According to a recent survey of execs from 100 companies of varying sizes (ranging from under 50 to over 1,000 employees) aptly titled "Social Media Without a Parachute", 78% of respondents said their companies were using social media -- but just 41% said they had a strategic plan. It's alarming but not terribly surprising that half the companies using social media are basically flying blind. After all, we've seen this before: remember the invasion of Iraq in 2003?

At the beginning of May, I took a look at BP's social media strategy (or rather at the empty space where it should have been) as it struggled to contain and counteract the very negative PR fallout from the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. I also solicited ideas from readers about potential social media strategies the stricken energy giant might employ towards this end. Now, over a month and a half later, it seems BP finally has a substantial social media strategy in place -- just as all its other damage-control efforts have gone off the rails. …

If, over the past month or so, a friend has sauntered up to you and posited the line, "Ready to get iced, bro?" don't worry. He is neither a hockey devotee nor a sudden frat boy aficionado. The poor sap has just come under the influence of the Smirnoff Icing craze. This is when a Bro (who can also be a lady, and in fact is funnier when it is) presents another bro (in as creative fashion as possible) with one Smirnoff's sickly milk white bottled Ice abomination. The presented bro must then take a knee and chug until the …

This probably comes as a surprise to no one, but it's worth noting just the same: people who own e-readers are much more likely to participate in social networks, according to the latest Survey of the American consumer from GfK MRI. While the data don't cover social media usage via e-readers, they provide more evidence of the continuing convergence of mobile and social media -- which has already been suggested by a number of previous studies.

Led by Facebook, social network sites enjoyed a huge increase in traffic over the last year, according to recent figures from Nielsen covering global Internet usage -- but the new data also underlines just how far social media has to go before it can turn its huge popularity into profits.

It's no surprise gay men have been at the forefront of social media, readily adopting new technologies that allow them to connect with each other -- something which can be a bit challenging, considering homosexuals constitute no more than 10% of the general population. The latest development -- a smartphone app called Grindr -- integrates the big gay online social network with mobile, GPS location-based updates to create a real-world version of "gaydar." The data for user engagement are incredible: roughly 180,000 users log in daily, and the average user spends 1.5 hours per day on the site, logging in …

The last couple months have brought a growing chorus of complaint about the aggressive, cavalier attitude displayed by the dominant Web companies -- especially Facebook and Google -- regarding member information and privacy. Today I just came across another needless transgression presented as a "helpful new feature": it seems sometime in the last few weeks Google began providing information about my geographic location to various Web sites, leaving it up to me to discover that this was happening and "opt out." I won't argue that Google did something illegal, because I think I know how this happened.

This week brings more news from the Freaked-Out-Parents file, wherein the Parent Teacher Association's national convention announces a new partnership with Facebook to teach children, parents, and teachers about how to avoid doing Bad Things, or having Bad Things done to you, online. The national PTA says it will reach out to 24,000 local PTAs with a goal of reaching every American public school to promote Internet safety, with a focus on cyber-bullying, online citizenship, and privacy issues.

In a remarkable testament to the rapid growth (approaching ubiquity) of social media, last month social networks received more hits than search engines in the UK, according to the latest data from Experian Hitwise. In the past, online behaviors across the pond have foreshadowed or mirrored similar changes in the U.S., suggesting a similar shift may be coming here.

The last couple months have brought a wave of data suggesting that a substantial proportion of online social network members use their profiles to engage with brands in some way -- including recommending or criticizing a product or service to other people, and engaging with the brand itself for customer service issues. In addition to confirming many of these earlier findings, the latest study, sponsored by Performics and performed by ROI Research, also found that a good number of social net users want more online offers and information from brands.