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US-based consumer electronics retailer Dyscern is a great case study of how to make serious money on online marketplaces like eBay.

The company, which started up only five years ago, is now sixth in Inc. Magazine’s list of America's fastest growing retailers and is reportedly the most rapidly expanding eBay Powerseller on the other side of the pond.

We spoke to Dyscern COO Bill Frischling about the pros and cons of eBay as an e-commerce channel for merchants, and how the firm is looking to ramp up its European sales.

Facebook’s platform boss Ben Ling was speaking at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst last week and had some interesting stuff to say about the social network’s e-commerce strategy.

One thing that stood out was that it has seemingly not given up on the 'Beacon' ads for online retailers that caused such a furore last year.

Discussions about whether or not 23 year-old Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg needs to step aside and let a more experienced leader take over day-to-day management of the popular social networking company have been on the rise lately.

Last week, I was pointed in the direction of an article entitled: “Online Social Media Cheap Alternative In Face Of Recession”.

It describes how Forrester Research is advising marketers to “spend more on online social media as a cheap, efficient way to advertise during tougher economic times.”

Given the fact that it’s increasingly becoming clear that marketing on social networks is ineffective for the vast majority of marketers who have tried it, and is losing money for even the Googles of this world, Forrester Research’s 'research' seems to be quite contrarian to say the least.

The biggest challenge for popular social networks thus far has been finding sustainable ways to turn their massive audiences into massive piles of cash.

That could be the least of their concerns very soon, however.

Facebook is to make its developer platform available to other social networks, allowing brands to port apps to other sites that adopt the same standards.

The move forms a response to Google's OpenSocial project, which aims to create a common standard for developing and delivering social network apps.

Professional social network LinkedIn has launched a developer platform as well as a redesign of its website.

As previously outlined by CEO Dan Nye, the new "Intelligent Application" platform will not be as open as that of rival Facebook, and will be limited to ‘business productivity applications’.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has apologised to members over “mistakes” made when implementing its targeted ad platform on an opt-out basis.

The Beacon system was moved to an opt-in footing last week after causing much ire among privacy campaigners, and users have now been offered a tool to turn it off permanently.

Mark Zuckerberg yesterday announced Facebook ads, a new ad system which will allow advertisers to take advantage of recommendations from Facebook users.

Under the new system, advertisers can create profile pages on the social network with applications and content related to the company's product or service, while users can add these brands as 'fans'.

MySpace has joined up with Google for the launch of its OpenSocial platform, which aims to create a common platform for developers to create applications for social networks.

Bebo also joined in with OpenSocial yesterday, while LinkedIn, XING, Friendster and Orkut are already on board. The big question is whether Facebook will decide to join Google's initiative.