The standalone UK edition of digital media site paidContent is to be "phased out" as part of the group's integration with new owner GigaOM, the publisher has announced. Coverage of UK stories will continue, with paidContent UK editor Robert Andrews working with a bigger team "with a broader international reach", ContentNext Media editor Staci Kramer wrote in a post on the site.

The location-sharing service has recently hired its first UK employee, former Google staffer, Omid Ashtari, as its director of business development, and Crowley believes through the deals he will strike, Foursquare will become popular in Britain. "The UK is a little behind the U.S. in terms of getting on board with Foursquare - but that's because we haven't had a dedicated team doing deals with British brands - making the service really come to life for people over here," Crowley told The Telegraph.

The Swansea student given 56 days in prison for posting racially offensive comments on Twitter should not have been jailed, according to Europe's most senior human rights official. In an interview the day before he left office, Thomas Hammarberg, theCouncil of Europe's commissioner for human rights, said the sentence imposed by British courts on 21-year-old Liam Stacey was excessive.

The advertising watchdog has slammed Bar Fusion in Kent for offending people of short stature by advertising a "midget" Christmas party on Facebook. The Advertising Standards Authority has banned the ad for being offensive and promoting negative attitudes to short people, and has warned Bar Fusion to ensure future advertising is socially responsible.

BlackBerry is going back to its roots in focusing on business users after failing to compete with Apple, Samsung and the like in the consumer world. The company says it will still have a consumer operation, although this is likely to be tailored to business people. No word on whether BlackBerry's "biggest ever marketing campaign" for the launch of its BB10 operating system will be scaled back or cancelled altogether.

Canadian fund OMERS Ventures has acquired a stake in the social media management platform by making secondary purchases from employees and earlier investors in the four-year-old Vancouver-based company. Hootsuite, which has already raised $4.9 million in debt and equity, allows marketers to track their presence of Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and the like.

Railing against "lies and libels" by "old toffs and right wingers" stuck in the last century, media mogul Rupert Murdoch took to Twitter after the Australian Financial Review accused News Corp of sabotaging competitors, which led to calls for the case to be referred to Federal police. It follows similar accusations in the UK, where his firm is accused of hacking rivals ITV Digital and posting access codes online. It was later reported in The Australian that the AFR would not be passing evidence to the police.

Speaking at Facebook's first event dedicated to UK marketers, Christian Hernandez-Gallardo, director of platform relationships EMEA, talked about how social data can be used to create services out of marketing. Karl-Heinz Land of Microstrategy said, "If we well [with data], then marketing will be received as a service, and not only that but a paid service. ... If you are in a situation of trust with your customers then you shouldn't have an issue [with data and privacy]".

Australian entrepreneurs David Gillespie, Matthew Delprado and Johny Mair have made a get-rich-quick gimmick. With the tagline, "Social media has never been so disposable" and a pile of poo for an icon, they've created Shitter. Shitter takes your Twitter feeds and prints them on four rolls of toilet paper. The rolls cost GBP22 plus shipping.

Groupon is the most popular site, a Kantar Media study finds, with 80% share and 8.1 million monthly visitors. LivingSocial.com and KGBDeals.co.uk follow with 10% share each. Two-thirds of online shoppers agree that 'I always look out for special offers'. Still, the study finds that only 37% of buyers make a second purchase from the same supplier. Recently, the Office of Fair Trading reprimanded Groupon for misleading trading practises and exaggerating deals.