Something struck me recently when reading Dave Churbuck's blog. For those of you unfamiliar with Churbuck, he is VP Marketing at Lenovo and a pretty fab blogger in his own right. He has a way of cutting through much of the subtle, latent Web 2.0 BS and calling things out.

I happened upon Churbuck's post around the time I was "connecting" on LinkedIn with past coworkers and trying to loogle them. It started out quite innocently with me trying to find one of my good friends on there who is a student at UCLA's management school. I kept on getting an "upgrade membership" button that kept flashing every time I tried and failed to click away from the page.

When did LinkedIn start bugging me to upgrade my membership? Thinking back, I had started noticing this a while back, but it took a few months to settle in my mind to the point of distracting me from enjoying the site.

Unfortunately around the time this malaise set in, I was also on Facebook. My friend had sent me another of those SuperWall pictures which required me clicking on the image to see what it did, but before I could get to that image I was navigated to yet another page which prompted me to send the very image to all of my friends before I was allowed to open the actual image. Thankfully it also selected all of my friends as recipients of this picture so it saved me the work of having to send a picture of a dog to 50 of my nearest and dearest.

On the flipside, when I tried to "pull one over" on the system by "unselecting" all, it prompted me to choose one lucky recipient of an Alaskan Husky picture which most likely barked and sang"Happy Holidays" to the tune of "Feliz Navidad" when clicked on. Annoyed that I had just spent seven minutes of my life driving towards a reality far less appealing than the my mind's conjurings, I started to philosophize a bit on Churbuck's likening of "spam" to this tactic that Facebook API developers have taken to spreading the word of their creations. Initially I had taken to this feature, especially because I could choose which of my friends would care to partake in a game of Scrabble with me and go a few rounds. Same with Flixter. In a sense it also allowed me to be more social with people I wouldn't have contact with on a daily basis and rediscover or discover connections I never would have found otherwise.

Newsweek maintains that Facebook is the console of the future (replacing Wii??) and it will connect people socially through computers as never before. Considering it's the sixth most trafficked site in the world, it's a possibility. But really short of wireless remotes combined with action-oriented competitive games w/amazing graphics, how can the existing Facebook APIs compete with what Sony, IBM, and Microsoft are putting out?

We all know that content is king in marketing in these days. If you don't have great content, it really doesn't matter what cool channels you're using. But how do companies think about creating truly compelling content, especially if you're steeped in the world of traditional pitches, white papers, and promotions?

Scott Anderson, Vice President of Customer Communications for HP's Technology Solutions Group (which serves business customers) provided a great answer during a BtoB webinar today on how business technology buyers use media in the buying process.

According to Anderson, HP has made three major investments in content creation in the last two years:

• Build a new editorial team staffed especially by technology journalists, rather than marcom people. As he noted, journalists typically have both a more skeptical eye and better story telling skills 
• Organize a platform to enable HP's subject matter experts (engineers, consultants, etc.) to bring their own voices directly into the market (rather than being "translated" by the marcom staff) with blogs, forums, and other conversational contributions
• Create more opportunities for HP customers to share their own stories and ideas at events and online.

Has HP fully swept out the old and embraced the new? Of course not. You can easily find all manner of traditional features and functions promotional content from HP -- and not all of it is useless. According to buyer research presented by tech publisher CMP during today's webinar, many buyers do actually want to see the technical details, so long as it comes during the right phase in the buying process.

Most important, though, HP has taken three important steps forward in creating a more content-rich, content-driven, and conversational approach to the marketplace: Tell better stories, share expertise and knowledge in authentic ways, and help your customers talk to each other about the issues you care about most. Not a bad model.

The battle for power between content creators and content distributors has roiled huge swaths of the media, entertainment, telecommunications, and technology industries since the digital age began in earnest in the early 1990s.  Marketing and creative types typically claim that content always has and always will rule; the more techie-oriented among us generally give the nod to those who control distribution.

The rise of social media, where innovative software platforms almost overnight become their own media companies with users doing the content heavy lifting (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.), ups the ante dramatically. In this context, BusinessWeek media columnist Jon Fine wonders if the debate is closed: "Millions of people tell stories now--on blogs, on MySpace, on Flickr--for free. There is a surfeit of storytelling. Millions of people do not sit around writing software for free. Advantage: programmers."

Reporting on the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Fine highlights the impressive innovation and equally impressive self-confidence among the tech-minded denizens of social media, but does leave himself some wriggle room in suggesting that the end of the commercial storytellers might not be quite upon us (of course, one would expect nothing less from someone making his living selling content).

