A new branded social network, Perfunkt engages gourmands and world-class chefs around original niche content. While Perfunkt seems to align with its audience’s minimalist tastes and plugs into Facebook’s Open Graph nicely, the site itself seems a little…well…perfunctory compared to Epicurious and the myriad of other foodie communities out there.

So what do you think? Is Perfunkt niche marketing cooked to perfection or just another half-baked corporate attempt to concoct a community?

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With over 500 million users, Facebook is on top of the world. Which raises a good question: how can The Social Network avoid the MySpace conundrum?

Minting the world’s first global currency is one option — hence Facebook Credits. The idea makes sense from a logistical standpoint, given Facebook’s vast walled garden. But are we ready for a global treasurer/creditor who:

• Knows what we did last night
• Shares that info with whomever it pleases
• Laughs like this

So yes, Facebook Credits are right around the corner. Facebook First International Trust, on the other hand, may take a while to get here.

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http://www.playretailtherapy.com/PopSugar-Retail-Therapy-9128164#ooid=F3ODlrM…

Stitch together select swatches of Habbo, Farmville and Second Life and you have PopSugar’s Retail Therapy. A new social fashion game, Retail Therapy allows users to create online boutiques where they can sell virtual goods to their friends from real brands like Topshop and Diane Von Furstenberg. While the monetization potential for participating brands is substantial, we’ll see whether this gaming model splits at the seam or holds up over the long haul. 

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About two hours ago, Tumblr joined the ranks of Quantcast’s top 50 U.S. sites — another win in a string of victories the microblog platform has had this year alone. So why is Tumblr on fire? Maybe it’s because that’s where big media’s been setting up shop. Or perhaps it’s due to the fact that they attract top talent. Our guess is that it has something to do with how easy it is to share the love through likes and reblogs. But whatever the reason, we’ve got a feeling the best is yet to come for David Karp and company.

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Ben & Jerry’s has always been a free-spirited brand. But hippie businessfolk don’t play when it comes to connecting with their communities. So when the savvy Vermont-based company announced its plans to replace email with social media in its eCRM program, the question became not “What were they smoking?” but “Where can I score some?” Decisions like this make sense for visionary brands like Ben & Jerry’s, who already have millions of engaged fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter. After all, you see things a little differently when you have Moo Vision.

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You know and love those Old Spice commercials. But did you know The Man Your Man Could Look Like will return your Twitter love on YouTube? As far as cross-promotion goes, this Wieden + Kennedy beast is half horse, half swan and all sorts of awesome — and it just keeps getting better. Fingers crossed it doesn’t jump the shark like some other wildly popular, character-driven campaigns we know.

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Apparently big media is betting elective surgery can help it cope with its identity crisis, and the new face of news has begun to emerge from underneath the bandages. In fact, between Bloomberg’s reboot, The Times’s digital mitosis, and the BBC news revamp (among others), we’re seeing the industry’s major players up the ante with each new bid for digital relevance.

The Economist’s recent makeover (which launched today) serves as a good example of the mixed results we’re seeing from this approach. While the site’s enhancements give it a cleaner UI as well as a crisp look and feel, the new Economist.com home page fails to leverage the power of social media in any meaningful way. And oversights of that magnitude can turn even the freshest faces into sourpusses overnight.

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It’s like Keichii Matsuda took Jesse Schell’s predictions for the future of social and made them real. Do you like what you see?

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At first blush, the Influence Project appears to be Don’t Tell Ashton on The Butterfly Effect’s budget. Not the case. A closer look at the competition Fast Company launched today reveals a social experiment aiming to show how influence works online.

But will the project serve as a true barometer of individual influence or just one big breathalyzer for ego gratification? And, more importantly, is there much of a difference between the two? Follow the competition to find out. Just remember: walk the line heel to toe.

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Less clutter. More video. More social. According to this sneak preview, these are just a few of the improvements we’ll see on the soon-to-be-refreshed BBC News website.

Unlike recent Times and Sunday Times site revamps, the BBC News reboot looks to be more about knocking down UI barriers than building paywalls between its users and its content. Cheers to that.

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