Here are a few random snippets related to IWOM I came across this week:

I like this pic from the Economist article discussing Facebook's announcement of its new internet word of mouth advertising program (I am cooking up ideas about this; will share soon). Nice title: "Word of Mouse" and nice pic of "conversational marketing."

Forbes has a nice article here showing Comcast, GSK and Toyota's approach to engaging with social media (in the US).

Blognation has a nice post outlining key issues around BBS forum culture here. See our post on net language here. Our Chinese blog has many more such posts (see links in first paragraph).

Finally, Netpop has some interesting stats about Chinese broadband users as reported by Marketing Charts:

*User-generated content (consumer reviews/rating sites, forum/discussion boards, blogs, etc.) influences 58% of all purchase decisions in China, compared with 19% in the US.

*47% of Chinese broadband users post comments to a blog, chat room, listserv or forum, compared with just 28% of American broadband users.