RadiumOne this week said it raised $21 million to develop a social-based ad network. "That [is] a lot of capital for an ad-based start-up, but the San Francisco company believes it can deliver superior advertising performance through its patent-pending ShareGraph technology," writes VentureBeat. The ShareGraph technology analyzes how users communicate with their closest connections and then identifies the specific consumers who are most likely to engage with a brand's ads. The start-up says this works better than traditional behavioral targeting techniques. Also of note, the system lets consumers share ads with friends -- "creating a multiplier effect for advertisers," …

If Slate's Farhad Manjoo ruled the Web, he'd make all online commenters log in with Facebook -- or a similar third-party site -- so they'd have to share their real identities to express themselves in a public forum. Not only that, but Manjoo would have all Web sites require that people reveal their real names when engaging in any "public" behavior from a restaurant review to a poll question. Extreme, perhaps, but Manjoo is confident that his idealized Web would be a better place for everyone. Citing various social science studies, he posits that people know their identities …

With the click of a button, Google users can now blacklist any Web site from all future search results -- and, perhaps unknowingly, help the search giant differentiate "good" sites from "bad."  "The search engine is now showing an option ... to let users block a particular domain in the future," eWeek reports. It's all "part of the company's evolving push to give its 1 billion-plus searchers more control." What's more, according to Google: "While we're not currently using the domains people block as a signal in ranking, we'll look at the data and see whether …

Lookout for LinkedIn to debut a new social news product this week, says Mrinal Desai, an early employee of the business professional social network. Better yet, expect the new product to turn LinkedIn into an "information network" -- and ultimately "The Wall Street Journal of social news," says Desai. As he explains in TechCrunch, Desai says he recently received an email from "LinkedIn Headlines," which featured an email digest of the most shared news in his LinkedIn network about the Internet industry. The email got him to thinking that LinkedIn could bring curation by popularity within his network -- …

Though he's hardly the first to do so, Richard Tofel, an author and general manager at ProPublica, is predicting the demise of search engine optimization. In essence, "SEO itself is an inefficiency, a transaction cost rather than a value-creator -- it is a technique designed entirely to compensate for the failure of the search engine to correctly analyze site content, searcher desire, or both," Tofel explains. "Over time, economics teaches us, inefficiencies tend to be wrung out, and transaction costs reduced." At some point in the not-too-distant future, Tofel believes that new technology will help searchers find exactly …

As fast as the daily deal industry took shape, Group Commerce is trying to establish itself as publishers' best resource for getting in on the action. Rather than a daily deal service itself, "it's banking on building a platform that other media companies can leverage," reports eMoney. Founded by former Google and DoubleClick executives David Rosenblatt, Jonty Kelt, and Andrew Glenn, the start-up has now raised $8 million from Spark Capital, Carmel Ventures, Lerer Media Ventures and Bob Pittman. Right out of the gate, Group Commerce is already powering group-buying services for DailyCandy, Meredith Corporation, Thrillist and The …

Unfortunately for email-based publishers and services, Google just made it easier for Gmail users to de-prioritize such incoming mail. Its new Smart Labels feature augments a user's inbox by automatically sorting messages into three categories: Bulk, Notification and Forum labels. "Google classifies Bulk mail as any mass mailing, such as newsletters and promotions," reports eWeek. "Daily Deals from Groupon is a good example of a Bulk mail message. Gmail automatically filters these out of users' in-boxes and into the Bulk label." Meanwhile, Google considers Notification messages sent to users directly, such as billing statements from banks and purchase receipts …

Online question & answer network Stack Overflow has raised $12 million in Series B funding led by led by Index Ventures, along with Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures. The company has also officially changed its name to Stack Exchange. "The new funding will be used to support the company's growth, which -- according to Stack Exchange's data -- has been amazing," reports Mashable. Stack Exchange began as a Q&A site for developers, and has since grown its network to include 45 expert Q&A sites on a variety of topics, with some 20 million monthly unique visitors, 95 million …

Rather than hire a gaggle consultants or some boutique ad agency, top CPG brands are going directly to young consumers to learn about this thing they call Twitter. Among other brands, Sprint Nextel, Levi Strauss & Co. and Mattel are sponsoring college classes and graduate-level research to get help with their online marketing, reports The Wall Street Journal. "The partnerships are emerging as businesses are scurrying to bolster their ability to engage with their customers on the Web by using Facebook, Twitter and the like," The Journal writes. Sure, marketers have long relied on universities to conduct research …

Gizmodo's Sam Biddle thinks Facebook is "AOLifying" the Web. Translation? Like AOL back in the days of dial-up, Facebook increasingly represents the all-encompassing face of the Web, as well as the official gateway to any service and piece of content worth your time -- and that's a bad thing. "Over a decade after the Web portal stopped making sense, Facebook is trying to assemble itself, like some ill-conceived Voltron, into the next," accuses Biddle. The problem, as the most successful Web giants have learned, is that no company can be good at everything. They inevitably try, however, which …