MEDIAPOST — Contests in which consumers help design or contribute to special product labeling -- closely tied in with digital/social media and larger marketing missions, of course -- seem to be popping up with increasing frequency among food manufacturers these days. Two recent examples include Chiquita Brands International and Knorr, Unilever's largest brand...

INSIDE FACEBOOK — The United States has fully bounced back from a period of slow growth in June. Following fairly strong July numbers, we’re now seeing a big gain of five million new monthly active users in August for Facebook’s home country. Seasonality can serve to explain some of what’s happening in the US -- early summer has traditionally been a slow period for social networks and other youth-dominated sites, as high school and college kids take a break from school. But there appears to be more to the story...

MEDIAPOST — Location-based services from Foursquare and Loopt to the new Shopkick app have generated lots of buzz and interest among marketers and investors. But how much spending will they lead to? According to a new report from ABI Research, location-based marketing will increase from only about $43 million this year to $1.8 billion by 1015 as part of overall mobile marketing budgets. "It's still early days and there's no single 'right' approach to location-based advertising," said Neil Strother, practice director for mobile marketing strategies at ABI. "This remains a very fragmented market that is full of experimentation"...

TECHCRUNCH — App store analytics provider Distimo yesterday published its latest report, once again zooming in on the pricing of mobile applications across a variety of platforms. Consistent with its previous findings, Google’s Android Market has by far the largest share of free applications available compared to other mobile app store, but the gap is also widening. In July 2010, 60% of all applications on Android Market were free of charge, representing an increase of 3% since May 2010 when it was 57%...

WEB STRATEGY — Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next? What does a truly advanced company look like in social business? They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria. We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on "Enterprise Social Strategists Role." We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why. Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are "Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts" but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement. Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:...