WSJ on Consumer-Generated Media

Wall Street Journal Online details how more companies are using blogs as a market research device. This article starts to shift our focus away from using blogs as a reactive radar to spot trouble on the horizon to how we can use blogs, and more, as market research for future efforts. white paper, Consumer-Generated Media 101: Word-of-Mouth in the Age of the Web-Fortified Consumer, they note that "as consumers create, share and circulate more and more of their own content on the Internet, marketers, brand managers and entire corporations must take notice. These rapidly growing consumer-to-consumer discussion forums, message boards, blogs and other forms of online media frequently carry a higher trust factor than traditional media and marketing channels - a phenomenon that presents marketers and business professionals with new challenges...and new opportunities." Registration is required to download the white paper, but it's worth the effort. Kevin Dugan is the author of the popular FRCH Design Worldwide Visit Kevin's blog: