“Things I’ve Learned from Lately” is a regular compilation of articles that have made me a smarter marketer. Hopefully, they’ll help you, too.

Journalism's Bright? Future - Marc Andreeson shares his perspective on why he's bullish about the news industry. In fact, Andreeson asserts that we may be entering a "new golden age of journalism, and we just haven't recognized it yet." He shares why and how.

Google+'s Active User Dilemma – Econsultancy's Christopher Ratcliff looks at the numbers behind Facebook, Twitter and Google+. While Google+'s users are increasing, it's number of active users isn't keeping up. The question is whether or not that matters to Google or if Google is happy with Google+ being no more than a layer tying all of its properties together.

Uber Admits Background Checks are Needed - Carmel Deamicis shares that Uber recently started doing background checks on its drivers. In addition, it obtained an email sent by Uber to its drivers regarding these background checks. The move shows that while the sharing economy and social web open up new opportunities to bypass large corporations and traditional means for getting things done, there are still critical services that cannot be overlooked.

Twitter's Archetypes - Politico shares a Pew Research Center and Social Media Research Foundation report on how archetypes and community clusters have formed on Twitter. The report identified six crowd archetypes, two of which drive most of the online conversation.

Facebook Recovering from Missteps - Slate's Jon Nathanson takes a deep look at Facebook's missteps with Facebook Connect. Facebook Connect had a wealth of potential, but Facebook's approach to leveraging it alienated developers and focused on pushing to Facebook.com, instead of letting it be a layer spreading across the Internet. Facebook's done little to earn trust back from developers, setting high transaction fees, shutting down popular apps, restricting access after granting it and essentially, changing the rules to the game when it suits them.