All the more need for casual chains to be cost efficient with spending by incorporating social media programs into the mix.

Leave it to the military to come up with a clear, tactical approach to how and when to respond to a blogger across a wide range of posting types. Anyone in social media should read this, and hopefully add to it. This is pretty tightly focused on bloggers, and with social networks, the range of situations would be far broader. However, this is foundational to all social situations.

Great article on transparency and best practices for brands developing relationships with communities. Although the article is also communicating Edelman's failures with the Wal-Mart Across America campaign that wasn't transparent, Steve Rubel makes a lot of good points. "When a company can determine what it wants -- and that overlaps with what a consumer wants -- and you participate in a meaningful way in a social network to make that happen, I think that's very credible..."

Amazon.com is reporting its strongest holiday-season sales performance, although it did not disclose exact revenue figures. In comparison, overall online holiday sales are estimated by SpendingPulse to have dropped 2.3% this year, compared with 2007. Seems like a statement for the importance of having a strong brand. Especially in bad economic times.

Haven't gone through this yet, but certainly will. And with the list of people weighing in, it should be good.

Good article on email marketing opt-in/opt-out best practices changes.

This is more of a plug for Razorfish, but I like the CEO's quote --- I'd say we are already operating in a 3.0 world. "Web 3.0 will be much more focused on business solutions and less on marketing communications," he says. "We're at a point now where you take all of these tools -- websites, search, mobile, targeted ads -- and put them together in an integrated fashion."

Interesting model for BBH. We're not the only ones.... Nigel Bogle, founder of the agency and Zag, said: "Our experience of developing and launching our own brands will enable us to have more empathy and commercial awareness of what our clients go through. There is no guarantee that we will succeed every time, but the trying creates value in itself."

Funny rundown of 10 often repeated annoying comments on TechCrunch. I like the way they take this head on. Arrington has never shied away from his opinions, and his right to state them.

What most caught my attention in this was how the campaign wasn't just about being on message, but rather about the immense coordination of effort across divers areas like technology, targeting, staffing, outreach and fundraising. As campaigns develop more moving parts across a wider array of platforms, this type of organization will be critical to a campaign's success.