Facebook is reportedly testing a new feature, which can increase the visibility of public Pages on users' news feeds. Dubbing it a "mention" feature, Forbes writes: "If two (or possibly more) of your friends write about or share an article featuring the same celebrity, for instance, both of your friends' updates are collected into a single post on the news feed." What's more, the post tells you that both friends "mentioned" that celebrity, links to that celebrity's Page on Facebook, and shows your friends' respective updates underneath. Of particular note, according to Forbes, "This new feature is …

Film clip aggregator Movieclips.com has raised $3 million in a Series A round of financing, GigaOm reports. Company co-founder Zach James tells the tech blog that the investment "will be used for the curation of our site and the content there." Shasta Ventures and First Round Capital led the round, along with a number of angel investors, including Jeff Clavier of SoftTech VC, Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures, Naval Ravikant and Nivi Babak of VentureHacks, Jeff Kearl, and Tom McInerney. A "drive toward curation has led to Movieclips creating additional editorial content, including video mash-ups of great …

Perhaps feeling the pressure from search aspirants, Google has launched Instant Previews, which lets users view Web pages before they visit them. When a user clicks or hovers over a magnifying glass icon, a screenshot of a specific Web page will appear on the right side of the search results page. Rival search engines have offered such "instant" viewing features for years. Yet, "The key element to Instant Previews though is that Google highlights the section of the page where the search term occurs," notes Mashable. "This is the next evolution of finding a result on a …

Demonstrating high demand for promising startups, GroupMe is raising a round that will put its valuation close to $30 million, reports Business Insider. According to BI, GroupMe's service -- which lets users text groups of people using one phone number -- has potential, but wouldn't be valued so highly were it not for a "frantic bidding war between East Coast and West Coast venture capitalists." On the West Coast, interested VC firms include Sequoia, Andresseen Horowitz, and Khosla Ventures, while East Coast firms include General Catalyst, Flybridge, and Union Square Ventures. On either coast, how hard-pressed are …

Facebook is now letting brands claim community Pages as their own, All Facebook reports, noting that this is "something that was previously a significant issue for many organizations." Noting that companies still can't claim an unlimited number of community pages as their own, the blog concludes that "This is a great feature for brands who had numerous community Pages that weren't under their control." For the moment, it looks like brands can merge up to five community Pages into their own Page. Companies need only to visit a community Page that has used their brand name, and …

Groupon is seeking additional funding that could value the group buying site at $2 billion-to-$3 billion, sources tell Bloomberg/Businessweek. "The company aims to raise the funding to help it expand beyond the 230 markets where it now operates," say sources. Currently, Groupon has about 20 million subscribers, and plans to serve 300 cities by year's end. Groupon's most recent funding round, which closed in April, valued the company at about $1.3 billion. Groupon has raised a total of $170 million from investors, including Facebook backer Accel Partners and New Enterprise Associates. In early October, BoomTown's Kara Swisher …

Really, AOL?! Really?! Still struggling to find its footing as an independent company, AOL has reportedly hired financial advisers to explore various strategic options, including -- yep, you guessed it -- a Yahoo tie-up. In recent days, sources tell The Wall Street Journal, "AOL's advisers have been presenting different scenarios to AOL officials that illustrate how the two companies could combine their operations and whether the complexity of any such transaction could be surmounted." That AOL thinks Yahoo can improve its fortunes, or that such a deal is even feasible, has many …

RockMelt, if you haven't heard, is a new startup that aims to change the way consumers browse the Web. The company's founders tell VentureBeat that "Web browsers haven't evolved to match the way we use them now -- older browsers are still designed as if the core Web experience involves navigating from website to website, rather than interacting with friends." Says VentureBeat: "It's a compelling argument, but it sounds rather similar to social browser Flock" -- which hasn't exactly been a runaway success. Still, Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Netscape and respected VC, is a big believer in …

Sports-centric blog network SB Nation just secured $10.5 million in a Series C round of financing. "The funding will be used to facilitate the site's growth, fueling acquisitions and driving sales," reports VatorNews.com. "Investing in our writers and our proprietary tech platform," are top priorities for the company, according to SB Nation CEO Jim Bankoff. Khosla Ventures led this latest round, with participation from Accel Partners and Comcast Interactive Capital. Washington, D.C.-based SB Nation has now raised $23.5 million from said investors, along with Allen & Company and various unnamed angels. SB Nation aspires to be a …

Pssss... Interested in free, live streams of top network fare, delivered directly to your iPad? Then head over to FilmOn.com, where, MediaMemo reports, you can get streams of several local LA TV stations, which means you can get whatever NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox are broadcasting. "You can also get a few cable channels, like Time Warner's CNN International, as well as a couple porn feeds. Why is MediaMemo -- which, last time we checked, isn't exactly in the hacking business -- publishing this information? Ostensibly, to illustrate why the networks are suing FilmOn and founder Alki …