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Shoutlets garners $15 million and Unified secures $14 million.

Despite Facebooks middling stock price, venture capital firms continue to invest in social marketing.

Social media management platform vendor Shoutlet Inc. announced it has raised $15 million in Series C funding from venture capital firm FTV Capital. The round brings Shoutlets total funding to $24.2 million in outside investment.

Shoutlets technology helps clients, including online retailers, create content and monitor and measure their impact in such online social forums as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The vendor plans to use the funding to finance product development and add staff in all three of its account management and technical support offices.

Shoutlets focus is on helping marketers handle their social media strategies in-house. The wave of customers making the change to in-house management has exceeded our wildest expectations and has validated our do-it-yourself model, says Shoutlet CEO Jason Weaver. This funding will enable Shoutlet to innovate at an even faster pace and aggressively expand our product offering to meet the needs of sophisticated marketers who desire a more rapid response form of social media management." The vendors clients include Canon, Nokia and Wrangler.

Social marketing technology firm Unified also announced a funding round. The company says it has raised $14 million in financing that it plans to use to invest in technology and add staff.

The vendor, whose clients include companies such as Microsoft that sell directly to consumers as well as agencies like Omnicom, helps marketers automate processes for posting on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and YouTube. It also offers tools to measure the spread of posts during social media campaigns and quantify a return on investment for the dollars marketers spend.

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Two social marketing agencies raise funds

HONG KONG, China Googles biggest move against Chinese censorship in two years has won plenty of applause in the West, but skeptics say it does nothing to help Chinese web users themselves.

Last week, the internet giant rolled out a new feature on its Hong Kong-based search site that warns users when a term they are searching for will be blocked, resulting in being shut out from Google for a minute and a half.

Because Google does not comply with Chinese censors as Chinas largest search engine, Baidu, does the government automatically blocks a wide range of words, including some apparently benign and non-political terms. Yangtze River, for example, lands users in the penalty box because of its similarity in Chinese to the name for former president Jiang Zemin.

Google rolled out the feature to plenty of fanfare, with an official blog post and video demonstrating how it works. It is the companys most confrontational public move against Chinas censors since it left the mainland in 2010 after it was hacked by Chinese attackers.

More from GlobalPost: Google to alert Chinese users when keywords being censored

But will it actually make a difference for Chinas internet users at large?

Some experts say that Googles policy is a lot less productive than other ways of bringing better information to Chinese users.

Tricia Wang, a sociologist researching the digital habits of Chinese people, sees this as a sign that Google is trying to be nothing more than a niche search engine in China."

I dont see how this actually reaches their goal, she says. First it only antagonizes the government more, and thereby could make it even harder for the existing user base to access Google. So it could be counterproductive. Second, its targeting people who are already their existing users, so theyre preaching to the preachers."

Ordinary Chinese users are aware of censorship, she says, but what matters most to them is getting useful results. Google's new policy does not make that any easier. The only difference is that now, people searching for the Yangtze River on Google will get a warning to change their language or be blocked. On Baidu, people can search directly for the Yangtze because the politically sensitive results have already been weeded out.

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Google's latest anti-censorship play in China a net loss?

Protesting regulations that they say are tantamount to online censorship, members of the hacking collective known as Anonymous gathered in more than a dozen cities throughout India Saturday though according to some reports, the results of those assemblies were mixed.

According to Rajini Vaidyanathan of BBC News, members of the group organized their gatherings across 16 cities nationwide, including Mumbai, where an estimated 100 protesters donned their trademark Guy Fawkes masks in order to voice their disapproval of federal Internet laws.

Im here for internet freedom. Theres restrictions on speaking online. Thats why Im here, a 19-year-old student named Amisha, who attended the Mumbai event, told Vaidyanathan.

India is following China and Iran. They dont want the right information to reach people, added a 20-year-old student Nishant, whose identity was obscured by sunglasses and a scarf. There are some sites theyve blocked for information which is relevant to us. Information which is useful to us as citizens of this country.

Thousands had agreed to participate in the rallies, but far less actually turned out on Saturday, with members being for the most part invisible during the first hour, Abhimanyu Chandra of the weekly news magazine Tehelka reported. Furthermore, Chandra added that journalists, policemen, and tourists joined the actual protestors during the gathering, and that not everyone in attendance agreed with the groups methods.

I am unsure about their means of seeking their ends. Systematic taking down of websites Im not sure how I feel about that, a Mumbai-based college student, who wished to remain anonymous, told Tehelka. Likewise, another referred to the group as hypocritical and adding, You cannot fight authoritarianism by yourself being authoritarian. Hacking is a sort of violence, while others expressed doubt that the protests would change anything.

