website.

It did not confirm that whether this feature will be tested on Facebook mobile app.

The new feature is in the test phase, it is unsure these feeds promoted in a large scale. General speaking, it will offer trail version for a small group of users to experience the new feature.

Facebook considers itself as a network information hub to meet the demands of users that they search online. It carried out some measures so that users could read feeds and shop in the same time, instead of visiting another website.

Tesla Beijing Huamao experience center went on business yesterday. It was the fourth Beijing experience center, the sixth new experience center it set up in China in 2015.

Two years ago, Tesla open the first experience center in Parkview Green, Beijing. Until now, Tesla has set up 15 experience centers in China, distributing in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, Xi’an and Guangzhou.

Chronicle of events of Tesla in 2015

It open six experience centers, service centers, and about 30 authorized car spray centers in 2015.

It built the second largest public charging network for Teslar car owners in China. The network covers 46 cities in the mainland, with 320 super charging points. The network area expanded to over 100 cities and 1,600 destination charging points. The charging network connects North and South.

As far as the policy concerned, it offered special policy to its car owners for obtaining new energy source plates in     Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin. While it offered special discount of traffic permit for Tesla Model S in Xi’an and Wuhan.

Ricardo Reyes, Tesla’s global vice president claimed that he thought highly of Chinese market when he took an official visit to China in September. He indicated that Chinese government supported the electric vehicle market and the consumers have great demand to the electric vehicles here in comparison to other emerging markets.

Take Beijing for example, the goverment carried out the policies that offered bonus to the new energy vehicles.Tesla Model S came to the license-plate lottery on September 30. On October 26, Beijing government announced that the new energy vehicles do not to join the lottery system. The applicants can do the registration for Model S directly.

What’s more, other policy indicated that the Blade Electric Vehicels, including Tesla Model S can be on road 24 hours each day in Beijing municipal administrative region from June 1, 2015 to April 10, 2016.

It has been for a while that many investors predicted Apple could be a great firm values at $1 trillion. Many analyzers assumed Google’s parent firm Alphabet might exceed Apple’s market value next year, becoming the first $1 trillion company.

Apple’s market value reached $775 billion early this year, while Alphabet only valued at$366 billion for its market value then. As Android smartphones become more popular in the recent months, iPhone’s sales face much pressure. Apple’s share price started decreasing.

Alphabet becomes the most valuable company now. For now, Apple values at $605 billion, and Alphabet values at$527 billion. Even though there is still $80 billion gap between two companies, Alphabet’s market value will exceed Apple’s on the condition that its share increases by 15%. This prediction is on the basis of Apple’s share stops increasing.

Alphabet’s share increased by 43% this year, while Apple’s decreased by 2%. Alphabet’s subordinated business Google Search becomes prosperous, especially on mobile devices. What’s more, Google is making more profit with YouTube.

The experts analyzed that the profit growth of Alphabet will perform better than Apple’s. Wallstreet predicted that the growth rate of each Alphabet will be 17% in a few years. Its annual growth rate will reach 12%.

The competition between these two companies is intense. It is possible that they will both become $1 trillion companies. Amazon and  Facebook also develop well. Microsoft’s market value reached $450 billion.

Box is a firm offering online file sharing. Jeff Sutton is in charge of its IT group. Its employees increased from 50 to 1,000 within 4 years.

Jeff Sutton once worked for IBM. His annual salary was $95,000. He was supposed to earn more with his 10 years’ working experience in system management. He quit as he took the share option, amounting to 21,000 shares.

Box became a listed company in the early of 2015. Sutton’s option seemed brightness. Its share price increased by 66% in the first day in the New York Stock Exchange. It increased from $14 to $23.33.

According to the employees lock-up agreement, Sutton could not sell his shares within 180 days. The stock value decreased by 20% in comparison to its ceiling price. Its current share price is $13 which is under the issue price.

Sutton said:” I assumed the share will be more valuable. Obviously, its development doesn’t seem as positive as I thought.”
He might earn $350,000 before taxes. However, this was not the unexperted fortune he wished to change his life. He spent four years in Box that he supposed to be in Silicon Valley.

Square became a listed comapny in November. Its share was at $9. A former Sqaure exployee said the internal share price was $16 when she got the stock option. Her supervisor told her each share would be increased to $50 when it came to season. In fact, the Sqaure share valued at $12 on December 16.

Sutton left Box and worked for BrightRoll. He became a manager for Instacart when BrightRoll was acquired by Yaoo.

The Christmas holiday is upcoming. German Verdi called on the logistics center staffs of Amazon to go on strike for salary raise and working condition improvements on December 22, 2015. This is the third time that Verdi called on strikes in a row before the Christmas holiday comes.

Amazon boycotted Verdi strike calls. It announced that the firm provided favorable indemnification agreement for its employees. It insisted that the strike won’t affect the holiday shopping in the aspect of packing and delivery.

Amazon spokesman said:” Our clients can rely on our delivery agreement. Most of our employees won’t attend the strike and they focus on work.”

Amazon owns 9 logistics centers and 10,000 full-time employees in Germany. Besides, it hired 10,000 seasonal employees in order to deal with the great amount of orders during the shopping holidays.

Amazon claimed that only several hundred employees from 6 logistics centers joined the strike on Monday. However, Verdi confirmed that there were about 1,700 employees attended the strike.

It has 29 logistics centers and about 30,000 employees in the continent of  European. The employees become extremely busy when the shopping boom seasons come. It will hire thousands of casual laborers to deal with the emergency.

Verdi is encouraging the Amazon employees to go on strike till Christmas Eve. Verdi criticized Amazon for asking for its employees to work on Sunday during the boom season.

Amazon’s share price increased by 115% this year. It becomes the most valuable retailer in the world. The investors are excited for its positive user growth. It was criticized by the public for poor working condition and imbalance between work and personal life among the employees.

The music streaming medias face much competition. Apple and Google are working hard to surpass Spotify and Pandora. Spotify and Tesla Motor Inc teamed up to promote Spotify service in Tesla electric cars.

From December 22, the users who own Model S, Model X from Europe, Australia or Hong Kong will enjoy free Spotify monthly music service. It used to charge $10 each month. Tesla has upgraded its car firmware and implant Spotify service.

The car owners can also enjoy Spotify service even though they are unregistered users. The British Daily Telegraph reported that the Spotify is binding to Tesla electronic car one for one. It will be unable to access on laptops or other devices.

Tesla teamed up with Rdio for car music service for a long time. However, Rdio announced to bankrupt lately due to the intense competition in music streaming media field. Some of Rdio valuable assets were acquired by Pandaro. Tesla decided to choose Spotify for its new music service partner.

The Spotify service in Tesla electronic cars will be ads free. The car owners can opt the Spotify service with the help of built-in car infortainment system.

To Spotify, it is a good chance to team up with Tesla. Spotify is the music streaming service provider that ranks in second in the world. Apple is promoting its Apple Music on iOS devices. Its followers are running after Spotify’s.

It is not the first time that Spotify teams up with car manufacturers. It cooperated with BMW, Ford, Mini and so on.

It is reported that Tesla won’t charge car owners for the Internet expense caused by Spotify music service.