Whither Profitability, Twitter? by Erik Sass

Venture capitalists continue to throw money at social media, with the vague hope hope that some of it will stick. Most recently, Twitter announced today that it has raised another $200 million from venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and a number of other investors. That brings total capitalization to $360 million, and gives Twitter an overall value of $3.7 billion -- but the $64,000 question is, when can investors expect a return on their money from the microblogging service, founded in July 2006? ...Read the whole story

  • sports Knicks Make Social Networks Central To New Site by Karl Greenberg

    The new site ditches short-stay functionality like ticket sales and seating (that will remain on the old site) and focuses on content and conversation. Indeed, KnicksNow.com is intended less as a traditional team site than a social media hub. It has content like videos of players and photo galleries, but its central feature is real-time Twitter and Facebook feeds from players, staff and fans. ...Read the whole story

  • Microsoft Bing Launches Mobile, Local, Social Features by Laurie Sullivan

    Microsoft unveiled a variety of updates and improvements Wednesday, both for Bing online and mobile search apps, at an event in San Francisco. The mobile apps include Bing Vision and Autosuggest. Social apps let users share their location through Facebook, Foursquare or Windows Live Activity Stream. ...Read the whole story

  • Report: Social Networks No Place For Marketing To College Crowd by Mark Walsh

    On the same day Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year, a new report finds that college students don't necessarily live up to the stereotype of an especially tech-savvy, social media-obsessed segment of society. ...Read the whole story

  • MTV Network Integrates Across Properties, Social by Laurie Sullivan

    MTV Networks (MTVN) has implemented Janrain Engage to give site visitors one log-in across the network of more than 50 properties, as well as the ability to share articles, comments, and video clips with friends on multiple social networks and sites including Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo and MySpace. ...Read the whole story

  • Social Video Advertising Soars In 2010, Study Shows by Gavin O'Malley

    2010 was the year social video advertising officially arrived, according to new research from Web video analytics firm Visible Measures. Indeed, categories that produced millions of views in 2009 generated hundreds of millions in 2010, while the number of active brands in social video advertising more than doubled. ...Read the whole story

Curated Just for You: The Best Parts of TIME's Person of the Year Story by Catharine P. Taylor

And the winner is Mark Zuckerberg, in a walk! Of course, I'm talking about the naming of our beloved Facebook founder (after all, without him, many of us would not have found our business calling) as TIME's Person of the Year. And it really was a walk. Zuckerberg was apparently up against Hamid Karzai, Julian Assange, the Chilean Miners and the Tea Party, none of which have had the global impact this year of Zuckerberg, whose invention now has over 500 million members. ...More

  • Portion Control In Kellogg's Social Media Diet by Thom Forbes

    The tipping point came last night when I saw an ad for Kellogg in the box on my Yahoo home page where the weather usually resides. It promised $10 in "exclusive coupons," recipes, special offers, nutrition tips, etc., etc., all in return for identities and addresses -- online, offline and mobile (optional). No problem. Everybody loves a bargain. I now get $1.50 off if -- and a very big if -- I purchase any THREE packages of Apple Jacks, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and/or Frosted Flakes Cereals. ...More