A New York federal judge has denied research company TRA's request for a preliminary injunction barring Kantar Media from proceeding with its RapidView media planning tool. TRA was hoping for an injunction at least until its law suit against Kantar, alleging patent infringement is resolved. WPP and Kantar actually filed suit first, alleging breach of contract with a request for a ruling that it did not infringe on TRA patents. Both services match consumer purchase data with TV audience figures. TRA has had a service in the marketplace for the several years, with WPP and Kantar as …

Will all due respect to socially-overwhelmed consumers, Cult of Mac's Mike Elgan says Apple needs its own social network. Sure, many consumers think Google+ already pushes the envelope of social saturation, but Elgan insists that Apple can't keep its edge without a social strategy of its own. Why? With the debut of its vast content-sharing strategy, "Facebook is now more directly threatening to Apple's business model than Microsoft, Google and Sony combined," according to Elgan. "In a single week, Facebook has become not just a competitor to Apple, but the Mother of All Apple Competitors." While not a forgone …

To scale its operations, trendy blogging platform Tumblr has secured a fresh $85 million in funding, led by Greylock Partners and Insight Venture Partners, along with participation from Chernin Group, Richard Branson, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures and Sequoia Capital. The new money "allows us to continue to scale our business and give real focus to the further development of Tumblr," founder David Karp said in a statement. "Karp said that Tumblr's growth has exploded in the past year," The New York Times' Bits blog notes. "It's attracted popular musicians such as Lady Gaga and traffic leapt to 13 …

In other big streaming deals, Amazon this weekend announced a partnership with Fox Broadcasting Company. Per a blog post by CEO Jeff Bezos, Amazon said Prime subscribers will now have unlimited access to thousands more hours of movies and TV shows, TechCrunch reports. "These are huge titles, too: "The X-Files," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "24," "Arrested Development," and "The Wonder Years," it notes. "Yep, you can now stream the adventurers of Kevin Arnold through Amazon's Prime Instant Video." As Bezos boasted, "We now have deals with CBS, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner Bros, and adding Fox will bring the total …

How's this for a marketing pitch? Facebook -- in an effort to lure small businesses and their devoted patrons -- reportedly plans to give away $10 million in free advertising. "The initiative is being launched in partnership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Federation of Independent Business, a small-business group," The Wall Street Journal reports. "It is intended to educate small businesses on how to promote themselves on the social-networking site, like buying display ads targeted to specific markets, but also through cost-free measures to engage more with customers." The program is expected to kick off next …

Even Neufeld of mobile research firm Ground Truth quickly ran down what he called The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of mobile marketing at OMMA Global. Among the key points he made was that the lines between the PC and mobile are eroding as smartphones spread and more people go on the mobile Web. But as the use of HTML5 expands for creating mobile sites, use of apps will be geared more toward certain uses including games, social media and maps. And even though mobile phones are ubiquitous, it will still be some time before having the latest …

A bombshell from futurist Faith Popcorn: pornography is generating incredible interest on the Internet. Um, isn't that how the whole Internet thing got started? Popcorn brought up porn on a morning panel focusing on the empowered consumer. Her broader point was that the hyperconnected-ness of the Internet has led to an unprecedented level of transparency for companies, which they have to be mindful of in terms of marketing. The ability to quickly look up the demographic make-up of a large company's board via a handheld device could make the difference between buying one of their products or not for …

Donovan Data Systems and MediaBank, the two dominant and fiercely competitive suppliers of advertising and media-buying processing systems to Madison Avenue, have agreed to merge into a new company called MediaOcean, which will be led by Donovan founder Michael Donovan MediaBank CEO Bill Wise, who will serve as executive chairman and CEO of the new company. The merger, if approved by regulators, would dramatically consolidate the marketplace for ad agency data processing systems, leaving Comcast-owned Strata as the next biggest player. Though Donovan and MediaBank spent much of the past several years badmouthing each other's products and services, …

Margo Georgiadis, who was appointed chief operating officer of Groupon just five months ago, is leaving the company to return to Google, where she previously served as vice-president of global sales operations, according to the Wall Street Journal.  This is the second COO to depart Groupon this year: Rob Solomon left in March, for similarly opaque reasons. The train of executive departures, and widely-reported financial difficulties (including a series of quarterly losses) all call into question the company's stability,  potentially jeopardizing its plan for an IPO sometime later this year.

eBay is launching "World's Fastest Car Show" – an original video series for the eBay Motors website and mobile application. The show, the first originally produced media content for eBay Motors, is also the first to be featured in any of eBay's mobile applications according to the company. The series is hosted by former 24 Hours of Le Mans winner and FIA GT2 World Champion Justin Bell. Steve Yankovich, VP of mobile at eBay says the goal is to "interact with these enthusiasts on an even deeper level by providing compelling, meaningful content within the app itself, and also …