A fascinating tidbit. Nielsen Netratings, the organization that tracks web usage (and TV viewing etc), reported in 2005 that one out of the top 10 web brands was a community oriented site, ie one with consumer-created content. But for 2006 they report that 5 out of 10 fastest growing websites are community sites! Obviously sites you hear us blog about regularly, like YouTube, Flickr and MySpace. The story was reported in Friday's Financial Times (Sept 15, 2006).

So "communities dominating" is the biggest trend on the web? Cool. And yes, (shameless plug coming..) the only book that covers all of digital communities from blogging to multiplayer gaming to smart mobs to TV interactivity etc - is our book Communities Dominate Brands. Isn't it time YOU read our global bestseller? Send us an e-mail. we'll send you the pdf of the first chapter (including the foreword by Chief Marketing Officer of Coca Cola) for free.

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Tomi T Ahonen is a bestselling author and independent consultant in the emerging areas of next generation wireless who lectures at Oxford University and is seen annually at about 20 telecoms/IT conferences on six continents. His expertise includes the business, applications, services, partnering and marketing of wireless technologies. Tomi provides advanced wireless service marketing plan workshops and business case audits for operators/carriers; new service creation workshops; and value chain analysis for content providers and assists global media, IT and telecoms companies on their transitions to a digitally converged world.

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