When Google’s Panda and Penguin began their excursions through the Web, everyone involved in content creation knew about it. These were major algorithm changes that altered the world of SEO irretrievably, much of it for the good. We knew about these changes not only because they were palpable (sometimes painfully so, in the form of massive drops in rankings), but because Google also announced them, albeit often after the event. But that’s almost certainly not the way things are going to be from now on.

Next year could be the year you’ll be rolling or folding away your mobile gadgets, according to a new report from South Korea.

This year’s Changing Media Summit concluded last week with some intriguing insights into the anxieties and hopes of legacy media companies (books, newspapers, TV, radio etc.).

Back in 2010, a little start-up called Pinterest managed to raise $500k from angel investors to get it going. By October 2013, the amount of investment it was capable of raising had soared through the stratosphere to a surreal $225 million – and now it’s broken even that record, having just released a filing that confirms it’s raised a staggering $367 million more.

When is a click not really a click? When it’s performed on the brand new Force Touch trackpad from Apple, that’s when. Seriously, this new feature, which was originally designed for the upcoming MacBook that ships in April, really is something to write home about - using the trackpad, of course. It is now available for everyone to play with on the excellent new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display (if you’ve got between £999 and £1,999 to pay for it, that is – prices vary according to the amount of flash storage you want).

So, it’s all alright then: in the wake of Edward Snowden’s exposé of mass global surveillance, the UK’s Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) has concluded that GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 broke no laws in their bulk data collection operations after all.

Professor of journalism and Guardian columnist Roy Greenslade has predicted that 2015 will see a number of regional newspapers moving their content wholly online, as print’s commercial viability continues to wither on the vine.

If you haven’t already started, it’s time to prepare: if your website isn’t mobile friendly by 21^st April, you can expect to be clobbered, even if the content of your articles or video production is top quality and you haven’t used any manipulative backlinking methods. Google’s new mobile friendly algorithm kicks in on that date.

If you needed some compelling evidence that social technology is changing the way we interact with one another, a new poll by Ipsos Mori and King’s College Fund provides it. Over a third of young people aged 18-24, a group notoriously known for deep indifference and even aversion to mainstream politics, say that what they read on social media will likely influence their vote in the upcoming general election.