The Saturday evening protest included the distribution and presentation of Anonymous paraphernalia. Leaflets were distributed and Guy Fawkes masks were also available, Chandra said. A banner read: The Corrupt Fear Us. The Honest Support Us. The Heroic Join Us. Posters proclaimed: You can censor the internet, but not my mind; and If the government shuts down the internet, keep calm and shut down the government.;

While it teemed with activity and conversation, the event was marked with some disorganization and a low turnout, the Tehelka writer added. Initially scheduled to take place at the Gateway of India, it was eventually held at Azad Maidan [and] the Delhi protest too saw a low turnout at Jantar Mantar.

In related news on Saturday, officials from Indias top agency for dealing with cybersecurity contingencies told the Times of India that their website had not been attacked or taken offline, despite claims made by hackers affiliated with Anonymous earlier in the day.

The cyberattackers had claimed to have brought down the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN) homepage with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack, but officials with the organization told the newspaper that those claims were without any basis and at complete variance with the facts. The fact is that the website has been running continuously & uninterruptedly including the whole of today.

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Anonymous India Censorship Protests Draw Hundreds

D-Link's MovieNite Plus streaming media player accesses a whole lot more content than its little brother, but keeps the price well under control at $80.

Roku may have a worthwhile competitor on its hands. D-Link has has just announced an addition to its media-player line, the D-Link MovieNite Plus.

The MovieNite Plus, also affectionately referred to as the DSM-312, carries on the tradition of a small set-top box designed specifically to stream media from the Internet. D-Link introduced itsMovieNite player (DSM-310)earlier this year at a surprisingly low $49, sold exclusively through Walmart. At the time of its release, the MovieNite struck us a potentially strong competitor to the wildly popular Roku box, but we had some concerns over the MovieNites limited content resources.

Thats where the Plus in the MovieNite Plus comes in. While the $49 MovieNite player is limited to streaming media from six providers (Vudu, Netflix, Pandora, YouTube, Picasa, and mydlink) the MovieNite Plus will source content from up to 130 different channels and play it back in 1080p resolution (when available). The most interesting additions to channel line-up include Flickr, Crackle, Facebook and Twitter. D-Link also indicated Hulu Plus would be on-board later. Amazon Instant Video does not appear to be on the roster for the moment.

The MovieNite Plus will run buyers $80 and is slated to hit both virtual and brick-and-mortar shelves in July. For now, pre-orders are being accepted at Amazon.com.

It remains to be seen if the MovieNite Plus has enough going for it to lure away would-be Roku customers. The Roku, for now, still offers access to more desirable content and it can play games, to boot.

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Stream this: D-Link taps more media with MovieNite Plus

Police surround home in hunt for Auburn suspect Police surround home in hunt for Auburn suspect Alabama authorities say two men are now charged with hindering the search for a man suspected of killing three people and wounding three more during a party near Auburn University. Authorities searching for a man charged with fatally shooting three people near Auburn University converged Monday night on a house in Alabama's capital where they believe he may be hiding. Apple kicks Google Maps off iPhone, adds Facebook Apple kicks Google Maps off iPhone, adds Facebook Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to show off new iPhone software, updated Mac computers and provide more details on future releases of Mac software when he kicks off the company's annual conference for software developers... Steve Jobs' vendetta against Google remains alive, nine months after the Apple co-founder died feeling betrayed by a company he once embraced as an ally. 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UN chief demands end to upsurge in Syria violence UN chief demands end to upsurge in Syria violence Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is demanding an immediate end to the "dangerous intensification" of violence across Syria and is calling on all countries with influence to urge the parties "to pull back from the brink." Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is demanding an immediate end to the "dangerous intensification" of violence across Syria and is calling on all countries with influence to urge the parties "to pull back from the brink." Penn State trial opens with graphic testimony Penn State trial opens with graphic testimony The first witness in Jerry Sandusky's trial said the former Penn State assistant football coach sexually abused him as a young teenager on campus and in hotels and later sent him "creepy love letters." 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BLAIRSVILLE, Ga. (AP) - A Ku Klux Klan group wants to join Georgia's "Adopt-A-Highway" program for litter removal, which could force state officials to make difficult decisions on the application.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (http://bit.ly/LTKlcS ) reports that state officials could be forced to choose between approving the request, denying it and facing a likely legal fight or ending the state's 23-year-old Adopt-A-Highway program. The program features road signs for groups who volunteer to help beautify state highways.

At issue is an application filed by International Keystone Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Union County involving a one-mile stretch of Ga. 515 in the Appalachian Mountains.

The Georgia Department of Transportation is reviewing the request. State officials plan to meet with lawyers from the state Attorney General's Office on Monday to decide how to proceed.

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Information from: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, http://www.ajc.com

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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KKK group aims to adopt highway for litter control