Different entities share guilt (but not equally): - People who bought homes they couldn't afford are guilty. - Mortgage brokers, who helped convince home buyers to take on variable apr mortgage loans, are guilty. - advertisers that created the ads... - Publishers that ran the ads. But I don't see how anyone could blame advertising agencies in general. That's kind of silly. But specifically, some advertising agencies are promoting scams and unethical services. For example, Euro RSCG, which created the cashforgold.com spot, is partially to blame for every consumer ripped off by their client. Ben Edelman does a good job covering some of the online deception that takes place throughout his blog. I thought his post on Yahoo's Right Media was interesting. www.benedelman.org/rightmedia-deception/ George Packer's blog is often mean-spirited, entertaining, adolescent, but it's certainly not a serious threat to AAAA and its members.

@faris I can't even see the actual quote from Henry Jenkins in the link you provide so my bad for referring to it. Jason Oke says something in that post but not exactly the same thing. Regardless, I didn't actually say what I meant in my first comment on Henry Jenkin's quote (and I'm not sure why I wrote it that way). What I meant was, if T-Mobile gave a brief to Saatchi that says, "Remember, the key is to bring people together and give them something to do" the best response would not be a 2 minute ad for broadcast and YouTube but instead a helpful digital (and possibly analog) service that brought people together and gave them something to do. I'll post a bit later on the other points.

@jaffejuice Have you considered using DISQUS? You could still avoid conversations when appropriate but I imagine it would help to better facilitate conversation when its good. The only downside I've seen to the product is that DISQUS makes keeping up-to-date with the latest posts more difficult than other commenting platforms.

@faris There's only one problem. It's not real. In fact, because it's simulating reality, it's either manipulative or signaling inauthenticity. The recent mock flashmob movement, as Daan notes, reveals an obsession with how spontaneous, "viral" moments and movements are created. It would be great if companies inspired authentic WOM rather than simulate it. I think Henry Jenkins meant for companies to build public digital spaces, not simulate what that world might or might not look like.

Whether or not a company should hire a full-time social media marketer depends on the company, its marketing operations, and scale. Scott Monty from Ford has 19,000+ followers on Twitter but that doesn't mean 19,000+ people are listening to what he has to say. Most followers don't actually follow. It's important to listen to consumers and to communicate with them as humanly as possible but when a business decides where to invest cash, it needs to choose carefully. Twitter, more often than not, is not the right answer.

I would think that blogging provides for a much richer conversation and dialogue than Twitter. Twitter may superficially appear to have broadcast-like qualities. But how many of your 10,000 Twitter followers really read each tweet. Probably very few. Your blog probably garners significantly more attention. You may use Twitter to explore other people's ideas and to get some form of feedback from your Twitter readers but the real substance of any conversation that comes from Twitter will play out over blogs, private messages, or other content that you link to from Twitter. Perhaps Twitter is simply a potential means towards generating and driving attention towards other media...but not an end in itself.

Wow, good catch and great points.

Different people are using Twitter for different reasons. Pundits use it to attract attention to their blogs so they can charge money for speaking projects and consulting gigs. Celebrities use it because it's new, and by talking about it, they become PR-worthy/news-worthy. Why do you use it?