You may have read recently that media analysis firm Cymfony was acquired by TNS Media Intelligence. On the heels of Nielsen’s acquisition of BuzzMetrics/Intelliseek last year and Forrester analyst Peter Kim’s recent report on the brand monitoring space, I believe this is further validation of our business and the growing need of companies to understand what their customers are saying about them, their competitors, their products and key trends driving the market. This event underscores the value that technology can bring to the rapidly changing environment of media analysis.

I agree with Peter Kim that the brand monitoring space is just starting to heat up. We are continuing to see the integration of traditional & social media analysis services with core marketing activities. Our partners, like LexisNexis®, are also seeing an increase in the rate of adoption.

Biz360 will continue developing powerful metrics that help our clients accurately measure both traditional and social media as well as the relative weights of the various influencers. Our recently announced MediaSignal™ for blogs extends our weighted-reach metric for traditional media to a collection to over 32 million blogs. Combined with our tone analysis offering, Point-of-View Sentiment®, which combines the best of human intelligence and automated technology, we’re able to provide clients with positive, neutral and negative impressions of their brands, spokespeople, messages, market issues, trends, etc. across print, online and broadcast news and social media.

As more companies adopt these services, I believe it is essential to be able to provide them with standardized metrics that can be applied across a variety of media types. Accurate and broad measurement of media coverage and tone analysis across traditional and social media formats is essential to the rapid adoption of brand analysis and monitoring services. It is also important that the metrics be easily comparable to other marketing metrics.

Recently, we brought on a new CMO, Tony Priore, to pave the way for more exciting product announcements this year. What kind of announcements? You’ll have to wait and see, but you can be sure we’ll make good use of our existing assets and continue to stay focused on increasing the efficiency of market intelligence.

Our experience shows that the line between what is traditional and what is social media will only become more confusing in the future. We are here to assist our clients in decoding this ever changing world of media.

Our Secret Ingredient

I was working on another business when I received a call from Brad Brodigan, CEO of Biz360. I worked with Brad in the past and have a great deal of respect for him professionally and personally. So when he shared the story of Biz360 with me and the ambitious vision for the company, I listened intently. He described the company’s growing market opportunity, innovative technology, blue chip client list, talented team of employees, solid financial support and commitment to expansion. These details certainly made me pause. Biz360, he explained, is a company with a strong foundation and tremendous growth potential.

Having worked together before, Brad was familiar with my background. He knew that this is exactly the kind of business I would be charged up about. With over 25 years of marketing and management experience, I’ve directed marketing initiatives for a range of respected and innovative companies. This experience includes the successful launch of two start-up companies and the IPO’s of three – the types of business challenges that excite and motivate me like no other.

Several conversations and meetings later, I agreed to join the Biz360 team. I am focusing on both growing our core business and the aggressive expansion of new products. Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing more details about the company’s product development initiatives of which many of you are already involved.

After my first week as CMO, I am thrilled to be here and eager to help grow Biz360 into one of the world’s great and enduring companies. I am certain we will get there. Building for the future takes real effort and focus. We have superior technology and a great business model. And I am already impressed by the people here — your level of talent, energy, team spirit, commitment and enthusiasm. I know that people make the difference between achieving greatness and mediocrity. With you, I believe we have what it takes. You are our secret ingredient.

We are focused, nimble and entrepreneurial. In my mind, it is the perfect start to building the great and enduring company we envision. Thanks for welcoming me to Biz360. I look forward to working with all of you.

The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting was held from January 24-28, 2007. Global warming and the potential for new talks on a world trade deal were the dominating issues. Media coverage varied from straightforward reports of the Forum’s events, to strong criticism saying that meeting of the world’s biggest leaders has become increasingly irrelevant.

The proposed resumption of the World Trade Organization talks dominated WEF coverage during the review period. Media coverage steadily increased, with a spike on January 26 when it was reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was hopeful the stalled global trade negotiation could resume soon, and Brazil’s president predicted a deal within months. Coverage spiked considerably on January 27 when officials announced they had agreed to resume the global free trade talks. While appearing to be positive news, a large portion of media coverage leaned toward the negative, implying that the probability of the talks actually resuming is still unlikely, that expectations were low, and the talk about restarting the global trade talks was, to a large extent, “hot air”.

The issue of global warming/climate change came in second in terms of media coverage, with coverage increasing just before the official start of the forum when President Bush acknowledged climate change in his January 23 State of the Union speech, and spiking on January 24 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel focused on climate change in her keynote speech. Coverage increased again on January 27 regarding an announcement of a partnership to standardize the reporting of climate risk-related issues. Media reaction to the announcements was mixed in tone; some positive reports commented on the constructive dialogue and potential solutions, others pointed out that no revolutionary strategies were developed and that Davos is the place to launch grandiose initiatives that never quite live up to their billing.

To read Biz360’s full report on the event and view analysis of the speakers and messages, please click here.