Peter Kim is a Senior Partner at Dachis Corporation.  He blogs about social computing and marketing at Being Peter Kim.

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been curating a list of social media marketing examples.  The list started with 100 examples (including 35+ from Mashable) and has since tripled in size with the participation of over a hundred contributors with examples from companies around the world.

We could probably come up with 3,000 examples instead of 300 - but the current set already gives us a pretty good sample to think about.  One takeaway: for now, those neurotic about missing “what’s next” can relax a bit.  Consumers still use a broader set of social tools than corporations, but new categories of tools aren’t emerging rapidly today, giving brands a chance to catch up.  It’s time to master the last big thing while you have a chance to catch a breath.

As corporate adoption emerges, there’s nothing wrong with learning lessons from others and making them your own.  Start by making sure you have all of your bases covered with the major tools.  In other words, copy and paste the items below, then fill in the blanks with your own company-driven effort.

Here’s a framework of 22 tools to consider with notable brand examples:

1. Blogs (Johnson & Johnson, Delta Air Lines)

2. Bookmarking/Tagging (Adobe, Kodak)

3. Brand monitoring (Dell, MINI)

4. Content aggregation (Alltop, EMC)

5. Crowdsourcing/Voting (Oracle, Starbucks)

6. Discussion boards and forums (IBM, Mountain Dew)

7. Events and meetups (Molson, Pampers)

8. Mashups (Fidelity Investments, Nike)

9. Microblogging (method, Whole Foods)

10. Online video (Eukanuba, Home Depot)

11. Organization and staffing (Ford, Pepsi)

12. Outreach programs (Nokia, Yum Brands)

13. Photosharing (Rubbermaid, UK Government)

14. Podcasting (Ericsson, McDonalds)

15. Presentation sharing (CapGemini, Daimler AG)

16. Public Relations - social media releases (Avon, Intel)

17. Ratings and reviews (Loblaws, TurboTax)

18. Social networks: applications, fan pages, groups, and personalities (British Airways, Saturn)

19. Sponsorships (Coca-Cola, Whirlpool)

20. Virtual worlds (National Geographic, Toyota)

21. Widgets (Southwest Airlines, Target)

22. Wikis (Second Life, T-Mobile Sidekick)

And use this username check tool to see if your brands/preferred handles are still available.

I haven’t found a single company doing all of these today. Forget divining a big, meaningful business objective before getting started - you’ll end up in analysis paralysis. Just make sure you’re making an existing business function better and get started.  Today.

Image courtesy of iStockPhoto, cmcderm1

—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Social Media Marketing Summit is Almost HereAttend SMX Social Media Marketing: Mashable Readers Save 15%Hear Chris Brogan Speak at the New Marketing SummitAffiliate Summit Social Media 2008 is in Two WeeksHear Seth Godin and David Meerman Scott at the Inbound Marketing SummitTicket Giveaway to SMX Social Media in Long Beach, CASocial App Development from our Partner, SolutionSet

Source:Mashable!

This article is part of the Open Web Awards, an open, international contest for the best websites and services.

There’s no shortage of startups hoping to be the next Google – or at least (for the ones with humility) trying to grab a small slice of the search engine pie. This year’s loudest debut was probably Cuil, which saw huge interest upon launch but has since gone quiet. Powerset, a search engine that lets users query using “natural language” was scooped up by Microsoft before it had much of a chance to prove itself.

In addition to the big names, there are hundreds of search engines designed for specific verticals like real estate and travel, as well as tools like Mahalo and Wikia that use human manpower to improve their results. Which are doing the best job at innovating in search? Make your nominations using the widget below:

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—Related Articles at Mashable | All That’s New on the Web:Enter the Search Engine Marketing Scholarship ContestLexxe - Natural Language Search EngineAsk.com Partners with Blinkx for Video SearchCodase: The Source Code Search EngineMicrosoft Live Search to Become Default on HP ComputersYahoo to Update Search IndexQuintura Signs with Blinkx

While in San Francisco earlier this month, I met with Surf Canyon CEO Mark Cramer. Surf Canyon began operations in 2006 and launched their search application in February 2008. The Surf Canyon search application sits on top of search engines Google and Yahoo. Compared to some of the other search engine addons I’ve reviewed in the past, Surf Canyon offers an interesting and innovative model. Surf Canyon is trying to solve the problem of too many search results for your search queries.

Cramer explained how the application works — basically you enter a search query on Google or Yahoo as you always do. You select a search result and go to that page. If that page isn’t what you were looking for, when you come back to the search result, Surf Canyon looks at results 11-1000 and then recommends other results similar to the one you clicked on. It ignores results you skipped over because it recognizes you weren’t interested in those results. Cramer noted that the idea is to make search results dynamic instead of the static results that Google and Yahoo provide by default.

