As predicted, Pinterest has proved itself a formidable presence in the f-commerce arena following figures showing it’s the fastest growing social media traffic source for e-commerce websites in terms of revenue.

We found this morning this brilliant presentation given by Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger loaded up to Scribd. It takes you into the wildly successful launch and rise of Facebook’s newest prized toy, photo-sharing app Instagram. As all start-up stories, it was a bumpy ride.

A few weeks ago we wrote about the “mission-critical” importance of Tweeting business leaders. Why is that? Put simply, CEOs who communicate freely using social media are held in higher regard – not just by employees, but by customers too, study after study shows. An organization where the boss Tweets is an organization where internal communications is more dynamic and transparent. That then has an impact on external comms, or the brand image portrayed to the public.

As data geeks here at SMI, we’re into the big numbers and the big picture. That’s why we send out each week to our subscribers a super concise bulletin of the big data points that are driving the sector. We informally call it “Social Media: By the Numbers.” With these data points, we tell you the big research insights, innovations and strategy points that explain what’s working and what’s not working. Today, I’m introducing a longer version that I will will occasionally reprise.

Last week we got the latest IAB figures showing a booming digital ad sector, helped by the continued rise of social + mobile + video. Today, a new global digital ad report is out, showing social search is one of the fastest growing segments of online search, which itself is still far and away the largest revenue-generator in digital advertising.

Social networking has been accused of many things, but degrading humanity? It seems that Skype has some strong feelings on the matter.

A billion dollars for a 13-person app-making startup that’s never made a dime? That’s the headline head-scratcher coming out of yesterday’s blockbuster acquisition of the super-popular photo-sharing app Instagram by Facebook. But take a closer look at the numbers and you see what Facebook gets out of it: a global, mobile powerhouse.

Last month, The Guardian delivered a “seismic” piece of news that got publishers everywhere to rethink the value of social traffic when it announced that Facebook had overtaken Google as its primary source of traffic. Today, we have another example of Facebook’s traffic-driving prowess, this time in the e-commerce sector.

It seems that constantly reiterating the horror-stories of personal information being malevolently gleaned from Facebook accounts has paid off: new research shows that eight in ten young people actively limit the details they reveal on social networking sites. However, the same figures show that just one in four youngsters take the same attitude to protecting other personal information, such as PIN numbers and bank passwords.

Despite grumbling by the average Joe Facebooker over the new Timeline design, a new study by Simply Measured suggests that the new Facebook style has boosted brand content engagement by a hugely significant 46 percent.