Biz Web

Brooklyn, N.Y.-based SocialGuide, a real-time social TV guide and platform, announced $1.5 million in funding, led by Alex Zubillaga and angel investors.

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Don’t’ know what social media tracking is? Well, if you’re a business or company, it’s time to find out. Cloud service provider Salesforce.com has bought Randian6 tracking firm for $326 million, and it looks like the social media tracking industry is just taking off.

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Say hello to Bloomberg Media Group, a combination of the business operations of Bloomberg L.P. units Bloomberg Businessweek, Bloomberg Markets magazine, Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, Bloomberg.com, and Bloomberg Mobile, uniting the company’s television, print, radio, mobile, and digital media properties under one umbrella.

Bloomberg Businessweek president Paul Bascobert will serve as head of business operations for Bloomberg Media Group, retaining his role at Bloomberg Businessweek and reporting to Bloomberg Media Group CEO Andy Lack.

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Twitter co-founders Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams, and Biz Stone will be profiled on Bloomberg Game Changers Thursday at 9 p.m. ET.

The episode will also feature interviews with Twitter chairman Dorsey, Floodgate founder and managing partner Mike Maples, O’Reilly Media founder and CEO Tim O’Reilly, GigaOM founder Om Malik, Blogger.com co-founder Meg Hourihan, Wired.com writer Ryan Singel, and Wedbush Securities vice president of equity research, social media and e-commerce Lou Kerner.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Association of National Advertisers, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) used the IAB’s Fourth Annual Leadership Meeting, Ecosystem 2.0: The People vs. Data at La Quinta Resort & Club in Palm Springs, Calif., to announce an initiative called Making Measurement Make Sense, which is aimed at developing digital metrics and cross-platform measurement solutions to improve marketing and ease media-management decision.

Management-consulting firm Bain & Co. and strategic-advisory firm MediaLink will support the initiative introduced by the IAB, the ANA, and 4A’s.

The trade groups said the three primary objectives of Making Measurement Make Sense are: defining standard metrics and measurement systems that are transparent and consistent to simplify the planning, buying, and evaluating of digital media; analyzing the current digital measurement situation from a business perspective; and driving industry consensus around the solutions.

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Yahoo! adapted its Yahoo! Finance iPhone app for the iPad, releasing MarketDash, which syncs across the two previously mentioned Apple platforms, as well as Android, maintaining any changes made by users, Mashable reported.

MarketDash supports multitouch operation and offers finance news, stock charts, plot points, and stock tickers, according to Mashable, and it is available free-of-charge via the App Store.

Reuters Insider managing director Mark Stepanovich spoke with Beet.TV about the subscription service, which includes video content from banks including JP Morgan Chase and UBS, as well as feeds from 200 financial institutions and business news producers including CNBC, Forbes.com, and Beet.TV.

Newsweek and The Daily Beast are now The Newsweek/Daily Beast Co. LLC, as the merger between the two entities, originally announced Nov. 12, is now official.

The Daily Beast founding partner and editor-in-chief Tina Brown will serve as editor-in-chief of the combined properties, and Daily Beast president Stephen Colvin will be its CEO. Newsweek owner Sidney Harman will be executive chairman of its board, and IAC chairman Barry Diller will be a director.

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Chief financial officers have a new site to add to their bookmarks, as IDG Enterprise announced the launch of CFOworld.com, which joins fellow IDG sites CIO, CIO Executive Council, Computerworld, CSO, DEMO, InfoWorld, ITworld, and Network World.

The launch marks the U.S. debut for CFOworld, which is currently published in Germany, Sweden, Australia, the Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom.

Editorial for CFOworld.com will be overseen by IDG senior vice president and chief content officer John Gallant, and CFOworld.com editorial director Roy Harris.

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The ongoing merger between Newsweek and The Daily Beast moved one step closer to completion with the announcement by The Newspaper Guild of New York that it reached a framework agreement with Newsweek parent Harman Newsweek LLC.

Under terms of the pact, “a wide range” of editorial employees from The Daily Beast will be included under the existing collective bargaining agreement between the guild and Newsweek.

Daily Beast employees with pay below the minimums set by the existing CBA will be brought up to scale, and their seniority will be dovetailed with that of guild-represented Newsweek employees. And voluntary buyouts will be offered to certain classes of current Newsweek employees. From the announcement:

Under the framework agreement between the guild and Harman Newsweek LLC, non-supervisory editorial employees who produce The Daily Beast will be covered by the same contract that now covers many of Newsweek‘s reporters, editors, and other news employees, upon completion of the merger. The agreement was a necessary prelude to the completion of the merger of the two news organizations that was announced Dec. 6.

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