The Friday Wrap is your weekly source of curated news, research, reports and posts that may have slipped by unnoticed, but that could prove useful to communicators and marketers. I collect items that I consider including in the Wrap (as well as my podcast) at my link blog, Links From Shel, which you’re welcome to follow.

Breaking News

It was a mere two years ago when Google ponied up $250 million for Wildfire, a social media management system. this week, the search giant announced it would sunset the service, leaving customers like Amazon, Cisco Systems, The GAP, and Dairy Queen scrambling to find a replacement. “Google is no longer supporting the branded service and won’t accept new clients,” according to Adweek. Rumors are circulating that Google could also shut down Google Voice, or merge it into the Google+ Hangouts service.

Another service passing away is Qik, the real-time mobile-centric video streaming service. (I used Qik for a number of purposes, including chronicling my chase of a driver who rear-ended me and then took off.) According to the Qik support center, “On April 30, 2014, Qik.com will be retiring. This means all Qik mobile phone apps will cease to work, there will be no more softare updates provided and Qik apps will be removed from all App stores. Videos uploaded, shared and embedded using Qik will no longer be available through Qik.” The rationale: Qik’s technology has been integrated into Skype.

The Internet Corp. for Assigned Names and Numbers—ICANN—has operated under a contract from the U.S. Department of Commerce since 1998, but the agency said last week that it will relinquish control in 2015. “The system will be replaced by a model of global Internet governance as yet to be determined by ICANN,” according to Businessweek. The shape of the new governance model could have significant, and even dire, consequences for the Net. “Right now, China can prevent users inside its borders from viewing a website that promotes Tibetan separatism,” the article explains, “but it can’t prevent that website from registering a domain name.” While that won’t change immediately, we’ll have to hold our breath, cross our fingers and wait to see how the shift ini control ultimately shakes out.

Marketers have been lamenting the drop in reach for updates to their Facebook pages. Now, Facebook itself is issuing a warning: The organic reach of their Page posts will decline over time. Facebook confirmed with C|Net that “We have been having conversations with clients about declining organic distribution in News Feed. This is largely due to more competition driven by more sharing.”

Research

The KISSmetrics blog points to a February 18 LinkedIn post by Avinash Kaushik that shows organic search and email leading to conversions while Facebook and Twitter barely nudge the needle. “Social is a terrible channel to pimp yourself and expect short-term rewards,” Kaushik concludes, while “email only works for people who understand the pure essence of permission marketing.” Social, Kausik says, was never meant to drive conversions. The KISSmetrics post argues that most marketers view social media as “just as much of a sales vehicle as email or a product description page.” Ideally, post author Sherice Jacob says, “you’ll want to create a bridge between conversation and lead, and from lead to customer.”

Yet if organic search still tops the conversion charts, you may still want to consider alternatives, as emarketer predicts a $1.4 billion decline in desktop search as Google users transition to mobile—and mobile search behavior isn’t the same as on the desktop. “US mobile search ad spending grew 120.8% in 2013, contributing to an overall gain of 122% for all mobile ads,” according to the report. “Meanwhile, overall desktop ad spending increased just 2.3% last year.”

If you need further proof that the world is pivoting toward mobile, consider a Millward Brown study reported in AdAge that reveals that “daily time spent on mobile devices is now outpacing TV in the U.S. for the first time.” Americans devote 151 minutes daily to their smartphones, four minutes less than they spend watching TV. We Americans have nothing on the Chinese, though, who spend 170 minutes a day with their phones, nearly twice the amount of time they spend watching television.

The V3 headline says it all about new research from the Pew Research Center: Millennials are non-traditional, poor, unmarried, not white and don’t trust you. Specifically, Millennials are disconnected from traditional institutions (like political and religious groups), the face daunting financial hardships, they are waiting until they’re older to get married, they are racially diverse, and they are generally less trusting. V3’s conclusion: “Doing business as usual will not be enough to meet this new generation of consumers.”

Trends

If your organization still hasn’t come to terms with the loss of control over its own news, consider US Airways, which experienced the phenomenon when a passenger with a Twitter account tweeted photos of his plane, which had blown a tire on takeoff from Philadelphia International Airport, including a selfie accompanied by the message, “So my plane just crashed…” See the images that circled the globe before US Airways PR team even knew about the situation on Adweek.

The growth of the native advertising space has fueled a trend toward full-length video, aided by growing consumer comfort watching longer videos. Mobile Marketer reports that “recent big deals from Omnicom and Mondelez are clear indicators that brands are shifting marketing spend from banners to native ads that all of the major social media giants offer,” making it easier to employ rich media, video and visuals “and tighter integration into relevant content surrounding an ad.”

Not too long ago, CNN announced a partnership with Twitter to surface news stories unreported elsewhere that rise to the level of real news. It wasn’t the first example of a traditional organization partnering with a social media business, nor will it be the last. The latest: Delta Airlines has partnered with LinkedIn to “connect high-profile professionals with the business leaders of tomorrow.” The mentoring program, dubbed “Innovation Class,” “is offering LinkedIn members the chance to fly with leaders from their industry as a way to share ideas and discuss goals and future projects,” according to Business News Daily.

If you haven’t yet heard the term “explanatory journalism,” brace yourself. Like “brand journalism,” it’s a trend with legs. According to Digiday, “Explanatory journalism is a form of reporting that attempts to present nuanced, ongoing news stories in a more accessible manner.” Unlike explainer videos like the well-known “In Plain English” series from CommonCraft, explanatory journalism is produced by traditional news outlets like The New York Times, which is introducing The Upshot, a vehicle dedicated to explanatory journalism. Bloomberg has also introduced an explanatory journalism section titled “QuickTake, which has published nearly 80 such articles so far. While Poynter media business analyst Rick Edmonds says explanatory journalism is “a fairly difficult category to monetize,” organizations should consider employing it as part of their brand journalism efforts.

Gary Vaynerchuk made some waves when he launched Grape Story, an agency that connects Vine producers with brands. It’s not the only one. Niche also helps brands find social media content creators, and both companies see a new focus on comedy. According to AdAge, “Vine comedy is quick, irreverent and often very funny. It bares little resemblance to standup—imagine trying to fit a joke into six seconds—and is nothing like longer web comedy videos.”

I loved the Social for the People story about police in Granada wearing the police force’s Twitter handle sewn onto their uniforms; it’s also painted on their police cars. “It’s a simple and effective way to promote the force’s presence on Twitter.”

You also have to hand it to brewer Carlsberg, whose Happy Hour 2.0 initiative encourages patrons of select bars to share photos on Instagram accompanied by the #HappyBeerTime hashtag. (So far, the tag has been applied to some 320 images, including some featuring competing beer brands.) Those who share the images get a steep discount on the beers in exchange for the word-of-mouth buzz the bar receives. “The brewer believes the initiative…will be a success because it caters to both drinkers and bars,” reports Marketing Week.

Tools

There could be any number of reasons you don’t want to run into someone you know. Cloak is a new app that “uses location data to make it easier for you to avoid your connections.” Labeled an anti-social networking app by Mashable, Cloak “pulls in location information from your social networks to show you where friends are so you can avoid accidentally bumping into people you don’t want to see.” Although I suspect you could also use it to find your connections…who may not want to see you.

As Google taketh away Wildfire, Microsoft giveth. Engadget reports that Microsoft is giving OneNote away for free, including a new Mac version. The note-taking software has been popular with Windows users for years, and was recently offered in mobile app versions for Android and iOS.