Rothbury Music Festival - Think Tank's

Very cool and innovative to see think-tank work being done as part of the Rothbury music festival, I mean you can't stand and watch music for 4 days straight can you? I do think this is a great way to leverage the minds that are taking part in this event and not only get messages out to a very targeted audience, but to hear back from the audience on what matters to them. As these festivals become more about the experience than just the music, I see this taking on a larger and larger role. You 0basically will have around 50 to 60 thousand people b/w the ages of 15 and 40 at this event, stuck in the middle of Rothbury, MI for 4 days. What better way to get their opinions and mindshare.

Facebook profiles for sale

This could be the low point of Social Media Marketing:

http://www.adrants.com/2008/06/facebook-profiles-and-their-friends.php#more

IAB Conference

I served on a panel at the IAB - Social Media / UGC Leadership conference in New York on June 2nd. The panel was focused on 'What's hot and what's next in Social Media'. I am lucky to sit in a digital media strategy role at Microsoft where we can innovate within technology and social platforms across the large global campaigns. We are currently working on advertising on blogs, facebook gadgets, building relationships with key influencers, and also have several leading bloggers within the company. In terms of what is next, I really focused back on the 'Why' and for your given campaign or company goals - what is your product and who are you trying to sell it to? There are several free to market tools - google blog search, Technorati, Digg, Social networks, ... that will tell you what consumers are saying, how they are engaging, and who is influencing these conversations. Building that discipline is critical prior to engaging in anything around 'what's next'...