Media Week

Is it good or bad to publish customer reviews on your e-commerce site? Does it lift sales by making your site more trustworthy or put people off buying altogether?

Brett Hurt, CEO of Bazaarvoice has got some interesting views but more importantly - stats.

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/newsletter/link_track.asp?id=3583&link_id=

Mahalo has just launched an interesting social search engine service where users submit their own links and they then get rated.

What could this mean for the future of search engines?

http://www.searchviews.com/index.php/archives/2007/12/search-engine-mahalo-launches-social-features.php

Innocent has done a deal with McDonald's which is generating a lot of heat on its blog

http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com/innocent_drinks/2007/05/to_burger_or_no_1.html

A US company has decided to introduce Facebook Fridays to give staff time to be on Facebook rather than banning it altogether.

http://www.serena.com/company/news/pr/sPR_11022007.html

It is a gimmicky idea and will doubtless generate Serena a lot of press but it does highlight how progressive companies are thinking about social media.

It is exasperating when you meet internal communications professionals whose idea of introducing social media to their staff is to set up a blog for the MD. Will it work? Probably not.

MDs want to engage with their staff. Well why don't they take some time out and consider how social media applications could really assist them.

But they have to understand that social media is about letting staff create the content and involving them. And it is about being innovative. Social Media is also a cultural change. It is going to demand that companies re-think how they talk to customers and to their staff. But it could really benefit those companies who use social media applications in a progressive way. I also think it is a cop out to suggest that these applications are only relevant to young people. Communications executives in large organisations should be engaging with social media because it is here now and it is the future.

Met a major bank today to discuss how they would approach social media.

Obviously there are concerns about managing the risks of episodes like HSBC and Facebook but it was really encouraging to hear how banks are beginning to see that social media tools offer them new positive opportunities to engage with stakeholders.

My company (www.itsopen.co.uk) organised a web 2.0 briefing in the City earlier this week and Damian Carrington, interactive editor of FT.com gave a really interesting talk about how the paper is using new web technologies to engage with its readership.Damian stressed the need to use the web now to engage with readers/visitors in a faster and richer way. For a full report and to hear what other speakers said, go to http://blog.willmcinnes.co.uk/blog/