As it has now become obligatory to write up a post on Facebook on any blog with anything to do with Web 2.0, I will now end my holdout with a hopefully original take on the hype. With the growth of the “fb” population coming from mainly the 25 and older crowd, the groups and communities are beginning to reflect the aging populace. And while the hype among marketers has been focused on how to tap into the platform to reach user communities, something I haven’t seen covered is how the platform could change the game for b-to-b marketers. While this might seem crazy from a traditional media planning perspective, the tools being used by coeds to plan keggers can easily be adopted to hawk consulting services. The groups on Facebook range from niche to mainstream, but there is a much higher rate of participation, and there are a surprising (at least to me) number of media and industry influencers who regularly participate and engage members of the public groups. True, being a member of the Web 2.0 (and Redskins) groups will skew my opinion, but groups are being formed at a pace that it is easy to imagine a much wider range of industries and professions with similar representation in the near future. The normal playbook for targeting a specific industry is composed of a combination of email lists, trade media, SEO, and events, which all carry a heavy premium to micro-target. A B-to-B marketer can easily identify, join and participate in groups as an individual (though if you’re spammy, you’ll be kicked) and create a targeted widget for a fraction of the cost of any of the traditional strategies. Combine this with the higher response rates (versus email and banners), and a Social Network strategy suddenly seems less insane. Now, if only Linkedin would allow pictures….

Digg founder Kevin Rose made a brief but momentous post on his blog yesterday, announcing that Microsoft was now the exclusive ad provider for the premiere social news service. While more than a few have commented on what this will mean in the near term, I haven’t seen as much attention paid to what this might mean for Microsoft’s AdCenter platform and its customers. Digg announced a while ago that they would be extending the service to product and restaurant reviews which will be a very compelling offering for marketers. While too much of the content voted to prominence now focuses on wacky pictures and fringe politics (mixed with great tech news), the real potential of digg comes into play when it can help users not just find what’s what’s massively popular, but also discover peer-vetted niche areas of content. And as great a tool as it potentially could be, it becomes extremely compelling when integrated with the Window Live Services. While it is great that Google Maps now includes reviews when it can find them, a consistent and comprehensive review source such as the diggnation would be much more predictable, and in the long term, reliable. The same kind of potential can be seen when looking at Search or MSN Shopping as well. Combined with earlier Facebook agreement, Microsoft is doing more than gaining eyeballs, they are advancing a smart web strategy.

The recent deals between Google and DoubleClick and Microsoft and aQuantive have placed a lot of attention on the top and bottom of the classic marketing funnel(Awareness -> Consideration -> Shop). The massive amounts of display inventory that the networks bring to the search engines has raised the possibility of integrated buys that follow the consumer from when they first realize a need for a product all the way through to the actual shopping phase. What these deals and the theoretical buy leaves out, however, is the middle. What appears when a person asks a community for their thoughts on a purchase or looks for more information online is more often than not a peer’s opinion. Similarly, the top links in a search result will often be a Wikipedia entry and peer review information. This community-generated content is viewed with more credibility as it is often based on real-world experience. While that is not news (hopefully), one needs only to look at the top of the funnel to see that most/all brand creative is focused on creating an emotional connection with an individual instead of starting a substantive conversation with a community. We monitor millions of conversations from film to pharma, and do you know what no one talks about online? How a brand makes them “feel”- they instead address how a product works for them. Until agencies and marketers address this, all of the efficiencies and data generated by these deals will fail to address the most powerful input for a consumer, Word-Of-Mouth.

iMedia Connection: The Snickers Factor: When Buzz Turns Bad - Thanks to iMedia for giving us this opportunity, and we’ve received a lot of great feedback so far on the piece, which is due to the great work the team here at NMS did in pulling the report together. I also wanted to emphasize a couple things in the article to be clear.

First off, the main angle was about how Snicker’s media strategy made it easier for their critics to attack them, and how that could be avoided in the future by other marketers. Why the creative offended people and whether or not Masterfoods would have been better off addressing the issues involved instead of selling product and promoting the brand is well beyond the scope of the article.

Second, the “five years ago” statement might have been an underestimation- the best comparison I’ve heard to date is to the Miller Lite “Catfight” spot, and that aired in 2003. Though it might be more valuable to the hypothetical question as to what the reaction to the “Mechanics” spot would have been if it featured two women, I think the fact that Miller was able to overcome the controversy and actually expand the schedule of the spot in the face of similar criticism is a testament to the growing influence of the consumer.

I’m excited to announce that we are merging with Meredith Corporation.  It’s a big day here and people are fired up- partly because of new possibilities that this will open up and partly because we are able to keep what we have – no changes in operations, management, or what makes this company terrific.  I think it’s great that an established media company like Meredith sees the same potential we do in Word-of-Mouth and social media that we do, and it’s a big step for both of us.  New markets, new audiences, and new products are down the road, so check back here periodically to see some of what we’re working on.

Good to see the New York Times article on WOM monitoring today , as the importance of monitoring consumer opinions cannot be underestimated. It is interesting, however, that the Times focused only on software-based solutions and not human-based analysis of online conversations. In our experience, there is no substitution for experienced analysts when it comes to recognizing things like sarcasm, context, and lingo. Also, real time monitoring is only as good as your filter, and false leads and trends can overwhelm clients quickly with random noise. I haven’t seen any studies comparing the difference between human and bot accuracy, but I would be shocked if they were close.

While I don’t really tend to cover current events, the blogging (and the Flickring, and the YouTube activities, etc) going on about the Thailand coup is fascinating. Of course, this post sums up the activity better than I ever could.