What is the best way to leverage the branding, marketing and communications possibilities provided by social networking tools? Faris Yakob has a surprisingly simple answer.

Getting our ideas into the public sphere isn’t much of a problem. Start a blog and start typing. But how do we make them take hold in the collective imagination and develop a life of their own.

How do we engage online audiences so that they advocate our cause? What do we do if they steer off message? And what do carrotmobs have to do with any of this.

How a 12-character message — “Jia Junpeng, your mother wants you to go home to eat” — became a Chinese Internet sensation, attracting 300,000 comments in a day.

John Stewart calls out CNN for their journalistic mediocrity and gives us a lesson in journalism 101 while he’s at it.

Clay Shirky discusses how producers and consumers interact on the Internet.

Whether it’s tired campaigns about their content being “stolen,” or tired discussions about their content being “taken,” the Associated Press is a tired organization huffing and puffing on its last legs.

Over the past decade dissident groups around the world have utilized Internet communications during crisis to broadcast their message to local and global communities. We take three case studies to see how this has been done. In the process we see that over the years, the ability to harness these technologies is moving from organizations to anyone with actual Internet access.

As information industries struggle, they grasp at anything to protect their turf. The result is that we all suffer.