Emerging Social Networks

Groupon is testing out a VIP membership on a select group of Groupon enthusiasts for $30 a year.  Would you pay for first dibs on deals and reservations, access to sold-out and expired deals, and store credit for unused Groupons any time? It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Pinterest is letting publishers opt out of being pinned.  The change is in response to criticism that the online pinboard violates artists’ copyrights.

Join AllFacebook, SocialTimes, and WebMediaBrands at our second AllFacebook Marketing Conference. Held in San Francisco on June 28-29, the event offers a how-to guide for marketing to Facebook’s 845 million users. Special early pricing is available for only $299 through February 29. Register now!

LinkedIn is full of good news these days.  Their stock is up nearly 200% over its IPO price, their CEO is impressing the street with a smart evaluation of the future of social and their growth has been incredible, at around 150 million users.  To add to this, they are doing well internationally as evidenced [...]

Kickstarter is the place for independent filmmakers/comic book writers/sculptors/etc to raise money for their ventures.  The site lets anybody log on, find a project they like, and donate any given amount.  If the donor give certain amounts, the content creators reward that person with a special item; a limited edition version of the film or a [...]

Badgeville has partnered with Klout on a social loyalty program that identifies social-savvy customers by their Klout scores and gives them new and creative ways to earn rewards.

The old days of taping signs to a telephone pole are numbered. A new location-based tool called Pinwheel lets people find and leave notes around the world.

A few days ago, mobile/social gaming crew Digital Chocolate (headed by the original founder of EA Trip Hawkins) released Gangs of Boomtown exclusively to Google+.  According to our sister sites Inside Social Games, the game is “a blend of quests, multiplayer quickdraw contests and citybuilding mechanics” and seems to follow the same visual style as other [...]

In January, Facebook announced the launch of 60 new timeline apps including Pinterest. At the time, Spotify was already seeing a benefit from having users share their playlists on Facebook – their membership rose to 1.4 million subscribers. Less than a month into the launch, the Facebook development team has reported dramatic gains in traffic and user engagement for lifestyle networks.

Groupon is testing out a VIP membership on a select group of Groupon enthusiasts for $30 a year.  Would you pay for first dibs on deals and reservations, access to sold-out and expired deals, and store credit for unused Groupons any time? It’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Did you know that before Facebook or MySpace – and even before Friendster – there was a social network called Friends Reunited? This infographic from MarketingDirecto.com contains this and other factoids from over 30 years of online social networking.

A good leader keeps tabs on the competition, which was likely the goal of Facebook Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg when he established a profile on surging social network Pinterest. To date, there has not been much activity on Zuckerberg’s Pinterest profile: three pins, one like, 1,176 followers, and he is following 125 Pinterest users. [...]