You can click here to learn how to purchase the guide or read on for a sample of reviews published around the web so far.

Blogger Reviews

The following reviewers have no financial stake in sales of the report, they just think it's awesome. We appreciate that.

"If you are a business or a brand engaged or planning to engage in social media, you should go buy this report right now, The 70+ page PDF is a mere $299 - a steal for the amount of information it contains."
- Jason Falls, Doe Anderson
ReadWriteWeb's Guide to Online Community Management: A Must-Have For Businesses

"My favorite thing about this report is that it isn't just a PDF document, it comes with a companion site, the Community Management Aggregator, which provides great ongoing resources for people interested in community management...I'm already finding great content that I hadn't yet discovered on my own throughout this companion site."
- Dawn Foster, Community Management Consultant
ReadWriteWeb Guide to Online Community Management

"This a fantastic model for professional development 2.0 for online community managers."
- Beth Kanter, leading nonprofit technology consultant
Newsmastering for Professional Development 2.0: Online Community Management Aggregator and Report

"Simply put, if you're planning or considering a community effort at your organization, this is a must have...the unrelenting focus on ROI in this report clearly shows how community based engagement can be justified at large organizations...Managing a community is hard work and labor intensive. The report cites detailed case studies on how to beat the odds. What the ReadWriteWeb team has done is brilliantly articulate how you can start and operationalize vibrant communities. And that's what most enterprises are pondering, today."
-Enterprise 2.0 Consultant Sameer Patel
ReadWriteWeb's Guide to Online Community Management: A Valuable Resource for the Enterprise

Thanks a lot, reviewers! We're continuing to make small changes to the Guide based on feedback, but overall the report has been very well received. We hope you'll get a copy today and use it to better engage with online community right away.

Unfortunately, frequent flyer miles will only provide so much detail. That's why the latest project from Dopplr - the site that helps you keep track of your comings and goings, as well as those of your friends - is so interesting. They're offering to answer a variety of travel history questions by providing Dopplr users with Personal Annual Reports that will help them visualize their travel during 2008.

As the Dopplr team gathers data for each individual, there will likely be some interesting metrics and trends that appear at the macro level, too. We remain hopeful that Dopplr will choose to publish an aggregate view of travels for all users. They've already hinted at one interesting aggregate metric.

Travelers who used Dopplr to record trips in 2008 should expect their reports to arrive by email, this week. In the meantime, the Dopplr team has released a sneak peak of the reports. The subject? What United States President-elect Barack Obama's Dopplr account might look like if he had one:

If you're a frequent traveler who hasn't yet tried Dopplr, perhaps 2009 would be a good year to give it a try. At the very least, you'll have a better picture of where you spent your time this year - even if you don't really want to answer the question of how many miles you logged.

For the scores of people now convinced that a group micromessaging service like Twitter can be powerfully useful, there are few prospects as interesting as the use of such a tool at work - for work. There are lots of different software options, though, and it's hard to know which one to select. Enter a new report from Pistachio Consulting, topic area experts and providers of an excellent new report on the options.

Pitsachio argues that these kinds of tools are good for everything from corporate intelligence to professional development, from bridging silos to reducing email clutter to harnessing loose ties in an organization. As serious "microsharing" users, we believe these benefits are intuitive, realistic and compelling.

The report includes a matrix comparison of nineteen different vendors, from the already commercialized Yammer to still-unlaunched mega app ESME. Data points on the matrix are: inside firewall, directory integration, twitter's functions, Groups, Location, Sharing, SMS, IM , Desktop Client, smartphone app, twitter integration, underlying software platform, API, twiter compatible API, largest company using, largest group and pricing.

Below is an embedded version of the matrix, read on for highlights.

Enterprise Micro Sharing Tools

Highlights

The report says that Twitter itself may soon offer an enterprise tool, based on statements by company CEO Evan Williams. That doesn't necessarily mean that it will be the best option, however. Benefits and reservations are listed for all the tools surveyed, though the ones specifically built by enterprises themselves are the least-reviewed. That's unfortunate.

Some lessons learned from three year-long deployments of these kinds of tools, from companies IBM, Guitar Center and HotTopic, are included in the report.

The Pistachio report is well written and enjoyable to read. It will answer many of your questions about this field and will help point you smartly toward some software options you likely didn't know about before.

Find the full report at the Pistachio website.

Enter FreshBooks, a Web-based invoicing system focused on individuals and small companies. FreshBooks holds a wealth of data about this workforce - across a variety of disciplines - and they've asked their users for rights to share that data in anonymous aggregated form. The result? A unique glimpse into the numbers that make these businesses tick.

Those who choose to subscribe - or sign up for a free account - will receive a more extensive report, detailing how their finances match up to their peer group:

The first set of report cards covers Web Professionals, IT Services, Design, Marketing, and Service Providers. A roundup of all industries is also provided.

Are the metrics statistically significant? That remains to be seen. While there is no clear indication of the population size, it is known that FreshBooks has been gathering user data for two years.

How accurate is the data? According to FreshBooks:

"We have removed the top ten 10% and the bottom 10% of the populations to eliminate outliers that might undermine the accuracy of the group as a whole. Also, we only included businesses we deem to be credible FreshBooks accounts."

Whether the data is able to stand up to the scrutiny of a statistics professor is largely irrelevant at this point. What is relevant is that this marks one of the first opportunities to see how Web-app-adopting freelancers and small businesses are managing their finances - and how they compare with their peers.

That, in and of itself, provides a truly interesting vantage into the work lives of a heretofore metric-light market. Access to this type of reporting may yield some very surprising results.

Disclosure: FreshBooks is a RWW sponsor

- 83% watch video clips, up from 62% in the last study in June 2007
- 78% read blogs, up from 66%
- 57% of internet users are now members of a social network
- RSS consumption is growing rapidly up from 15% to 39%
- Podcasts are now mainstream digital content, listened to by 48%

Social networks have been "a key driver for the growth of social media":

- 22% of social network users have installed a widget or applications
- 55% have shared photos
- 22% have shared their videos
- 31% have started a blog
- The world’s biggest social network is MySpace with 32% weekly reach followed by Facebook on 23%

The report also states that social media is a global phenomenon:

- Top markets for blogging – China 70% of internet users write a blog, Philippines 66% and Mexico 60%
- Top markets for social networking – Philippines 83%, Hungary 76% and Poland 76%
- China is the world's largest blogging market with 42m bloggers versus 26m in the US

Those last stats will be an eye opener for many, because the US web tech market gets most of the attention of the blogosphere and mainstream media. But with China having 42m bloggers compared to the US's 26m, there is large scope for social media to flourish there - even despite China's political issues with social media.