The famous Italian Newspaper Repubblica posed 10 questions to Silvio Berlusconi about his relationship with a teenager. He decided not to answer.
It could be  weird behavior on the part of the Italian First Minister, though acceptable. What has been unacceptable is Berlusconi’s decision to sue Repubblica because of those 10 unanswered questions.

Reuters Memorial Lecture 2009
Monday 23 November, 17.30–19.00
“Newspapers and Democracy in the Internet Era: the Italian Case” by Carlo De Benedetti
Chairman, Gruppo Editoriale L’Espresso / La Repubblica

Introduced by the Chancellor of the University, The Rt Hon Lord Patten of Barnes, CH
followed by a panel discussion with
John Lloyd (Director of Journalism at the Reuters Institute & Contributing Editor, Financial Times)
Timothy Garton Ash (Professor of European Studies & Isaiah Berlin Professorial Fellow, St Antony’s College)
Paolo Mancini (Monte dei Paschi Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College & Professor, Dipartimento Istituzioni e Società, Università di Perugia)
Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre, St Anne’s College

Disruptive technology delivers products which should not be compulsory technological products but just completely new products, breaking into the scene of new markets, being the turning point of life styles and practices.

Precisely, companies engaging in disruptive technology, are able to investigate these new markets and capture the niche of customers who are expecting and are in need of that disruptive technology. (source: The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen, Clayton M.).

From that point on, that technology has great possibilities to succeed in the case that the owner company is able to understand the laws which rule that technology and apply them.

Think about how many attempts at flight human beings made and how many times they died before being able to fly in airplanes transporting people and wares at high speed as is the case nowadays. Actually we had to understand the laws underneath, such as the law of gravity, in order to succeed in that disruptive technology (source: The Innovator’s Dilemma, Christensen, Clayton M.).

In addition to that understanding the kind of processes and practices to apply to the technology is essential. According to that small companies would have many more possibilities to succeed than big companies which would move as clumsily as elephants on disruptive technologies and as lightly as a butterfly on sustaining technologies which are existing products.

The reason for that is that big companies have developed efficient management, processes and practices and know their market of sustaining technologies to such an extent that they can easily measure their R.O.I.

On the other hand all these structured processes and practices do not find any application in disruptive technologies which need flexibility and cannot grow in existing measurable markets but in new explorable markets.

Given that, small companies actually have an intrinsic capability of developing and complying with disruptive technologies, evolving themselves together with the technology and the new markets, adapting to the new customers who are floating in a changeable state for a non determinable time.

Even better, customers’ behavior is going to be ever and ever changing. So technologies which will adapt constantly to the customers who will win.

Social media are that kind of disruptive technologies which are supposed to win more than others because of their complete adherence to customer interests. Actually, social media are made by people, by users.

The tools social media offers to users are meant to meet users’ needs for first hand information, interactivity, engagement, aggregation and further.

Several kinds of businesses are starting to be involved in social media because of that. E-commerce websites themselves are adapting their sales processes by involving users in the sales through web tools which let them discuss and rating products and retailers.

Apart from that, companies are wondering how to measure their investment on social media and are finding often no answers and results which can be comparable to those provided by investments on sustaining technologies.

In fact, social media are filling the gap in markets which have not been investigated so far and that makes Return On Investment far from being measured and analysed in the same ways as it is possible for sustaining technology.

Last but not least Social Media slips out steady rules and measurements because of the interactive nature it is made of which drawns a flexible and chameleon-like shape.

Nevertheless, measurements can be made.

It is all a matter of evolving the standard analysis methods and upgrading them to a flexible level much better at adapting to customers’ fickle behaviors.

Social Media triggers sales and revenue by driving an increase in reputation, notoriety, reciprocity, sense of efficacy, attachment to and need for a group.

After engaging in Social Media, website visits and social mentions multiply and revenues start slightly or considerably being boosted.

These impacts can be measured by crossing web statistics and revenue before and after Social Media campaigns.

Furthermore statistics would collect not only standard web stats but also data such as Twitter and Friendfeed followers, friends and fans on Facebook, Plurk, Diggs, Friendster, connections on Linkedin, Xing, Plaxo, blogs subscriptions, Posterous and Youtube subscription, comments on blog entries, link referrals, trackbacks and so on.

It is crucial to define new analysis methods and Olivier Blanchard by The Brand Builder defines Frequency, Reach and Yield as business metrics to measure Social Media. Watch out the video.
Business-oriented ROI for Social Media: F.R.Y. Metrics explained

Monitoring Social Media 09 will bring together leading brands, Social Media Monitoring experts and suppliers with PR & marketing professionals for a one-day conference in London on 17th November 2009. The first event of its kind in Europe, MSM 09 offers attendees a series of high-value talks, panel sessions and debates, with contributions from leading digital agencies and brands.

http://www.monitoring-social-media.com/

At MSM09 we will explore:

* The ROI of social media monitoring
* Innovations in reputation management
* Who controls social media data
* Free vs paid monitoring services
* Automated vs human sentiment detection
* How to identify and contact influencers
* The future of social media monitoring
* Examples & case studies