• by Tom Hespos , October 4, 2005

Sitting in the audience at a panel discussion at OMMA East, my thoughts drifted toward the last OMMA show in San Francisco -- specifically, Bob Garfield's "Chaos Scenario" speech, and one of the arguments that Advertising Age columnist Garfield used to support the notion that online media isn't ready for the huge influx of dollars brand marketers are prepared to spend online. That particular argument centered around the idea that we simply don't have enough quality content to support those ad dollars.

That's right. In the medium where one can find anything from the obscure to the mainstream, Garfield thinks there's a dearth of content.

At the time I had this little flashback, I was carefully listening to Blogads founder Henry Copeland and his panelists talk about consumer-generated content - specifically, blogs and podcasts -- and wondering how Garfield's notion of a dearth of content could co-exist in a universe with folks like Copeland running around, trying to figure out the revenue model for the explosion of consumer-generated content that has hit the Web over the past few years.

In short, the whole time I was thinking, "Your content is right here, Bob."

As I pondered further, my thoughts flashed back to a recent client request. That client wanted to know whether or not there were enough skiing-related blogs out there to support a certain level of media spending. Fulfilling that request was a bit problematic. Other than Copeland's Blogads interface, the only tools I could think of to quickly and easily identify blogs with a given subject matter were the search engines (not just Google, but blog-specific search engines like Technorati, IceRocket and Blogdigger). In the end, I had to send e-mail out to all the blog networks to see if I could find enough content to support a short-term test. It shouldn't be this way. More on this in a minute....

It would be nice to see consumer-generated content fill the Garfield-identified void. Not only would it facilitate the flow of more dollars into the medium, but it would also produce successful results for clients. Still another terrific side effect -- brand advertisers would be drawn closer to the conversations relating to their brands and product categories.

To deliver on that, I'd like to suggest that someone out there start developing a new tool set: sort of a marketing dashboard for marketing professionals who not only wish to underwrite consumer-generated content, but also want to track (and potentially participate in) the conversation. Right now, I think Copeland's Blogads tool is probably closest to what I'm envisioning, but someone would need to build in some added functionality.

I'd like to be able to log onto an account that gives me access to the widest possible range of blogs, vlogs, podcasts and other consumer-generated content options. Such a database would be searchable by keyword, so if I were to type in "skiing," I would be able to get an immediate sense of who is regularly covering skiing, and how well that content is doing with its audience (audience size, visitation, basic traffic stats, average number of comments per post, etc.). I'd also like to see pricing and options for sponsorship and advertising, so that I could decide on sponsoring a blog for a specific period of time, upload creative or ad tags, and launch a campaign.

From there, I'd like to be able to submit a list of keywords important to my clients and their brands. Perhaps it would be a list of terms having to do with their brands, or having to do with competitors. In any case, I'd like an RSS-based tool to be able to track the conversations on the blogs and podcasts I'm sponsoring, so I could help my client to participate in the conversation meaningfully. I'd also like to see where else these conversations are taking place, so I have the opportunity to add content venues to my list of sponsored areas, or at least have a representative from my client's company leave a comment.

Such an interface would be something I could be logged onto all day. It could not only manage my advertising campaigns on consumer-generated content venues, but it could also serve as a PR tool to help me identify places where my client's comments are needed, so I could steer them toward participation.

Got it? In other words, filling Garfield's content void could be a stepping stone toward moving further away from the broadcast model and more toward the conversational model outlined in the tenets of the book The Cluetrain Manifesto. I like the idea of killing two birds with one stone.

Let's continue developing this idea on the Spin Board. I'd love to hear from you.