In July last year Jonny Bentwood and I published our Social Media Index, a crude attempt to quantify someone’s on-line footprint. To this day I get comments to that original post and if you take a look at them you will notice that this is both a complex and emotive subject. We promised to take the debate to the next stage and this it. A discussion paper based on a round-table session held at Edelman’s offices in New York with a pretty distinguised group:
Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, Keith O’Brien, PRWeek; Henry Copeland, BlogAds; Peter Kim; Charlene Li, Forrester; David Dunne, Edelman; Max Kalehoff, Nielsen Buzzmetrics (now with Clickable); Advertising Research Foundation; Sarah Petersen, StrategyOne; Richard Edelman, Edelman; Jonny Bentwood, Edelman; Rick Murray, me2revolution; Dr. Walter Carl, Northeastern University; ChatThreads.
I unfortunately could not make it. This white paper is Jonny’s summary of that day and we publish it in the hope that it moves things forward another step or two.
[tags] Social Media Influence [/tags]
sixtysecondview.blog 
Interesting paper and I think a better attempt to provide a “fair and balanced” view of (blogging) influencers.
My main objection would be the premise that those who can start or maintain a meme are inherently influential, as I am of the opinion that a lot of bloggers participate in memes with the motivation of being *seen* as influential (let alone the gaming aspect of the reciprocal link-baiting). I believe often it is part-and-parcel of the profile-raising marketing plan, which can be of immense benefit to smaller-shop consultants. (When I see more client-side-employed bloggers participating in memes, I’ll be more convinced of their actual worth and validity.)
True influencers are rarely that calculating, mainly because they don’t need to be. They influence because they operate from a position of strength of both original and critical thought.
Regardless, I appreciate you sharing this white papers with a wider audience.
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