The Unthink-able: Can Anyone Challenge Facebook? by Erik Sass

The last year has seen a number of social media sites launch which are explicitly positioned as alternatives to Facebook, offering more privacy, more control over sharing, and less advertising. The latest such site to receive a lot of press is Unthink, which recently announced that it has raised $2.5 million in venture capital funding from Douglas Bay Capital. ...Read the whole story

  • Sociable Labs Secures $7M, Drives Social To Retail by Laurie Sullivan

    Sociable Labs secured $7 million in Series "B" funding led by Battery Ventures, along with Series "A" lead investor Javelin Venture Partners. The investment accompanies the official launch of its platform to help online retailers increase referral traffic and sales using social graph technology. ...Read the whole story

search Mobile Dependence On Search, Social Recommendations Climbs by Laurie Sullivan

Online activity while shopping in stores continues to gain popularity. A Performics study conducted by ROI Research released Thursday reveals that consumers turn to social between 20% and 50% of the time, and search between 18% and 62% of the time, to find information about products. ...More

  • Read My Lips: This Chapstick Social Media Controversy Is Really Stupid by Catharine P. Taylor

    Usually, we here at the Social Media Insider try to be smart about things, but occasionally we must wallow in the eternal dumbness of the modern world, and this is one of those times. I'm talking about Chapstick. Just in case the controversy over the new, revamped, recalculated Klout scores wasn't enough social media controversy for one day, Chapstick yesterday proved to be another social media gift that just kept on giving. But, it's not for the reasons you may have read elsewhere on the Web. It's in some, subtle ways, even sillier than that. ...More