• Both Jesper Andersen and Farhad Manjoo – the latter in his first column at Slate – engage in the Internet’s favorite pasttime, the questioning of the accuracy of Chris Anderson’s “Long Tail” notion.
• Jeremiah Owyang rightly points out that not every company needs to be part of the online conversation. It all depends on the audience the company is trying to reach and the stories they have to tell, but that research needs to be at the forefront of any tactics.
• An interesting diagram on how social media is beginning to invade the enterprise infrastructure.
• David Griner has one of the most common-sensical and persuasive posts on the Internet’s second favorite recent activity, talking about how the conversation has shifted off of blogs and onto things like Twitter and FriendFeed.
• The issue of who owns a company blog when the sole writer leaves is something I have some interest in, and I admire Gia’s take on it.
• PaidContent gets bought by The Guardian and MenuPages gets bought by New York Magazine.

• Chris O’Brien at PBS’ Idea Lab blog takes us through the process of inventing a Second Life presence from scratch, including acclimating an entire team to just what being in a virtual world means to begin with.
• If you’re a talented photographer looking to get some additional exposure, that could come in the form of a deal between the site and Getty Images that will allow the latter to check out the photos on Flickr for potential licensing.
• Google has launched Lively, a new virtual world/visual chat engine that…well…I’m not quite sure. It’s got some cool potential, especially in the ways it can be integrated with the rest of the Web. Adverlab has a good write-up of how it works and what it could all mean.
• The shortening of URLs – something that’s useful when you’re doing things like pasting links on Twitter – may not seem like it needs a lot of functionality, but I’ll admit that what Bit.ly can do appears to be pretty darn useful in terms of tracking histories and such.
• And speaking of Twitter, everyone’s favorite digital media writer/PR commentator Brian Morrisey gets interviewed on The Bad Pitch Blog.
• Fred Wilson questions the actual value of some commonly cited new media stats.
• An interesting case study-let of how Toyota has used social media for a campaign for the Scion. [via JD]
• Now that Google is extending its advertising reach to offline media it’s only natural they would launch a Traditional Media Blog, no?

• Both Greg Verdino and David Berkowitz are quoted in this MediaPost article on how social media marketing efforts have the potential to significantly drive down media spending. Since these efforts cost less than traditional media programs – and we’re including everything from straight ad buys to outreach here – and they begin to move to the front of the line for available dollars, it’s completely likely overall spending numbers will come down quite a bit.
• Another story about how search marketing is doing what PR isn’t and how that’s going to wind up destroying PR. Let’s make this clear: Search marketing is, in large part, all about the same reputation management that PR is. If you’re doing PR and you’re not at least thinking about how search, either paid or organic, is impacting your company/client you should probably start doing that….now.
• Oh, and it’s a problem in advertising shops as well, just so we don’t feel like it’s all on us.
• The Chicago Tribune writes about microblogging and manages to use the words “detritus” and “mundane” within the first 25 words or so, meaning I once again win the pool.
• Businessweek is absolutely right – the growth of content recognition software by media companies to find where they’re stuff is appearing online is only going to continue. And that growth is only going to mean more throwdowns between the companies and bloggers who want to grab a few quotes to make or reinforce a point. (And Shel Holtz is right – if the AP is going to make such a stink about how many words are being used elsewhere, it’s only intellectually consistent that they should have the same level of problems with their customers arbitrarily altering text.)
• Charlene Li is leaving Forrester, prompting more than a few “wow”‘s on Twitter.
• Just because I thought it was funny I created a Social Media Yellow Card for people to use in meetings, prompting David Griner of AdFreak to create his own Social Media Red Card. Yeah, we’re insane.

