With the upcoming IPO of Zuck and the gang this week, the entire world appears a-twitter about the value of social media to commerce. There were the high-profile major brand exits from Facebook stores some time ago; then of course this week GM pulled their ads. And many other stories.

Our newest employee (who totally rocks) sent me a transcript of a story that ran on NPR yesterday about a small business in New Orleans (awesome place) that took the plunge on the social media advertising. Of course, the media being what it is, and opinions being what they are, these are all just stories, and only time will tell. I am embarrassed to admit that I was dead wrong about Google, and so while I have my reservations about Facebook’s valuations (its hard not to at those levels), I know enough to speak with caution.

So, as we continue to explore this brave new world of social commerce together, the story seemed worth passing on. Of course, the pizza joint in the story is a brick and mortar outlet, which doesn’t mean that social advertising won’t work, but its different than our online merchant retailer customers who are already seeing very positive results verified by our closed loop analytics.

I for one am greatly enjoying the discussion and debate on this, and the evolution of our understanding of how and why people shop.