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For the past month, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo and his team have been pitching TV networks and ad execs on a new way to make money, called Amplify, that allows Twitter and its media partners to sell ads against snippets of shows or other video clips. But while the company is clearly looking to exploit the buzz around TV shows, Madison Avenue is proving to be a skeptical audience, according to ad execs who are wary of sharing ad dollars and clients.

Justin Auciello, founder of the Jersey Shore Hurricane News Facebook page, on the news service he created prior to 2011’s Hurricane Irene: “My vision was to provide a ground swell of accurate information — no spin, no rumors — from both personal reporting and news curation from all angles, including potential weather impacts, evacuation orders, shelter information, store closures and breaking news.”

On Facebook, the largest social media platform, news is a common but incidental experience, according to a Pew Research Center study. Overall, about half of adult Facebook users, 47%, “ever” get news there. That amounts to 30% of the population. Most U.S. adults do not go to Facebook seeking news out, the survey finds. Instead, the vast majority of Facebook news consumers, 78%, get news when they are on Facebook for other reasons. And 4% say it is the most important way they get news.

Facebook and Twitter are vying to become the nation’s digital water cooler as they woo networks and advertisers.

Facebook has plugged a gap in its sales organization, hiring David Lawenda to be its VP-global sales for the U.S. As Facebook’s new U.S. sales chief, Lawenda — a veteran TV sales exec who’s worked at Univision, Viacom and Turner Broadcasting — steps into the role vacated by Tom Arrix in July.

This week, Facebook says it will begin sending weekly reports to ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC, offering a glimpse of how much chatter their shows are generating on the social network. The reports will reveal how many “actions” — likes, comments, or shares — a television episode has inspired on Facebook and how many members participated in an action.

The ABC affiliate claims that it has more “Likes” than any other local TV station in the country, thanks in part to a big time contest sponsored by the Mercedes Benz Dealers of Southern California.

Is liking something on Facebook a form of protected expression akin to putting a bumper sticker on your car? The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals says, yes, it is. The ruling comes in response to a sheriff who sacked a deputy for liking the Facebook page of his political rival.

While Google continued to dominate the global mobile ad market, taking more than half of what is forecast to be a $16.65 billion market in 2013, Facebook is making big gains. The social network is expected to see its share of global mobile Internet ad revenues reach 15.8% this year, up from just 5.35% in 2012, the first year it had mobile ad offerings, according to eMarketer.

Facebook Inc., seeking to break the long-held dominance of television over advertising budgets, plans to sell 15-second TV-style commercials on its site for as much as $2.5 million a day, according to two people familiar with the matter.

A new study from Trendrr found that TV-related activity on Facebook was five times higher than on all other social networks combined.

You may find more promos for new fall TV shows online these days than you will on your TV set. With the rise in social-media has come an intensification of TV-network efforts to inject their new programs into the pop-culture conversation. The new season is weeks away, with many of the broadcast networks not launching fall series until mid-to-late September, or even October. However, on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook, the freshman series of autumn are already striving to be seen and heard.

Facebook has announced it will be integrating digital entertainment service Rovi Corp. into its platform. The two companies have agreed to form a partnership whereby Rovi’s information database of movies, TV shows and celebrities will be tied into Facebook profiles. By doing so, it will allow the social network’s users to share further details of content that they like to their profiles.

Facebook’s Kay Madati and Google’s David Gehring in a “fireside chat” at the NAB Show gave tips to local broadcasters who have seen their way of business eroded by the Internet behemoths. Madati urged TV and radio companies to keep social media interaction brief and conversational. “Short, snackable content is much better than long form,” he said.

Netflix users will be able to swiftly intersect with social media as the streaming video giant offers the opportunity to link an account with Facebook. The millions of Netflix streamers will be able to sync their accounts, such that friends’ information on TV viewing activity appears only within Netflix, or alternatively, more widely on Facebook.

Social media’s promise and promotion to drive viewers to TV programs may be yielding low results. When people were asked whether they watched a TV show or movie because of buzz on Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, 67% said “no” and 19% said “yes.”

Among online channels, Facebook had the greatest influence on getting people to watch a show — 46% said they picked up a show as a result of the social network — followed by Twitter (14%), According to a September 2012 survey of U.S. internet users conducted by Nielsen for CTAM.

Facebook is set to unveil video ads in the first half of next year in its largest attempt to attract big swaths of ad dollars from TV advertisers.

Neflix said Thursday that the Securities and Exchange Commission informed it that its staff is recommending civil action be brought against the company and CEO Reed Hastings. The reason: Hastings’ July 3 post in which he said Netflix’s online video viewing “exceeded 1 billion hours for the first time ever in June.”

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has held discussions with Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, about how the two companies can work more closely together.

The Today show’s Facebook page lit up this weekend when Erica Hill became a co-host of Weekend Today, the Saturday and Sunday offshoot of the NBC morning show. Hundreds of fans said they were dismayed by the network’s decision to bump Jenna Wolfe, the previous co-host on Sundays, out of the job.

The Facebook Page and Contest Management Platform provides a single access point to update multiple Facebook pages simultaneously and create, publish and manage Facebook contests.

Viewers of NBC’s coverage will be encouraged to talk about the Games on Facebook, and Facebook users will be reminded to watch the coverage on NBC.

On the hunt for new revenue streams, Facebook is pitching TV chiefs on a new online video ad model that would monetize its popular “like” button. Under the plan being discussed by the social network giant and some cable TV executives, Facebook would give the networks the ability to ascertain the popularity of certain video content on its platform while taking a cut of the added ad revenue created by the increased exposure, sources said.

Facebook’s stock is set to begin trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market today, the day after the world’s definitive online social network raised $16 billion in an initial public offering that valued the company at $104 billion. That’s more than Amazon.com and other well-known companies such as Kraft, Walt Disney and McDonald’s.

General Motors Inc.’s decision to stop advertising on Facebook may be a wake-up call for the No. 1 social network, but top advertising executives say it’s far too early to know if the site will take off as an advertising platform.

Bitly, the URL shortener of choice for most people, has analyzed its click-tracking data to find the optimal days and times for posting links to social media. The results show interesting, distinct patterns among Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr.

Panelists at an NAB session debate the finer points of the value and influence of Twitter, Facebook et al., but a consensus was clear: It’s hard to overestimate social media’s impact on politics. For all that’s going on at NAB 2012, click here.

The new tools allow local media sites to add relavant social media content from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube below their own content and integrate weather content from Weather Central.

The ABC owned-and-operated station has the largest like/follower count across both Facebook (344K) and Twitter (78K) of any TV station in the country and the first time any TV station tops both the Facebook and Twitter list.

Here are a five techniques TV station newsrooms use for their Facebook cover photos to tease viewers into becoming fans. What are some other trends you’re seeing with cover photos on news organizations’ brand Timelines? Which approach do you think works best?

The key to an active Facebook page for your station is the same as it is for your own personal page. If you have interesting things to say and engage people in conversation, your Facebook audience will grow and the participants will value the page. If your Facebook page is used as a marketing tool, and the only way you get “likes” is with contests, nobody is going to bother with it. Here are some pretty basic things you can do to improve the number of fans and the activity on your station’s page.

Cory Bergman: “Beyond the value of growing brand reach through your people — and the referrals that come with it — it’s also a valuable resource for consumers who may be interested in that person, and by extension, want an easy way to connect with him/her.”