PAIDCONTENT.ORG — Zynga, the current social gaming behemoth, is using some of its money to do acquisitions: it has bought Serious Business, creators of social games on Facebook.  SB, based in San Francisco, and backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners ($4 million in funding), was founded in early 2008 by two former Powerset engineers. It launched one of the first ever games on Facebook, Friends For Sale...

PAIDCONTENT.ORG — You can’t go an entire day without encountering Facebook and Twitter -- even if you don’t have an account. Whether you ride the subway or take the bus, you’ll see people young and old updating their status or talking about the latest social-networking drama. If you watch the television or listen to the radio, you’ll be driven to the Twitter or Facebook accounts of celebrities, brands and non-profits. If you do come across the rare people who are not on Facebook, they sound like cavemen -- and they know it; they are talking about signing up soon. In such an environment, it is easy to conclude that this dominance will last forever. But it won’t...

PAIDCONTENT.ORG — Shoutlet, a company that connects brands with social media, has raised a $2 million first round. The round was co-led by Origin Ventures and Leo Capital Holdings. This funding follows a $1.2 million seed round raised in 2007. The funding will help Shoutlet broaden its distribution abilities for itself and its parent, Middleton, Wisconsin-based Sway Inc...

PAIDCONTENT.ORG — Lithium Technologies -- which provides white-label social networking tools for enterprises—has raised $18 million in a third round of funding. The cash comes from new investors DAG Ventures and Tenaya Capital, along with existing backers Benchmark Capital, Emergence Capital and Shasta Ventures. Lithium’s tools allow businesses set up online communities for their customers, which can include discussion boards, blogs, customer-written content and real-time chats; the company’s clients include Best Buy, Sony, AT&T and Univision...

PAIDCONTENT.ORG — Best Buy will have a major presence here at CES with a pop-up store in the parking lot, hotel kiosks, sponsorship, and a few hundred employees. But not everyone is in Las Vegas to show off the big-box retail chain in person. Manhattan Blue Shirt Nick DeVita, fellow Blue Shirts and Geek Squad Agents are here to cover CES for their customers—the latest example of a company trying to set its own tone by producing its own consumer media. They’ll be shooting on the show floor and, starting Thursday, sharing the results on The BBY at BBY.com, a new corporate social media-centric site that launched in beta this week...