Dear list, I am a market analyst in an Internet company. Our team is aiming to do analyses on how online community, especially forums and blogs, can be a tool for marketing and it make an impact on the public. The first issue we encounter is how to measure marketing performance through forums and blogs. We are not aware of any approved method to evaluate the performance of online marketing with either, such as a campaign intriguing people talking over Coca on forums and blogs. In addition, there seems to be no pervasive measurement on the impacts of diaries (from blogs) and entries (from forums) except for Jotter's bharns, defining the impact of a diary (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/16/03719/6748). I have been a lurker on the list for a long time and see many of you having great ideas. Thus I look for any of you who are so kind to help out a bit. It would be wonderful if you brilliant people can share with me your experience and resource on related topics. Cheers, Gary