Last week, in Brandweek, Forrester's Peter Kim wrote a nice overview of "brand monitoring". See the article here.

He suggests that to succeed in IWOM today:

...you need to listen and measure before getting involved. Sticking your head in the sand isn't an option; neither is operating in 24/7 knee-jerk reaction mode to every piece of CGM related to your brand. Brand monitoring can help marketers measure and make sense of CGM by delivering aggregated cost- and labor-intensive consumer insights.

Many of the points he covers echo what we found in our IWOM summit in China with senior executives.

Peter previously put together an overview of the brand monitoring market in the West here and an later a vendor list that included international vendors such as CIC here.

If any of this interests you, you should also check out Nathan Gilliat's Net-Savvy Executive for regular updates on this space. He has personally interviewed companies all over the world in order to put together his Guide to Social Media Analysis, which includes CIC.