Social Media Marketing

Groupon is likely to select Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to be the principal underwriters for an initial public offering later this year that could value the company between $15 and $20 billion. J.P. Morgan Chase is expected to have a co-manager role in the IPO, and at least two other banks want...

A new breed of consumer has emerged. This new breed -- the social consumer -- is more connected, more vocal and has greater control. Social consumers use social media to voice their praises about a particular business, but they use social media just as frequently to voice their concerns and anger a...

Google has launched what many see as its answer to the growing phenomenon of social search in general and Facebook's "Like" button in particular: the +1 button. It is similar in concept, although in Google's case it will eventually be included in search results. When users see something they like on...

Salesforce.com has signed an agreement to acquire Radian6 for $276 million in cash and $50 million in stock. Salesforce intends to use Radian6, a platform for social media monitoring, to help its clients track hundreds and millions of conversations on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs and other onli...

What is the temperature of the sun? What is free will? Who's in charge here, anyway? These questions and more -- any question one could possibly imagine, really -- are what Facebook's Questions feature is for. The social network updated Questions Thursday, throwing the general inquiry forum open to ...

With the continued emergence of new technology and channels including social media, mobile, avatars and more, the relationship between brands and their customers and prospects has been changed forever. It's interesting to consider the role of technology in these increasingly dynamic relationships.

2010 was the year of social media: Mark Zuckerberg was named Time's Person of the Year, "The Social Network" seemed poised for Oscar glory, and Facebook exceeded Google's daily traffic. Certainly there were hiccups along the way -- privacy settings, ease-of-use and the Google Buzz debacle -- but no...

Social shopping site Groupon clearly had bigger aspirations in mind when it spurned Google's $6 billion acquisition offer last year. The company is in discussions with Goldman Sachs about going public -- at a $25 billion valuation -- according to a Bloomberg article citing unnamed sources in the kno...

IBM unveiled a new service on Monday that will help companies market and sell their products online. The new division, called "Smarter Commerce," offers IBM customers real-time marketing analytics and brand assessment tools for Facebook and Twitter. Smarter Commerce also offers consumer-behavior ana...

Around the time the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was passed and signed into law, I was a reporter covering that area of technology. Specifically, I was writing about service, measurement, data management and the software that made all that possible for telecommunications companies. Little did I re...