A lot happened this week in the world of social media. Pinterest started testing GIFs, Princeton declared that Facebook would die in three years, Facebook released a clever rejoinder, Instagram was revealed to be the fastest-growing social media platform on the planet, and Google+ went down, along with Gmail services, but hardly anyone noticed. Let's dive into Social Media Saturday!

Instagram

Facebook-owned Instagram was declared the fastest-growing social media network in the world earlier this week, when internet research firm GlobalWebIndex published its study on the rise and fall of the world's social media platforms in 2013. According to TechCrunch's parsing of the study, Instagram has seen its active user base increase by 23 percent in the past six months, more than the next two fastest-growing social networks (Reddit and LinkedIn) combined.

The research was based on a survey of about 170,000 users from 32 different countries, which also found that Facebook is still the globally dominant social network (no matter what Princeton may say), with over 80 percent of respondents saying they had a registered Facebook account.

Facebook

Perhaps the most entertaining bit of social media news this week came from the fight between Princeton researchers and Facebook. Princeton University researchers released a study (that had not been peer reviewed) that looked at Facebook's popularity from an epidemiological standpoint.

That is -- they treated the idea of Facebook as a plague. After looking at Google search trends and comparing the data to an epidemiological model they modeled after the rise and fall of MySpace, the research paper written by John Cannarella and Joshua Spechler, of Princeton's Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, declared that as many as 80 percent of Facebook users will abandon the platform in the next three years.

Facebook responded brilliantly by looking at Google search trends and Facebook data about mentions of Princeton online, declaring, "Using the same robust methodology featured in the paper, we attempted to find out more about this 'Princeton University' - and you won't believe what they we found!"

Said the tongue-in-cheek Facebook post, "our research unequivocally demonstrated that Princeton may be in danger of disappearing entirely." To hammer in the point about sloppy data research, Facebook also sarcastically looked at Google searches for the term "air" and found, using Google trending models, that by 2060 there will be none left.

Pinterest

Pinterest did well this week on the popularity-contest front. A new study from the Pew Research Center found that Pinterest had overtaken Twitter in overall popularity with U.S. adults -- growing from 15 percent in 2012 to 21 percent in 2013 -- though Twitter users are still far more active on a daily basis than Pinterest users.

A new feature may be available to some of the more active Pinterest users soon though, as Mashable reported that the social image sharing platform is experimenting with animated GIFs. "We're always working on ways to help people discover and save the things they love, which can include animated GIFs," a Pinterest spokesperson said to Mashable for the site's exclusive. "We've heard from the community that they'd like the ability to post and view GIFs as Pins, so we're testing ways to make that happen." 

Twitter

Now that it's a public company in need of revenue, Twitter has decided to emphasize its strong suit: the diversity of users on Twitter. Twitter's user base in the U.S. is made up of a total of about 41 percent non-white (Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans), so Twitter has hired a multicultural strategist to help reach out to that base, as well as advertisers who want to get their messages out to minorities. The company is starting with Latinos, since Latinos are a large part of Twitter and, according to Pew, generally use social networking in greater numbers and frequency. 

Google+ Goes Down -- Did Anyone Miss It?

Big news hit the internet on midday Friday when Google's Gmail service went down, halting business communication and personal Gmail accounts worldwide for about a half hour, according to Forbes. Gmail's downtime quickly became a trending topic on Twitter and Facebook, with some people tweeting things like "Gmail Down = Adult Snow Day," making the world's reliance on the email service quite obvious.

Google+ was also down, so Google Chat, YouTube commenting, and video Hangouts were not working.