• Adweek’s Alan Wolk posted a great item about how brands can be “relevant” to people within the social networking world, and effectively asks the question whether non “rock star” brands can have success there. [via Ian Schafer on Twitter] (TB)
• You might have noticed that Gary Vaynerchuk’s consistently-awesome Wine Library TV has a new home, Revision3. Check out the standard fare here, and a new, five-minutes-or-less version, Wine Library Reserve, here. Kudos on Rev3 picking up this awesome video podcast and to Gary for the new digs! (TB)

• Josh Hallett has what might be the strongest response to Tom Foremski’s legitimate issue about social media PR folks who aren’t themselves blogging or otherwise interacting with others, saying it’s really the work that matters. While we all might not be able to talk about specific programs that have been run like some people are that is what’s most important, that we’re doing good work for our clients. If we’re meeting that goal then word will spread and a solid reputation built on that whether or not you’re all about FriendFeed or whatevs. (CT)
• Mike Manuel must be crazy because he thinks we need to reign in our perceptions that everyone on the interwebs with an opinion is worth paying attention to. I don’t know where he gets these ideas. (CT)
• This list of newspapers that are on Twitter is interesting, but a quick look at a handful of them show almost no actual conversations going on. The papers are just using Twitter as another distribution channel, which is alright I suppose, but it’s still a little disappointing that there isn’t more interaction with readers, something that builds the sort of loyalty papers seem to be in desperate need of nowadays. (CT)

• Sybase says that it’ll have “corporate class email support for the iPhone” maybe as early as this year, according to Macworld UK (TB)
• The WSJ‘s Peter Sanders writes about news that Disney is set to close down its Virtual Magic Kingdom, and the challenges it is facing from its fans. (TB)

• Andy Beal dives into a look at the dark side of online reputation management. I’m most struck by the fact the statement that most companies just want to sweep problems under Google’s rug and not actually address the issues that are leading to negative posts, which strikes me as wrong on at least five levels I can count. (CT)
• Author Buzz Bissinger: Not a fan of the blogs. (CT)
• It’s repetitive of me to say this is a good post by Chris Brogan on how touchy-feely you need to be when “pitching” bloggers, but you should still read it. (CT)
• David Armano is celebrating the 100th post to the CriticalMass Experience Matters blog. (CT)
• The idea that human-powered search should abandon long tail content to search engine algorithms seem to me to be both short-sighted and ridiculous, since human beings should do a *better* job of pointing to content that might not otherwise make it through other filters. Chris Anderson addresses the question and identifies many of the potential problems with such a strategy. (CT)
• CNN uses the recent ROFLcon as a hook discuss being internet famous. (CT)

• Over on Twitter, MarketingProfs point out a great item from Mack Collier, who suggests that we’re all becoming extroverts. And by all, he means, people well beyond the “usual suspects” in the Web 2.0 space. (TB)
• Between this mention on Twitter from Constantin Basturea regarding “complaints” on FOX’s “Family Guy” and Doyle Redland’s rant on ranters at The Onion (probably NSFW for some of you), I’d say that someone’s trying to say a little something-something about complainers on the Internet. (TB)
• Thomson Reuters has issued a new code of conduct for employees of the merged company, some of which touch on blogging. While it’s apparently alright to mention you work for T-R on your blog you are restricted from mentioning competitors as well as any conflicts you might have with fellow employees or the company itself. (CT)

• Wired is working on a journalistic stylebook that’s specific to online writing, focusing on things like best linking practices and web-specific terminology. Seems like a great idea that’s long overdue. (CT)
• The Wall Street Journal gives a “Blog Relations 101” lesson to its readers, but also includes a mention of Twitter, which is where it probably lost a lot of people. [via Todd] (CT)
• Some good corporate blogging tips from Jason Falls. [via John Cass] (CT)
• Greg Verdino correctly identifies the “Ooo…ads…let’s go somewhere else” syndrome that seems to afflict a good number of free online platforms as soon as monetization is introduced. (CT)
• More thoughts, this time from Lee Odden, on using SEO as a PR tool. (CT)

Yeah, Tom might be insane, but I defy you not to laugh when he gets to the Ask tab.