So far, http://grooveshark.com/ Grooveshark is the only company that comes to my mind in terms of brand streaming. It seems like anyone who mentions them on Twitter ends up being followed by the Grooveshark Twitter account. The great thing about this is that, there is an actual human being (most likely company representative) who talks to you about the service in real time. If you have a problem, they take care of it. They actually listen. If this is what brandstreaming is supposed to be like, isn't this a win-win situation between company and consumer?

The only other example I can think of is Comcast by means of the ComcastCares Twitter account. From what I've heard, this guy has done a great job showcasing a social presence for Comcast, at least on Twitter anyways.

To answer your question "is it yet another social media trend that you'd prefer companies to keep their fingers out of?" I think in the long term firms will have to have a portfolio of 'social media' services which they use to engage with their users. Friendfeed is just as likely to be one way of doing this.

Here is our room:

http://friendfeed.com/rooms/pixum

It also really only works if there is an on-going relationship built with the followers/consumers rather than as part of a short-lived marketing campaign. For this reason companies themselves need to be involved in creating content for the "brandstream" rather than just their agencies who could lose the mandate after a particular campaign. Zappos, for example, are masters of getting staff online.

In summary, as a consumer this is what I look for when I follow a company or brand on Twitter, FriendFeed or other spaces:
- to obtain new information on important new product developments;
- to build a stronger on-going relationship with the company;
- through the stronger relationship obtain better customer service.

Cheers,
Connie Crosby
http://twitter.com/conniecrosby and
my own fledgling "brand stream" http://twitter.com/crosbygroup

if you send me a constant stream of garbage i will hate you, so tread lightly ...

bet this will be the death of many eterprises, the truth will be seen ever more clearly about motivation and intent.

Previously, they could buy advertising or get editorial coverage, but now, they can publish themselves, without any gatekeepers between them and their targets, for free. Most likely, this will create a new type of social media spam (someone needs to coin a term for that).

But used right, companies can create stronger relationships with their customers and get valuable feedback that otherwise wouldn't reach them.

In Secondbrain we use http://getsatisfaction.com/secondbrain and http://twitter.com/2ndbrain to talk to our users, and both have worked very well for us.

Would I join a Starbucks room? Sadly, yes.

The companies that Twitter via an RSS feed, set up a Facebook account because everyone else did, has a YouTube channel with no new activity, and posts new blog entries once a month, will not have an impact with their brandstreaming efforts. Instead, they should pick one or two sites to focus their efforts on, engage a growing community, and then graduate to brandstreaming when it becomes the next step, not the next big thing.

For BrandStreaming to be effective the messaging has to work within the medium. It cannot interrupt. Brands will have to actively participate and really understand Lifestreaming in general. It is not about creating another flashy banner ad but it is really about participating in the community. So, the big boys will have problems if they don't understand that.

Best,
Bill Flitter
CEO, Pheedo

http://brandstream.com/

http://movieleech.blogspot.com

I'm also not sure that Pheedo coined "brandstreaming" as Chris Heuer, Jeremiah Owyang, Stowe Boyd and I have been discussing brandstreams going back to the first series of conversations around lifestreams. Most recently Jeremiah Owyang and I discussed FriendFeed as the most likely candidate for brandstreaming in today's social media market (you can see the term brandstreaming in comment #24 in Jeremiah's post that you linked to).

You've heard that old saying, "your reputation precedes you." On the social web, a brand's reputation is now in the hands of people as well...aggregating relevant and interesting content will help unify a company's presence online and help steer conversations in a positive direction.

Lucia here, from Pandora.
This is an interesting conversation!

I have to say though, I don't think of what I do as "brandstreaming." I go where there are fans of Pandora, and I communicate with them.

I think of my activity on Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. as kind of a scattered forum and listener advocacy. People find it pretty handy to have me available for questions and suggestions, and I share their feedback with our staff.

Twitter and FriendFeed aren't a pulpit for me so much as friendly fan club / help desk. My community manager role is basically an outbound version of what we've been doing passionately for three years - listening to our listeners.

:) Lucia
(Community Manager at Pandora)

Lucia here, from Pandora.
This is an interesting conversation!