Surf Canyon has raised $600k in angel funding, has 3 full time employees and several consultants.

The Surf Canyon application is installed via a Firefox/Internet Explorer addon. Cramer tells me that there’s been 250,000 downloads of the addon to-date. I asked Cramer about how he is marketing the search application because clearly mainstream Internet users just go to Google or Yahoo for search. He said that a large percentage of their marketing has come via word of mouth and that once users use the application they find it beneficial and share it with others. They have also been listed as a featured download in the Firefox addon catalog. The key to success for Surf Canyon is to continue to raise awareness of their application across the mainstream market.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
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If you read a variety of blogs, you’ve certainly seen the yellow banner ads promoting the BuzzLogic blog ad network. The ad network has been in beta since June and today BuzzLogic is moving the network into public release. The banners guaranteed a payout of $2/CPM for U.S. traffic.

The ad network is named the, "Conversation Ad Network" and they describe the service as, "designed to reward bloggers leading influential conversations on specific topics with quality brand advertising and more advertising revenue."

BuzzLogic has an important thing going for them - their tracking service draws in many of the top brands. These brands can now reach out directly to blogs that reach the brand’s target audience and demographics. The key for this blogger ad network is the same as every other one out there — will they be able to keep a consistently high fill rate? Getting bloggers to signup is the easy part.

We’ve covered BuzzLogic many times before including our executive interview and the launch of their advertiser network.

Special Alert: CenterNetworks Conference Coverage:
– DEMO
– Techcrunch50
– Event and Interview Videos

Source:CenterNetworks

At the Web 2.0 Expo, I met with Sightix VP Ari Gottesmann. Ari took me through a demo of their social search application which integrates into blogs and social networks. Currently Sightix finds connections within a network but they are working towards exposing connections across multiple networks.

Check out other Sightix reviews on Alt Search Engines and Webware. Here’s Ari explaining how Sightix works when trying to find models like Bar Rafaeli:

YourScreen is a new service that is announcing its upcoming beta today, and it’s set out to enable you to turn a television into a start page of sorts. Designed for use within schools, companies, and at events, YourScreen is a custom option for displaying your content on televisions. So what type of content can you post on these televisions?

Built on Adobe AIR, YourScreen comes with some ready-made content, like weather and a stock ticker, with more plug-ins on the way. You can use these plug-ins in conjunction with your own content or simply stream the content you’d like to display. This could be a live video of a speaker or an interview, an image slide show of companies presenting at a particular event, or other pertinent information regarding your company that you’d like to convey to your employees. So far, YourScreen doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of differentiating features that you couldn’t already take advantage of with a closed-circuit television system.

But as YourScreen grows, its aim is to provide a Web-based platform for easily managing content that is displayed across this television system. So you will be able to use the YourScreen Web interface to determine what content is shown in which screen. There are also tools for helping you create content, so you won’t have to rely entirely on third-party services to create a slide show. For instance, YourScreen can turn your collection of still shots and videos into a stream that can be broadcast across multiple television screens.

In targeting schools, businesses and events, I think YourScreen would also do well to partner with, or add integrated support for a wide array of content imports and compatibility. Services like Mogulus and Kyte offer platforms for creating content that is likely to be ideal for broadcast on custom systems like YourScreen, and also offer a good amount of tools for making multimedia content on the fly. Catering to users that may start with next to nothing when streaming with YourScreen as well as those that have already begun creating content with other Web apps would be a broader strategy for appealing to multiple types of users when promoting the YourScreen service. If you’re interested in the upcoming beta, see here for more details.

Source:Mashable!

Looking forward to spicing up your Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 installation with social goodness? Me.dium, a self-described social software company, will be standing aside the likes of Facebook, Yahoo, and eBay for Microsoft’s newest browser launch today. Me.dium’s role is essentially to, among other things, deliver a “crowd-powered” discover-share mechanism first touted at Microsoft’s MIX08 conference earlier this year.

Indeed, Me.dium is no freshman to IE8 or the broader Web browser market. Mashable’s Kristen Nicole made mention of the company’s participation in the IE8 Beta 1 push, as well as the debut of a Firefox 3 download. At that time, a number of the features in Me.dium’s plugin were already being promoted. The What’s Hot Webslice, for instance, is a recommendation component that offers users a quick glimpse of things deemed interesting by the collective mob. And the so-called Discovery Accelerator, which finds content deemed interesting via keywords gleaned from virtually any webpage, takes the recommendation concept further still.

The more personally social aspects of Search software are the toolbar’s “follow” feature and integration with Facebook. Also, a portion dubbed visual search, made possible by IE8, builds on a move made by Me.dium early last month, done in light of Yahoo’s launch of its BOSS platform (short for Build Your Own Search Engine) that, along with the standard display of news, reviews, pictures and videos, shows a certain hierarchy in various links’ popularity, albeit one that is eminently susceptible to change in behavior of the search crowd.

