The New York Times has published an article about consumer generated media, social media, and how conversations within the “blogosphere” are being leveraged by companies that monitor and track what’s going on.

» Brands for the chattering masses.

The article mentions a few examples such as Dell (with reference, no doubt, to the now infamous “Dell Hell” saga), Toyota/Lexus USA, and Coca-Cola who either have or should have been using systems like BuzzMetrics to gauge consumer attitudes and opinions online.

My feeling is that although blogging here in South Africa is still gaining weight and influence, it may be a while* before we really see a blogger inflict serious damage with a few strokes on the keyboard. That said, now is the time to get your house in order.

I see the Quirk is offering what they call WebPR+ “An introduction to PR for Web2.0“. (Hopefully this doesn’t mean that if you’re still on Web1.5 you won’t know what’s going on.) I’m sure it will be well worth the admission fee. I hope they’ll let me in.

* a while = between 1 day and 1 year