I have to say though, I don't think of what I do as "brandstreaming." I go where there are fans of Pandora, and I communicate with them.

I think of my activity on Twitter, FriendFeed, etc. as kind of a scattered forum and listener advocacy. People find it pretty handy to have me available for questions and suggestions, and I share their feedback with our staff.

Twitter and FriendFeed aren't a pulpit for me so much as friendly fan club / help desk. My community manager role is basically an outbound version of what we've been doing passionately for three years - listening to our listeners.

:) Lucia
(Community Manager at Pandora)

At Sterling Communications, one of the first steps we take with our new PR clients (all in high tech) is to register accounts with their brand name at the higher trafficked social media sites -- much like Ms. Willow did for Pandora.

Lauren B. notes that merely having a Twitter or FriendFeed account isn't the same as making an impact. True, but most firms need training on how to listen to these new types of conversations. The chatter is noisy and fractured, and the "beta" user experience most services offer frustrates busy employees.

It helps, we've found, to tailor training programs that help clients listen, interact and contribute. Though each client's business goals are unique, all of our clients so far are eager to strengthen relationships in the community.

We'll see how it goes and whether they become useful members of the marketstream, but I'm betting the best will learn quickly and contribute wisely.

Here's one of the Dell twitterers: http://twitter.com/Kara_atDELL

For most brands or companies, it's too easy not to do it. These are the signals that will help people find you and for you to find them.

In my post, I talked about fragmentation innovation over a curve, and the idea of having multiple conversations with customers depending on how *they* see the world.

Nice to be validated in a conversation happening at a blog with more readership ;-)

A couple of days after I mentioned the phone in a Tweet it ('they'?) started following me. At first I thought it was irritating, but then had a couple of questions about the phone, so followed it, and found it was quite useful. The best part is that the answers I got back weren't positive so I'm less likely to buy the phone ( ie it doesn't support podcasts, and the player doesn't remember the location in the MP3 ), but they were honest, and not all marketing/corporate mumbo-jumbo like I expected.

I never thought I'd say "I had a useful, honest, satisfying pre-sales conversation with a cell phone provider", but I did!

Companies must absolutely get out and participate beyond their sites, especially for startups where most of their customers don't know who they are yet.

It is a challenge for big companies because it's a participation thing, not a control thing. You have to be real.

I also don't think it's a normal communications channel because it's not synchronous - i.e. I don't know whether you'll get the message because it's a stream (like Twitter) not a ordered queue (like email, or some email). That's what makes it good.

You've got to go with the flow to get joy.

http://www.bangbull.com/details/23800-BE4/Amazing_natural_girl

Andy
www.qlubb.com

It's gotten a lot of play in the blogosphere and made its way into the print edition of Adweeklast month.

In a nutshell, it says that people don't want to hear advertising messages from brands in social media, since they come to social media sites to hang out with their friends, and advertisers are not their friends.

The exception to this are the dozen or so "Prom King Brands" - brands that people actively want to be "friends" with. (A good test of Prom King Brand status is: will people unironically wear a hat or t-shirt with your logo on it?) Sports teams, movies, TV shows and music acts tend to fall into the Prom King category as well.

The rest is laid out in the articles. But anything that looks like the sort of "This is what I want to tell you" interruptive ad (vs the "The is what you want to hear" style ad) that's served the industry so well for many years is bound to fail.

"We represent Fricken Company. Attached please find a copy of our letter sent by certified mail today to MaxGladwell.com's Santa Monica address, with respect to Fricken's rights in its BRANDSTREAM trademark, for which it holds both United States and Community trademark registrations. We look forward to your prompt response."

http://www.thetrendwatch.com/2008/07/29/is-your-brand-ready-to-brandstream/

It seems ridiculous.

Not sure what they want... Are they expecting us to take down our blog posts?

Richard, Max, what's your position?

I consulted with the RWW team and we decided to update the post acknowledging that Fricken have a trademark. We have better things to do than fight this kind of stuff. We've advised this to their lawyers and hopefully that's the end of that.

Part of my job as the head of social media at Ford (one month in) is to create opportunities for this passion to be more evident across the web. This may involve a good deal of online and offline integration, which will make it more evident that there are in fact a very healthy number of Ford fans out there.