Me.dium CEO Kimball Musk makes a fairly convincing argument to Me.dium’s utility in the browser environment, and IE8 Betas 1 and 2 by natural association. Altogether, its social search feature set allows for users to keep better apprised of the often fast-shifting Web environment, particularly with concern for breaking news and viral oddities. And bridging the crowd’s tendencies with friend-enhanced extensions really just helps better fill the proverbial picture. Granted, there is a leap or two (or more) that the user must take to fully involve him/herself in these processes, but as is the life of most any people-powered invention of good repute.

The way in which such inventions have lasting impact is really a matter of how the give-take arrangement between a service and those its serves is balanced. Me.dium appears a generously worthwhile effort in that respect.

—Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Me.dium Holding 5-Day Online Music FestivalMe.dium Adds Support For Songbird Media Player, Firefox 3Me.dium to Host Live Chat During Edwards MTV/MySpace AppearanceMe.dium’s Role Reversal: NeighborhoodsMe.dium Offers a Social Browsing Widget, and MoreMe.dium to Host Online Mosh PitMe.dium Chosen to Showcase IE8 Social Discovery

Wikia Search has launched a new Firefox toolbar which they call Wikia Evolution. Wikia Evolution is available for download and offers an easy to way to add pages to the Wikia Search project.

Here’s how the Wikia Evolution toolbar works once installed. When you search on Google, Yahoo, etc. or view any Web page, a new set of options will be displayed (see the sample below). The options allow you to add the page to the Wikia Search index instantly and tag the page for the appropriate keywords. There’s also a rating option available for each page that is submitted into the search database.

Wikia founder Jimmy Wales said on the Evolution toolbar launch, “This toolbar, like everything we are doing at Wikia Search, is open source. We hope that if you are a toolbar fan and programmer, you will let us know what features need to be added and/or take this and do something surprising and cool with it.” 

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Earlier this week a new search engine launched to the world. The name of the engine is Cuil (pronounced Cool) and there are great reviews on Search Engine Land and GigaOm. Danny from Search Engine Land notes that Cuil is pushing four main features of the search engine: Big web index, Unique relevance algorithm, Unique results display and Privacy.

I’ve created a short video below to discuss why Cuil is like toilet paper. The bottom line is that when you come out of the gate and immediately challenge the absolute leader, it’s a mistake. In addition, Google has absolute loyalty and to get average consumers to switch when they are loyal to a product or brand is very, very difficult. Making it even more difficult is that Google is free, so a lower-cost product pitch won’t work either. What Cuil should have done was only speak about their features and let the users and the search industry decide if it’s better than Google. So far it seems Cuil is the un-cool.

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Expedia is announcing this morning that they have partnered with Baynote to include Baynote’ social search in the Expedia booking engine. Baynote’s social search takes search queries and then can present options to future searchers for refining their query to help find exactly what they are seeking. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

While the information provided talks about increasing the customer experience on Expedia, this type of search might lead to increased transaction rates. Rather than a customer potentially leaving Expedia when he or she doesn’t find what they are seeking, now Baynote can help get the customer to what they are seeking and then book the travel item.

Baynote also powers other corporate customer’s social search including NASA and Motorola.

Earlier this month Expedia lost their deal with MSN. Also check out our Google Trends showdown between Expedia and TripAdvisor.

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Found via Mr. Lowensohn, Scour is a new social search engine. The concept behind Scour is to combine results from Google, Yahoo and MSN and present the best results first. It’s a pretty interesting model and reminds me a bit of TWERQ which shows results from the major engines in tabs inside the application.

At first I was thinking this idea was awesome — combining the search engine algorithms together to create the Voltron of search results (where’s the princess?). Not to pop the bubble, but does the average person care about the ultimate right result or just the good enough results from the engine they use currently?

The second piece of Scour is commenting and rating on results. This is similar to the new engine from Wikia. You can leave comments inline on sites listed in the search results and also vote results up or down. I hope they will have a comment feed and a subscribe option so I can subscribe to the sites I am interested in. Scour says the votes will eventually make their way into the search engine. This part differs from Wikia which allows you to move whatever you want wherever you want.

The last piece of Scour is cash payment for searching, commenting and rating. You can earn points and then those points can turn into Visa gift cars. I have to be honest here - I wish more sites would drop the point reward systems. It’s a great idea but it just leads to more issues than it’s worth. If Scour was going after the mainstream market, it might make more sense. But as I’ve noted above Scour is a tech-focused engine and I doubt the incentive will get techies to switch. I know on the surface the idea seems to be a great idea to create loyal users.

Overall I think the concept has a lot of potential and is good for moving the social search engine conversation forward. Scour needs some refinement but could make an impression in the techie search engine arena.

Here’s the Scour product demo:

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