• by Jamie Tedford , Op-Ed Contributor, January 26, 2009

I'm glad to be huddled over a continental breakfast with what looks like a few hundred marketers all intent on being and learning "social." I'm flashing back to the first few meetings of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, when a bunch of renegades set out to start a new marketing industry around something so familiar as the concept of word of mouth. We all, but for a few shut ins, are social in our real lives. Most are now social online, with identities, profiles and passwords flung around the web.

So is there an "industry" here? Will it revolve around simply watching people be social? In other words, will all the measurement companies co-opt the medium. Will it just be another PR tactic, with chipper "social" publicist pitching their story and client to blogging and twitter influencers? Or will it become an advertising medium. Will the ad and media agencies jump in sooner than they did in the WoMM industry? History tells us the entrance of the latter prompts big brands and big budgets follow.