The first look at J. Crew's fall catalog this year was unveiled on Pinterest, giving loyal followers an early glimpse at the collection and the opportunity to preorder. The effort is a social media marketing first for any fashion brand on the virtual pinboard site. And it's a bold step for J. Crew, which last year didn't have even a smidge of social media presence.

Just weeks after splitting with coach Jimmy Connors, Maria Sharapova, who is now ranked No. 3 in the world, has bursitis in her right shoulder and has pulled out of the final Grand Slam of the year. She'll take with her a bevy of marketing activations that would have included the likes of Nike, Cole Haan, Samsung, Tag Heuer, Porsche and her own candy-accessory line, SugarPova.

A new line of cosmetics called Em michelle phan began rolling into stores this month, created by the combined efforts of L'Oreal Luxe group, YouTube beauty vlogger Michelle Phan and the community of beauty lovers. L'Oreal says that Phan, who has been uploading how-to videos since 2007, appeals to cosmetic lovers who "are increasingly consuming and sharing information digitally, through online communities."

While Al Jazeera America was introduced with much fanfare this week, there was a major glitch. To the dismay of its devoted online viewers in the U.S., the Al Jazeera English livestream was suspended and users were greeted only with an announcement to tune into their cable provider, leaving some viewers in the dark: Al Jazeera English now serves the entire English-speaking world except for the U.S.

Lexus is hoping to appeal to the next generation of luxury car buyers with Intersect By Lexus, a new concept that blends coffee house, club and dealership in one place. The first is set to open next week in Tokyo, with similar plans for New York, Dubai and other parts of the world, and is also an effort to broaden its reach outside the U.S.

An anti-gun group is targeting Starbucks for a boycott, calling for "Skip Starbucks Saturday" Aug. 24, a move it hopes will cause the coffee chain to amend its policy, which allows customers to carry loaded guns into Starbucks stores where permitted by state law. The group hopes to gather 25,000 signatures to ban guns at all U.S. Starbucks stores. "Our long-standing stance has been to comply with local laws in the communities we serve," says a Starbucks spokesman. "We believe gun violence is a serious issue and something our elected officials should address."

Led by high school math teacher Dan Anderson, a group of upstate New York teens have found that Oreo Double Stuf cookies actually only contain 1.86 times the filling "stuf." When ABC News called Nabisco, the cookie maker denied it. "Our recipe for the Oreo Double Stuf Cookie has double the Stuf, or creme filling, when compared with our base, or original Oreo cookie."

Facebook says it will partner with with Samsung, Ericsson, MediaTek, Nokia, Opera and Qualcomm to launch Internet.org, a project it hopes will bring affordable Internet access to the 5 billion people without it. The companies will work together on data-compression technologies and cheap, high-quality smartphones to make the web cheaper. Just one-third of the globe's population has Internet access, and adoption is only growing at 9%.

For the latest spot in its controversial anti-obesity campaign, Coca-Cola has tapped director Johnny Kelly (of Chipotle fame) for a short animated film. Called "Happiness is Movement," follows the quick-moving life of an animated puppet, from birth through marriage and parenthood, all while in constant motion.

If you think the hardest part about buying furniture from Ikea is not building it, but making sure it looks good in your home, the furniture retailer has an augmented reality app just for you. It allows customers to visualize 3-D versions of sofas, tables, desks and chairs in the print catalog.