It may just be that the Newsfeed, and not the fanpage, is the most valuable real estate on Facebook for marketers. So says new research jointly produced by Facebook and comScore that shows Facebook users are 40-150 more times more likely to consume branded content in the Newsfeed than they are by going to the fanpage. And, thanks to the power of the Newsfeed there’s a new way to calculate your potential social media reach.

Online commerce is one of the few bright spots in retail, once again showing it’s the fastest growing segment in the sector. And what’s the fastest growing part of online commerce? It’s a two-part answer: social- and mobile-commerce, new studies once again show.

The news that both Facebook and LinkedIn are preparing to take their shares public has created a froth of both investor and media excitement. Facebook’s projected $50 billion valuation would be more than Starbucks and Dell. Combined! And the head-scratching headlines don’t end there.

Ah, if it were only that easy. In truth, companies are still playing lip service to the practice of “social co-creation,” or using social media to tap your customer base for innovative ideas, new research has found.

General Electric, IBM, Starbucks, Ford and Dell lead the way in social media communications when it comes to talking about sustainability and CSR. That is the conclusion of a new in-depth SMI special report, the first-ever ranking of how the world’s largest companies communicate their CSR initiatives via social media. Called the Social Media Sustainability Index, it is researched and written by social media sustainability specialists Custom Communication.

Our editorial and social media training partner, Custom Communication, has gone back through six years of social media and compiled a visual narrative of company misadventures with bloggers, tweeter and other social media voices.

With a potential market of 108 million online shoppers, China is an e-commerce force to be reckoned with. With an extremely young, social media-savvy net population, it’s become a social commerce force as well.

Social media is no longer just about who you are and what you like – it’s increasingly about where you are. Facebook Places went live in the U.K. today, just as we read about McDonald’s latest success with a Foursquare marketing campaign. Is the enthusiasm for location services confined to early adopters, or are we seeing the start of a much wider phenomenon?

Here’s a story to get you up in the morning. Playboy has launched a “Miss Social” contest that gives Facebook fans the power to undress the next picture-perfect girl for an upcoming issue. Seeing naked girls? What’s not to “Like”? Right? Well, no so fast. Judging by the underwhelming early response, we’ve seen more panting over a Frappuccino.

Now that 500 million pairs of eyes are potentially on any brand’s Facebook page, spammers are stepping up their efforts to secure a piece of the viewing time, and they are already posting porn links and other nuisances on the biggest brands’ walls. Why exactly are these pages so vulnerable, and what are brands and Facebook doing to keep the horny-gal-wants-you posts to a minimum?