• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, May 18, 2009

I will be spending this day tailing Interpublic forecaster Brian Wieser as he shuttles among some of Madison Avenue's social media gurus, and hot spots -- both online and offline -- to get a handle on his revised outlook for the industry's favorite new ad medium.

Please forgive any typos, poor grammar, and/or nonsensical ramblings, as I will be updating my dispatches via my BlackBerry, here on MediaPost "Raw," and on Twitter too.

That's fitting, because Wieser's plan is to utilize Twitter to help formulate his new outlook via a series of microblogging exchanges that will augment the dog and pony show that is today's appointment agenda around town, and online.

It should be an awkward journey for sure, and one I questioned Wieser on when the idea was first proposed to me. "Do you really want to have a journalist shadowing your every move?," I asked. "And since you're going to be tweeting your updates throughout the day on Twitter, wouldn't it be more appropriate for me to simply follow you there?"

And here's how Wieser responded:

"The reason for this approach is that past figures were primarily based on a definition of social media that was based on revenues Facebook, MySpace and other similar sites, which, by any definition, will account for the bulk of dollars  (and these are included in any forecast of the total internet advertising industry). 

"But as most money among those two players is not spent there because it is social media, it’s become increasingly harder to call that money social media advertising. 

"At the same time, any attempt to define the medium has been made more difficult by wider efforts to incorporate social elements into media and marketing strategies.   "For example, beyond the social network websites, it can be defined as two way media (but then, wasn't the remote control or the tuner, or simple media selection always a way for the user to communicate?) "It can be defined to include community based marketing (to some degree including live events) "It can be defined to include conversations with the consumer (also known as PR)   "It can be defined to include data and analytics around consumer behavior, some of which is on social sites (social networks, blogs) and some of which is not     "Either way, as you prefer, you or one of your team would certainly be welcome to just follow us via twitter (where we will be tweeting the pithy points from conversations) or join me for the day.  I do have five or six thought leaders in the space who are willing to indulge in on-the-record discussion on the topic."

Okay, so Wieser has convinced me. And hopefully, I have convinced you to join along too -- via MediaPost "Raw," or on Wieser's or Mediabrand's Twitter feed.

More in a little while.