Looking back on what became a tough end to a tough year for the retail sector, the one bright spot was the online sector. Shoppers whipped out their plastic at a record rate on Black Friday, a trend that continued throughout the season.

The Amazon (AMZN) Kindle killed the competition, reinforcing the status of the online channel as the future of the retail business. Social media, in particular, had its first real test this year, as many companies -- including Best Buy (BBY), JCPenney (JCP) and Target (TGT) -- used the likes of Twitter and Facebook to engage customers, publicize sales and generally increase revenue. The next stage in the evolution, of course, is to use shopping behavior to trigger viral results.

If your job last year was to raise private equity capital, you couldn't have been all that happy. Capital raising hit its lowest level since 2003, according to Dow Jones LP Source by way of VentureBeat, falling to $95.8 billion for 331 funds. In 2008, $300 billion had been raised across 508 funds, translating to a 68% year-over-year decline. Nobody was spared the struggle to raise funds, except secondary funds, which reported a 50% surge in fund raising.

The buyout fund, among the largest sectors in the private equity business, saw the capital raised fall 72.5%, from $195.5 billion in 2008 to a mere $53.7 billion in 2009. The largest buyout funds suffered most: only six funds with more than $6 billion under management raised an aggregate $14 billion. The year before, it took only 12 funds of this size to pull in a combined $75.2 billion in fresh capital.

Social networking attracts tons of traffic. But what about money?

Well, a variety of companies are working on it.

Take SocialMedia Networks. This week, the company announced that it raised $3.5 million in venture capital. The investors include Charles River Ventures and Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen.

SocialMedia is putting together an all-in-one system that monitors and analyzes traffic, provides strategies for promotions and has an ad network. All of it is provided on a self-service basis.

Yes, it's ambitious stuff. But, if SocialMedia can pull it off, the rewards should be substantial.

Visit DealProfiles to check out other recent venture fundings.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.