Social Networking - Internet Marketing News and Blogs

The economic landscape may not be great but that's not stopping big internet players from making acquisition moves. This week's news was dominated by M&A and M&A-related items.

If you are to believe data portability proponents, one of the biggest challenges facing the internet today is the difficulty users have in sharing their data across multiple services.

Facebook has added another huge pile of cash to its bank account, this time in the form of a $100m debt financing from TriplePoint Capital.

The company, which has already raised more than $350m in equity financing from investors such as Microsoft and Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, says that the money will be used "entirely for servers."

Over the last few months more companies have started to experiment with a whole host of new media channels, including social networking sites and microblogs.

When planned adequately, social media can provide an effective means of reaching new customer segments, forming closer relationships, and building online reputation.

However, it was clear from E-consultancy's Social Media: Measurement, Managing Reputation and Monetisation event last week that marketers face a range of different challenges as the social media landscape continues to evolve and grow. 

Micro-blogging service Twitter launched back in March of 2006 and was thought by many to have 'tipped' at last year's SXSW tech conference in Austin, Texas.

But a slew of recent articles, including one in today's Guardian, suggests that it might be about to tip again. And this is why you should care.

Yesterday, one of my readers pointed me in the direction of a TechCrunch guest post by Mike Jones.

Jones was CEO of Userplane, "a communications widget provider" which was acquired by AOL in 2006. He is now a Senior VP at AOL.

When one looks at the landscape of the social networking market, it's apparent that most of the major internet companies (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc.) have been left behind in one way or another.

Despite the fact that they have a presence in the market, all have played catch-up more than they've led and none has been able to fully cash in on one of the most hyped internet trends ever.

Most of the news that caught Drama 2.0's attention this week was primarily filled with drama in one form or another.

In case you missed it, Tuesday, April 22 was Earth Day. What originated in a grassroots fashion is, as Reuters points out , "an environmental event that has become increasingly political and corporate."

When it comes to how much credibility I think a publication has, it only takes one colossal lapse in journalistic integrity for me to lose all trust.