The Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, a unit focused on backing early stage startups led by minority entrepreneurs, has invested in LiveNinja, a company that builds unified communications tools that help businesses and brands improve how they serve and understand their customers.

“As businesses explore new ways of providing premium customer service, one trend has surfaced: messaging,”  William Crowder, managing director, DreamIt Ventures and lead advisor of the Catalyst Fund, said in this blog post. “But as companies from Facebook to WhatsApp provide tools for businesses to use their products to interact with customers, fragmentation emerges.”

Miami-based LiveNinja, he said, helps partners manage this array of communications channels. Its latest product, LiveNinja Messenger, allows brands and companies to start conversations on social media or their own websites and maintain and manage communication across multiple platforms via a link that consolidates a conversation on multiple platforms to one thread.

According to TechCrunch, LiveNinja recent raised a $2 million round of funding  that, in addition to Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, included Scout Ventures, Anzu Partners,  Citi Ventures, Accelerated Growth Partners and SeedInvest. 

Here’s a bit more about LiveNinja Messenger:

Comcast is expanding the utility of its cloud-based X1 platform in the form of a trial that lets customers receive personal alerts on the TV screen from apps and services such as Gmail, Pinterest, Evernote, Facebook Twitter, Jawbone, Instagram, and LinkedIn, among others.

Comcast is conducting beta test through a partnership with IFTTT. IFTTT (If This, Then That) is a Web-based service that can automatically connect multiple apps and devices.

“IFTTT lets users create conditional instructions, or ‘recipes,’ which are based on a simple rule – if ‘this’ happens, then do ‘that,’” Michael Delciello, Comcast’s VP, strategic partnerships and business development, explained in this blog post. “ When activated, these recipes are run automatically to connect devices, websites, and apps so that they work together.”

X1 subs can activate the capability via the Comcast Labs channel on the IFTTT website and “create recipes that match your preferences,” he added, noting that customers can toggle notifications on and off via the X1 settings option for “Other Services” or via the IFTTT site.

Comcast has deployed X1 across its footprint, and about 25% of its video sub base is now on the platform. The MSO recently ratcheted up deployment to 40,000 X1 boxes per day, up from a previous level of 25,000. 

Comcast is also looking to license X1 to other operators. Cox Communications and Shaw Communications are among those that have agreed to roll out or at least run trials of X1.

Turns out that Hillary Clinton is in the minority when she talks about favoring a Snapchat app that automatically deletes messages (she is under the gun over allegedly classified emails on her server), but that may be a factor of age.

In a new Pew Research Center survey, only 17% of respondents with smart phones use apps like Snapchat or Wickr, which do not preserve messages, compared with 36% who use messaging apps such as Kik or iMessage, which do.

But those numbers change markedly among younger demos. Roughly half of smartphone users ages 18-30 use a messaging app, and 41% use a message-deleting app.

Pew pointed out that such apps are free and, when used with WiFi, don't use up SMS data. The study also noted that message-deleting apps offer more private online socializing than Facebook or Twitter.

The study found that use of Pinterest and Instagram has doubled since 2012, with 31% using Pinterest, up from 15% in 2012, and 28% using Instagram, up from 13% in 2012.

Growth has leveled off, however. None of the social media platforms in the survey had significant increases in the number of users between September 2014 and April 2015, though among those who already use them, frequency of use had increased significantly.

Facebook continues to dominate among social media sites, with 72% of online respondents saying they use it, 70% daily and 43% several times a day.

The study found that 15% of Internet users are on discussion forums including reddit, Digg or Slashdot, while 10% use Tumblr.

The survey was conducted March 17-April 12, 2015, among 1,907 adults 18-plus (of whom 1,612 are Internet users). The margin of error for all respondents was plus-or-minus 2.6 percentage points.