Socialmedia.biz

dave_balter_founder_ceo_bzzagent_standard Today Boston-based word-of-mouth marketing firm BzzAgent takes the wrapping off a very interesting new venture: BzzScapes.

Here’s my initial impression, after a 20-minute phone call Friday with BzzAgent founder and CEO Dave Balter (pictured at right):

A “brands community” was a long time in coming, and I’m glad to see that BzzAgent has incorporated some of the best feature sets of social media in stirring interest among its 550,000-strong army of volunteer buzzsters. (FastCompany had a good writeup about BzzAgent here.) We’re a brand-addicted nation of Starbucks-sipping, Oakley-wearing, Apple-worshipping, Wii-playing consumers — when we’re not wearing our blogging/citizen journalist/video producer hats — and BuzzAgent is betting that enough of us in Crowdsource Land will want to built virtual altars to express our feel-good mojo about the stuff we love.

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As part of my exploration of branding and communication around the world, I am starting a series of interviews with as many European and world-wide movers-and-shakers as are willing to submit themselves to my barrage of probing questions.

I was inspired to start this series of interviews while at lunch with today’s interviewee, Martin Oetting, partner and director research at trnd. We met at a bistro in Prenzlauer Berg, a trendy neighborhood in Berlin, where Martin lives. We ate and talked and realized we had both a lot of thing and a lot of people in common. After we both pedaled away on our bikes, it occurred to me that it would be super cool to be able to share all of this great stuff with you – and it would be great to be able to ask a bunch of questions to as many people in the branding, new media, and communications as possible.

With no further ado, here’s my interview with Martin Oetting:

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