Blog Buzz Helps Companies Catch Trends in the Making

Steven Levingston of the Washington Post wrote a nice front-page story on my company, titled "Blog Buzz Helps Companies Catch Trends in the Making". Excerpt:

ConAgra Foods Inc. got an early warning from chatter on the Internet that the low-carb craze was fading.

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Maxwell: What A Hotel Should Be

I’m in San Francisco this week staying at the boutique Maxwell Hotel. While this place is not ultra luxury, it’s exactly what I like as a business traveler:

  1. It’s downtown near everything
  2. It’s boutique and quirky, but also homey and well-kept
  3. Check-in was easy, and the staff was casual and friendly (not stiff and corporate)
  4. NO CHARGE FOR WI-FI INTERNET ACCESS
  5. NO SURCHARGE ON OUTGOING TELEPHONE CALLS
  6. NO 12-OUNZE BOTTLES OF EVIAN STRATEGICALLY PLACED ON THE BUREAUS WITH $10 PRICE TAGS
  7. And it has a really great name…MAX…I can relate.
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Search: A Strategic Market Research Tool

The connection between consumer-generated media and search marketing is a topic of intense interest and debate among many of my colleagues. "CGM and search" was even its own panel topic earlier this week at the Search Engines Strategies conference in New York (which my colleague Pete Blackshaw participated in).… Read the rest