From a B2B perspective, though, I wonder if the storyteller's fate is nearly so dire. It's one thing to write off large chunks of  consumer news media and entertainment in the face of freely published commentary and conversation. For business people, however, there is far less tolerance for amateur hour. Business people are as interested as anyone in the ideas, experiences, and insights of their peers; that's why well-organized live events and online business networks and communities are flourishing alongside their more trendy consumerist peers. But so too are professional custom publishing and thought leadership marketing, often tied directly to those events and communities.

The reality is that great content drives great conversation, and busy business folk have little time to prospect for the useful nuggets buried in the largely useless piles on most broad-based sites. Yes, there are great tools for search and filtering, but it's still a whole lot easier to rely on -- and pay for -- the professional version. More sophisticated platforms and distribution channels will always be useful, but, at least in the B2B world, they still mean little without powerful content (i.e., business stories) at the core. Count me as a strong optimist for the future of the storytellers. What about you?

Ho hum. Capitalizing on the popularity of its hit TV show "The Office," NBC has created an online community to deepen ties with viewers. Fans of the show can enter the Dunder Mifflin Infinity site, sign up for virtual jobs at the fictional paper company where the show is set, perform weekly tasks similar to those from each week's TV episode, get promotions, and earn ShruteBucks for both online work and contributing to the site (e.g., by creating profiles, adding photos, posting comments, or rating other content).

The site includes most of the latest social networking features, and, perhaps not surprisingly, has become a bit hit in its own right. Since launching last month, the site has attracted more than 800,000 unique visitors, with more than 100,000 registering for positions at the virtual company. Regional branches create local connections for participants; the branch in Long Beach, California is currently at the top of the heap with 3108 "employees." Participant-posted video, such as footage of the Denton, Texas, launch party, add to the rich media flavor.

At first glance, the initiative may seem like standard fare for these Web 2.0-crazed times. Company wants to strengthen relationships with its audience; company builds online community to let people talk with each other and generate useful content for the sponsor; everyone wins. It's no wonder that companies from autos to zoo supplies are rushing to launch similar networks and communities.

The challenge, of course, is generating enough interest in your site to inspire people to actually pay attention and spend precious time and energy actively participating. We've all seen commuities and forums with a lonely list of "discussion starters" but no additional comments. The reality is that online commuinty success is largely not about the features of the site; it's about a strong prior connection to the company, program, or idea. As Gartner analyst Andrew Frank notes, "You need an existing affinity around a property, and NBC definitely had that with 'The Office.'"

The lesson here is not to avoid entering the social networking fray unless you have a megahit TV show. Rather, it is to concentrate most on building the very tangible connections to your "viewers" (i.e., customers, partners, employees, etc.) that come with meaningful professional or personal contributions to their daily lives. In the world of the real office, actual ties support virtual ones, not the other way around.

Today's Wall Street Journal has a useful article about a new social networking initiative from the clothing manufacturer Phillips-Van Heusen on behalf of its Arrow brand men's shirts. Men's shirts? I'm all for companies taking a more social and community approach to marketing, but is this, as a few ad agency execs cited in the article suggest, a case of a fad-chasing jump onto an overcrowded bandwagon?

At first glance, it's an interesting approach. Trying for a strong emotional connection, the initiative focuses on immigration stories and attempts to build support for preserving Ellis Island, the famous gateway to America for millions of 19th and 20th century immigrants. The core of the effort is the We Are Ellis Island website, stocked with video stories from celebrities, background information on the Save Ellis Island campaign, and ways to get involved, including forwarding the site to friends, donating money (of course), and sharing your own stories.

It's not a serious social networking site when compared Facebook or MySpace or others that my teen daughter and her cohort spend hours on each week. It's much more a traditional website with modest capacity for viewer interaction. It also seems a bit of a stretch for a shirt company, and the links to Arrow apparel on the site look to me a bit too prominent.

On the other hand, cause-related marketing does often succeed, and the effort plays off Arrow's "Authentic American Style" branding, so there is a connection. Arrow is launching a $20 million ad campaign highlighting immigrant stories and Ellis Island to help drive traffic to the site which certainly could help (although many of most popular social sites grew virally with little or no promotional push). And of course user-generated video is all the rage these days, so it's quite possible that many people will indeed upload their own stories.

Overall, I think the site just might connect. Execution is the main factor, and it's too soon to tell how the site managers will sustain, adapt, and improve the effort over time -- as inevitably they must. But immigration is a huge issue these days, and Arrow may benefit from its positive, albeit nostalgic approach. The emotional tie is a strong one for millions of Americans, and video stories are a nice anchor for the site. Ultimately, as Michael Kelly, PVH executive vice president for marketing, states: "If you've got good content, people come."