Following a trial run at the South by Southwest digital conference in March, Foursquare and American Express are teaming up to offer discounts across the US to AmEx cardholders. AmEx commented tonight on Twitter: "Amex and Foursquare go national! Sync, explore, save... GET STARTED NOW."

As the New York Times notes, "Foursquare users are accustomed to receiving awards in the form of coupons and digital merit badges. But more substantial deals like those being offered to American Express cardholders may bring Foursquare and other location-based services further into the mainstream."

“In 2010, it was all about the check in,” commented eMarketer analyst Noah Elkin to the Times. “Now, it’s about checking out.”Continue reading...

"Friction-free." That was the catchphrase at Facebook's press event today in Palo Alto, where the social network aggressively moved to own the log-in standard for mobile.

Three key pieces in its mobile strategy were announced: Single Sign-On; Location APIs for check-in to Facebook Places from third-party apps; and — in big news for brand marketers — Facebook Deals, a new feature of Facebook Places check-ins enabling businesses to target local promotions by individual, loyalty, friend and non-profit categories.

To help spur Facebookers to check-in and check out local deals, GAP (which used Facebook to gauge reaction to, and then retract, its recent logo) is giving away free jeans to the first 10,000 customers who check-in via mobile or in-store. Northface is also making a charitable donation of one dollar per check-in (up to $150,000) to reward visitors at a store or National Park.

Any privacy concerns about mobile usage of Facebook isn't deterring CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who today stated that “Our goal is to have all apps be social regardless of platform. We’re a developer-heavy company with a horizontal approach to platform.”Continue reading...

Google is struggling to crack social, but it's not a home run internally. An anonymous employee tells the New York Times:

"There is some belief at Google that their DNA is not perfectly suited to build social products, and it’s a quite controversial topic internally." The social part of social media — cool factor, sharing, photos, following other’s every action — are apparently anathema to Googlers and engineers raised in a ‘utilitarian’ ethos, continues this deep throat. “Google’s made a lot of money helping people make decisions using search engines, but more and more people are turning to social outlets to make decisions,” said Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group. “And whenever people make decisions, there’s money involved.”

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Ford’s recent Fiesta Movement and Focus Rally: America, are examples of social strategic moves that are being institutionalized, the automaker's head of social media, Scott Monty, tells SmartBlog: “We are in the process, right now, of training all our communications staff on social media, because we believe it's going to be built into the communications professional’s arsenal of the future…we’re moving from a kind of top-down model to a kind of hub-and-spoke model — and beyond that it’s a hub-and-spoke-and-dandelion process, so each of those spokes have their own expertise. And this not only happens at all the vehicles, but it’s going to happen at the global level as well — all of our regions, all of our countries.”Continue reading...

Following its record-breaking social media-mapping marketing promotion with Virgin via taco trucks and airport check-ins, Loopt recently teamed with the Sports Authority apparel retailer in its next iteration: premier retailer woos the mobile consumer.

In this campaign, Loopt Star users could receive rewards available through iTunes in two ways:

1. Check in at any pro sports team stadium and receive a $10 cash card to use on any purchase at Sports Authority. 

2. Check in at any Sports Authority store, and receive $10 off a purchase of $50 or more. 

Loopt Star calls it a mobile rewards game, as CEO Sam Altman explains, "to encourage multiple visits."Continue reading...

The basic human desire for an "over the back fence" chat is virtual, as sharing recommendations and nattering online is now ingrained behavior. Search engines, naturally, are becoming more social as friends influence friends in actionable, clickable ways that Web-based companies (from big dogs — Google, Facebook, Amazon, Yahoo, Twitter — to smaller, such as Loopt) are scrambling to monetize.

As Forrester analyst Augie Ray comments in today's New York Times, “What your friends think and what people like you think is much more relevant than what everybody thinks,” said Augie Ray, a Forrester Research analyst. “Improving search has always been about improving relevance. But the thinking now is that getting information from your immediate social network is what will really make results more relevant.”Continue reading...

Virgin America’s recent foray into social media-mapping-marketing scored a home run.

Partnering with Loopt, a location-based mobile check-in app, Virgin offered two-for-one plane tickets from California to Los Cabos or Cancun. The only criteria for eligibility was for a customer to check-in via Loopt at an airport (LAX or SFO) or one of several taco trucks in San Francisco and LA during a four-hour window.

That's right -- a taco truck. In fact, an astounding 1,300 people checked-in just at one taco truck, in San Francisco, while 80% bought Virgin America tickets. The results indicate that checking in, socially, could be a smart precursor to checking in, physically, at an airport.Continue reading...

BP's shares tumble as it begins latest attempt to stop Gulf leak and new charges emerge.

AIG and Prudential failed to reach a deal for AIA insurance business in Asia.

J&J's McNeil unit pulled TV ads month before stopping Tylenol production due to earlier recall.

Kimberly-Clark humanizes Scott paper products brand with spokesman called Scott.

Unilever's plans for Sara Lee face EU inquiry.Continue reading...