While the realtime web brings us a wealth of instant information on-demand, it’s often necessary to use filters to consumer information from the social web. Tickreel, which is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt today, is launching a powerful filter based around users’ web activity and interest graphs. The application aims to streamline the web around topics instead of people; and you can follow a specific topic manually

Group buying sites such as Groupon have proven to be a lucrative model for social e-commerce. Today, ChompOn is launching at TechCrunch Disrupt to bring a white-label group buying service to the space, allowing business owners to create their own deal of the day. ChompOn’s platform allows businesses to easily create a deal of the day (which is hosted on ChompOn), and set limits on the discount, how many people can access the sale and how long the sale is available for.

This week’s list of the 20 Facebook Pages that gained the most new fans in the past week shows ongoing trends, according to our  PageData analytics service – entertainment Pages continue to get more popular, fast. The numerous television shows we’ve been seeing are present, along with some popular musicians who have been staples on the list

As users flock to location-based services like Foursquare and Gowalla, local businesses and media organizations are beginning to use the check-in as a marketing tool for events and campaigns.

Back in March, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz wrote a post called The Case For The Fat Startup , where he outlined some of the reasons why a fledging company might want to consider taking a large amount of funding — a strategy that contrasts with the ‘lean startup’ model that has become common in Silicon Valley. Fred Wilson , another well known VC, countered with a post of his own explaining why Being Fat Is Not Healthy . Today, both men took the stage at TechCrunch Disrupt for a semi-formal debate, where they critiqued each others stances in person.

Computer and software security company McAfee has acquired Trust Digital, a company that provides security software to mobile phones. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Trust Digital provides enterprise smartphone security and management software for government organizations and various companies

Appbistro launched at TechCrunch’s Disrupt conference Monday with the goal of providing brands a one-stop destination for the applications for Page administrators to enhance their Facebook Pages. Some of the apps are free and others cost money; Appbistro can either suggest apps for Page admins or you can search Appbistro’s marketplace, of apps

Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York, AOL co-founder (and former CEO) Steve Case took the stage to talk with Michael Arrington. He was full of interesting things to say — especially since current AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was on the stage earlier and the two just celebrated AOL’s 25th anniversary.

General Electric is crowdsourcing their next digital / social media ad blitz, Global executive Director, Advertising and Branding Judy Hu just announced on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. In the spirit of disruption, GE is bypassing the traditional agency model for marketing campaigns

It was almost exactly one year ago that Google released the first dev build of Chrome for Mac and Linux. At the time, even though they released it, they didn’t really want you to use it.