Dear 2013,

Oh, sad we are to see you go!

You’ve been good to us. So very good, in fact.

We hope you have properly trained 2014 for more of the same.

And we hope that our weekly Curated Awesome continues to rock the free world.

With that, we leave you with these 5 Awesome reads this December 20, 2013.

• Facebook Brand Pages Suffer 44% Decline in Reach since December 1 Yes, a decline of 44% is real (as painful as that is to read). We’re big believers in every business having a their *own* online presence that they, themselves, control. By this we mean: You really need to have your own website. A Facebook page does not suffice. This is also a great reminder in the importance of diversifying your online presence. Putting all your eggs in Facebook’s basket is and always will be a dangerous one.
• You Can Now Send Photos Privately Using Twitter Parents everywhere are raising their fists in anger in this totally unnecessary development that will cause waaaaaaaay more problems than good.
• Instagram Direct Brings Private Sharing to Individuals, Groups In more news that worries parents, and causes bullies, stalkers and perverts to rejoice, Instagram ALSO unveiled its own private photo sharing feature! If you want to see how Instagram and Snapchat compare, check out this read from Mashable.
• Surf Better with these 8 Google Chrome Extensions And if you aren’t currently using Chrome as your main browser, we promise not to tell. Just promise us that you’ll hurry off after reading and install it to your laptop.
• How Pepsi’s Grammatical Errors in Social Media Hurt its Fight Against Coke The internet is a judgey place. Bad grammar and spelling makes people think you are lazy, sloppy and unintelligent. Shorthand and autocorrect flubs are normal in your text messages, but you have to write properly when posting to your brand’s social media accounts.