Faith Merino / VatorNews:
Social ad spend expected to reach nearly $10B in 2016  —  A report from BIA/Kelsey forecasts social ad spending to grow by 21% a year  —  As a testament to the fact that social media is hotter than ever, social ad spending is predicted to reach $9.8 billion by 2016, according to a forecast released Tuesday by BIA/Kelsey.

Matthew Panzarino / The Next Web:
Google finally adds ability to save home and work locations to Google Maps  —  Setting up a location for home and work and saving them in your address book is one of the most helpful mapping tips I can give anyone.  Google apparently agrees, as it has now added the ability to save Home …

Ricardo Bilton / VentureBeat:
Sweet music: Smule brings popular Songify app to Android  —  Mobile app development nowadays seems to be be following a fairly regular pattern: Create an infectious iOS app, wait until it gets insanely popular, then launch an almost identical version for Android.

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:
Europe's Square rival iZettle to ship 3,000 card readers to UK testers, warms up for summer launch  —  iZettle is one of the European companies doing what Jack Dorsey's Square is doing in the United States: trying to convince small businesses and individuals to take card payments with its mobile applications and a custom-built reader.

Liz Gannes / AllThingsD:
Interview: Imgur's Path to a Billion Image Views Per Day  —  Starting an image-hosting site in 2009 seemed like a silly idea.  It was a commoditized business, with lots of competitors.  A basic utility service was unlikely to inspire loyalty or give rise to a community that would make people stick around.

Shayndi Raice / Wall Street Journal:
Facebook's New R&D Machine  —  Fewer Half-Baked Products Without User Input; 'We've Gotten More Humble'  —  Mark Zuckerberg is taking a more measured approach for major features added to Facebook.  Above, a stencil of Zuckerberg at headquarters.  —  For years, Facebook Inc. chief Mark Zuckerberg led …

Steven M. Davidoff / DealBook:
China Flexes Its Regulatory Muscle, Catching Google in Its Grip  —  In today's globalized world, you can't avoid China, or so goes the cliché.  Google is discovering that it's actually true.  —  Following a dispute over censorship, Google largely abandoned mainland China two years ago …

Robin Wauters / The Next Web:
LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke joins the Earlybird VC flock as US partner  —  Germany's Earlybird Venture Capital is on a roll.  They've just moved operations to Berlin (PDF), raised $100 million for their new fund - target size $200 million - and a number of portfolio companies are doing very well (case in point: madvertise).

Om Malik / GigaOM:
For Facebook-boosted video apps, reality checks in  —  When Facebook made it easy to share what videos you were watching, companies like Socialcam, Metacafe, DailyMotion and Viddy rocketed up the app-charts and saw a sharp increase in the usage and downloads of these apps.

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch:
Twilio Calling: Cloud Telephony Startup Adds An Android SDK, Now Works On 75% Of All Smartphones  —  Cloud-based telephony API startup Twilio has made significant inroads into VoIP and other carrier services like SMS by launching products that work on the web and in iOS apps …

Adi Robertson / The Verge:
Google Docs Research sidebar looks up terms, adds images, quotes, and citations  —  Google Docs has a lot going for it as an office or writing tool, and we imagine the Research sidebar, which appears to have recently launched on the suite, will help bolster its popularity.

Peter Kafka / AllThingsD:
Facebook Is Still Figuring It Out.  Will Advertisers and Investors Wait Around?  —  There are a bunch of ways to explain away GM's decision to stop spending ad dollars on Facebook.  We'll get to those.  —  But there's one thing that even the most ardent Facebook fan can't argue with …

Elinor Mills / CNET:
Judge dismisses piracy suits, says IP address doesn't confirm state  —  A California judge has dismissed 15 lawsuits against John Does accused of sharing pirated adult movies on BitTorrent, saying the court lacks jurisdiction because the geolocation tools relied on don't always accurately identify …