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News Byte

Amazon Picks Up Social Expertise Through Talent Acquisition

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on December 27, 2011 at 5:07 pm PT

Amazon has not been on the forefront of social shopping experiences, but that could change. Geekwire reports that the e-commerce giant has hired several team members from Quorus, a small Seattle start-up focused on building social shopping and marketing technologies for retailers and brands. Quorus co-founders Logan Bowers, who was previously at Zillow and Expedia, and Michael Dougherty, formerly co-founder of Redfin, have been hired along with other employees. An Amazon spokesperson has not replied to an email seeking comment.

News Byte

Google+ Gives Early Platform Access to Brands

Liz Gannes in Social on November 15, 2011 at 10:48 am PT

Google+ today took another step toward being a social platform by announcing it had enabled six social media management tools — Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, Hootsuite, Involver and Vitrue — to plug into brand pages (Involver, for its part, says it will limit participation to 20 hand-selected customers). The partners are getting fairly limited tools (Circle management, publishing and monitoring), but it means that brands will be able to use the same tools for multiple social networks.

News Byte

ChoozOn Raises $3.2 Million to Help Make Shopping More Guilt-Free

Tricia Duryee in Commerce on August 2, 2011 at 12:01 am PT

ChoozOn has disclosed it has secured $3.2 million in a first round of funding to help consumers manage the barrage of discounts being offered through loyalty programs and daily deals. The round was led by Michael Orsak of Worldview Technology Partners and James Brown of AVG Ventures. The Bellevue, Wash.-based company originally unveiled its plans in April, and says it is launching by the end of September with more than 1,000 brands participating in the platform.