Instead of fan pages, blanket messages and the encouragement of ‘likes’, the ROI-focused product measures more traditional ecommerce metrics, such as traffic, conversion rates and sales, and – crucially – offers a wealth of socializing options that allow users to discover products based on advice from friends.

In the first partnership of its kind, Walmart and Facebook have teamed up to launch more than 3,500 Facebook store pages through the My Local Walmart application, where users can view special offers, rollbacks and new merchandise based on their location.

With continual talk of billions of dollars floating around the social commerce sphere, it’s easy to imagine the dollar signs flashing in the eyes of investors and entrepreneurs alike. However, a pleasing break from the money-focused merry-go-round was launched this week in the form of Farmigo

Following on from its tremendous success last year, Virgin America ran its ‘Fly Forward, Give Back’ flash sale again this week. The airline encouraged flyers across the nation to bag a bargain seat and retweet, to help raise awareness and funds for the Stand Up To Cancer initiative.

We’ve had a very positive response from our History of F-Commerce Infographic published last week and a number of you have asked if we could re-package it as a Slideshare presentation. Here it is in PowerPoint format.

With 500,000 merchants on their books, Foursquare has been offering its users daily deals for some time. But without taking a cut from these, and with a focus on growth rather than – gasp – monetization, the app – which recently passed the 10 million user mark – has been bereft of meaningful revenue. Until now.

Some 42% of online shoppers recently polled “have ‘followed’ a retailer proactively through Facebook, Twitter or a retailer’s blog, and the average person follows about six retailers.” This, according to a Shop.org study on the growth of social commerce. But what’s their motivation in liking/friending/following a retail brand?

In this age, a few positive words about a product or company can make or break a sales outlook. Consumers are making social networks and digital forums their first research reference point before making a purchase. It’s no wonder then that the so-called social commerce sector is booming, expected to top $30 billion by 2015. And yet many companies are unprepared for what could be the single biggest change in retail in a generation.

The social media business story of 2011 is, of course, the infusion of VC cash into the social start-up sector. It’s a story that impacts the whole social space, top-to-bottom, as investors are funding today’s cloud/mobile/social innovations that will become the essential consumer tools of tomorrow.

LivingSocial is a social commerce service that works on the concept of “group buying” — encouraging users and their friends to buy special deals at, say, restaurants and other local businesses via a daily deals hook.