That’s one way to interpret the findings of a new study that pits ad agency vs. PR practitioner and asks: which sector is better positioned to take advantage of big brands’ push toward social media?

By any measure, last week was a mega funding week for the social media sector. Last week we tallied $126 in venture capital funding deals for social start-ups as of press time. This week the big story is the social funding deal that hasn’t yet happened: LivingSocial is reported to be in talks with investors to raise $500 milion to take on GroupOn. Yes, $500 million. Moving back to reality… what deals were inked? We have them here.

Syncapse is somewhat of an all-encompassing social media resource for brands. Its platforms offers state-of-the-art social media monitoring technology, and it offers consulting services to help build and maintain a vibrant branded social media presence across various channels.

In changing its name from Widgetbox to Flite, the company has gone from a widget tools developer to an ad delivery (erm, “branded experience”) specialist. It calls its ad-serving breakthrough “cloud-based advertising” that advertisers can update on the fly and integrate with social networking tools.

With global stock markets ping-ponging back and forth these days over political instability in North Africa and the Middle East, escalating food prices and a near-nuclear meltdown in Japan we cannot resist adding yet another variable to the stock-watching puzzle: a company’s online popularity.

How much is a single, glowing Facebook recommendation worth to a marketer? Just how valuable is a strong endorsement from a blogger in determining future sales? And just how engaged is the average TV viewer with a popular show with all these distracting networked gadgets, tablets and laptops in the room? Syncapse answers some of these questions in a new piece of research out this week.

The evolution of online video, you could say, took a step backwards last week with Warner Bros. stepping up as the first Hollywood studio to cut a Facebook distribution deal, streaming rentals of “The Dark Knight” for three bucks a pop. To some online video experts, it’s not the price tag, but the experience that has them grumbling. Batman fans are confined to viewing the entire film off-site, on Facebook.

For the 198,775 people who’ve declared their allegiance to the Microsoft Zune, these are troubling times. News reports are swirling that Microsoft will kill off the iPod-wannabe imminently. The only problem is Microsoft is denying the reports, but nobody’s listening. Yes, there’s a Zune metaphor in there somewhere.

Here’s one for climate skeptics: iconic Italian car maker Fiat has teamed up with travel e-tailer LastMinute.com to bring deals to Londoners to mark the Fiat 500 TwinAir’s break with London’s notoriously pricey congestion charge. When it comes to building a long-term community around a brand, perhaps nothing works better than giving people something for nothing and the chance to show it off to their friends. Here’s the strategy.

One of the more controversial pieces of research we’d come across recently was one that showed the phenomenal recent success here in Europe of daily deals sites such as Groupon. Little surprise there. But the researchers concluded that their rise comes at a big cost – the sudden demise of business at eBay and online auctioneers. So we took the question straight to Rajen Ruparell, Director of Groupon UK: are you already writing the obituary of eBay here in Europe?