Boy oh boy, the era of convergence is truly upon us. I can't even keep track of how many different things are converging in this new offering from Triton Digital, which creates online and mobile applications and services for radio broadcasters. Triton's new "Check In Radio" service lets radio listeners "check in" to their favorite radio stations to enter contests via an app on their smartphone. This mobile-social check-in can take the place of actually calling in to the station, as in days of yore -- significantly lowering the barrier to participation (a click on your smartphone has to be …

Back when Google+ opened itself to the public on September 20, I compared the fledgling social network to a neglected child, whose parents keep him locked up in a dark basement for three months before suddenly bringing him outside and telling him to go conquer the world. On receiving a gentle nudge, he falls over.

Recognizing growing demand from a "long tail" of small businesses, more and more established social media marketing and advertising platforms are adding self-service capabilities suitable for clients with small advertising budgets. The list just got longer with the addition of Votigo, a video contest platform specializing in viral video contests, photo contests, sweepstakes, and online promotions has begun introducing self-service access to a suite of its "essential" promotions applications.

I can't resist returning to this topic, as I seem to have morbid fascination with Netflix: I mean, when's the last time you saw a high-profile, consumer-facing company get so many things wrong? This includes the company's social media strategy, or rather a complete lack of one.

The data may not be particularly surprising, but it sure is impressive: fully 91% of online U.S. adults access social media in a typical month, according to a new study by Experian Simmons. That's 129 million people, or 41.37% of the total U.S. population of 311.8 million; the figure doesn't include millions of people under the age of 18 who use social media. As one might expect, among adults ages 18-24, the proportion using social media in a given month is 98% (which has me wondering about the elusive 2%).

Global social network advertising revenue will top $5.5 billion this year, sneak past $8 billion in 2012, and approach $10 billion by 2013, according to a new forecast from eMarketer. U.S. social ad revenues will make up just under half of these amounts, coming to $2.74 billion this year and $4.81 billion in 2013, making it the single biggest national contributor of social ad revenues.

The rush to social media IPOs slowed quite a bit in recent months: Groupon, once touted as the next big IPO, seems to have put plans on hold in the wake of several less-than-stellar financial statements and revisions to accounting practices that have damaged its credibility, and Facebook -- in a much better position -- doesn't appear eager to go public right away.

One of the more difficult parts of social media advertising is achieving scale, especially with "earned" media, meaning, when your message goes viral and the consumer does your advertising for you. One company that's addressing the scale issue is Crowd Factory, a San Francisco-based startup that raised $6.5 million in equity financing in a round led by Storm Ventures back in January of this year.