Klout revealed a beta version of its new topic pages today, which it hopes will turn the company into something more like a Nielsen-type rating service rather than a vanity metric for people using social media.
The pages are Klout's way of scanning the Web looking for influential discussions and the people who are leading those discussions.
Mobile Roadie, a self-service app development platform for brands and music, launched its system in a crowded but fragmented China platform ecosystem today.
The China mobile application market is characterized by confusion right now. Already-strong local players like Tencent have launched mobile app platforms to sell apps for Android and iOS. But those platforms depend on partnerships with companies in Europe and the United States.
Mobile Roadie is tearing up that formula. It's a Western company that's letting local developers make apps for themselves.
Monster.com launched an iPhone version of its BeKnown app on Tuesday but the app offered more frustration than help for job seekers or professional recruiters and showed how out-classsed Monster is in the networking sector.
The app, which builds off of a Facebook app Monster launched in June, looks more like a marketing department's effort to get more Facebook users to use the job search site rather than "a solution for job seekers and recruiters looking to manage just one network of contacts," as it bills itself.
Everything's easier in China, even managing the end of your relationship. Users of the eBay-like site Taobao managed by Alibaba are making a killing on outsourcing their breakups to complete strangers in exchange for a little bit of dosh.
You met someone and thought it would turn into a great relationship, only to be disappointed later on by the harsh reality that they just are not that into you. Well, for a few yuan (eight yuan roughly equals a dollar), you can hire someone to be the emissary for this hardest of all social missives.
Groupon's Chinese joint venture Gaopeng is not doing so well. It has apparently closed 10 offices and fired at as many as 400 employees over the past three months.
Executives of the Chicago-based daily deals company, which is planning an IPO at some point, say changes are part of a shift in strategy and that that the company will now concentrate on middle-tier and upper-tier cities rather than the smaller cities in more distance reaches of the country.
In a bold first move into social commerce and daily deals FriendFinder Networks, which runs a series of dating sites, has purchased the company behind the daily deals site JigoCity.
This is another big player diving into the daily deals scrum, attempting to pair the popularity of social commerce with an unrelated core business. But there's no word on how FriendFinder will use JigoCity. Ideally, they could use it to pair up partners with daily deal date coupons.
Grindr, the popular gay hookup mobile app, has launched a new version of its location-based people-finding service. Called Blendr, the app is aimed at a general audience, but the core idea remains the same: help users find other users based on shared interests and physical proximity, as close as one block away.
Unlike Sonar or Foursquare, where you have to go outside the app to Twitter to talk to people or leave time-delayed comments on check-ins, Blendr keeps your interaction with nearby people in the same app.
Yossy Mendolovich CEO of IMGuest, the world's only hotel management social network, has launched a service that flips the script on how marketing people interact with guests at prominent chains.
IMGuest is a premium marketing tool launched three days ago that enables marketing and guest relations staff to use the social graph to interact with hotel guests at check-in. From that moment on, staff can push out discounts and other offers to them instantaneously based on their interests.
PostSecret, the beloved weekly blog that allows anyone to anonymously share a postcard containing a personal secret, has launched an iPhone app that expands the project out onto the social and mobile Web. In addition to viewing the regular Sunday Secrets - the physical postcards - featured on PostSecret.com, users can create and share digital secrets and browse them by time and location.
The idea of broadcasting your darkest secrets across the Internet might sound counter-intuitive, but the app does an amazing job of reassuring users of their privacy and security. Not only has PostSecret built a heartfelt, loving application, it has raised the privacy bar for app developers everywhere.
US Senate lawmakers will introduce a bill next Thursday that would fine big companies that lose consumer data in a security breach due to poor security measures.
The Personal Data Protection and Breach Accountability Act, sponsored by Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, would enable the Justice Department to fine businesses with more than 10,000 customers $5,000 per violation per day, with a maximum of $20 million per violation, according to The Hill.
