The Ryder Cup of Word of Mouth, Buzz and Viral

The Ryder Cup is a fascinating contest. Based on prestige rather than prize money, it pits the best golfers in the USA against the best from other parts of the world. And while there was a time some years ago when I could not see the value in "hitting a ball and walking after it", I have now developed a much greater appreciation and interest in golf — both as a player and an observer. Interestingly, there are quite a few parallels between golf and social media:

• Participation — from the outside looking in, golf can appear boring. When you start to participate you realise there is much more to it than meets the eye.
• Frustration — like golf, not everything you "try" in social media works. Often your best efforts will still end up "in the pond".
• Competition — while it is easy to get caught up in all different rankings and measurements, like social media, you only ever play golf against yourself. The quality of your work comes down to the nuance, effort and creativity you inject into it — and the results follow accordingly.

In the spirit of the Ryder Cup, Sean Moffitt has compiled a list of what he considers to be the top 36 US blogs on word of mouth, viral, buzz, influence and the engaging brand. Against this he lists 36 international blogs. I am particularly pleased to be listed after reading Sean’s reasoning:

Unlike some of the social media- and tech dedicated marketing and media bloggers, these broad-minded bloggers and company heads (below) have distinguished themselves by helping visitors understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics and each recognizes the importance of having brands getting noticed, talked about and advocated in a 2.0 world.

In my opinion, they are much closer to explaining the purpose and benefits of a range of new media, web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon.

And in the best interest of co-creation, Sean has left a number of open slots on each team. So tell me, who would you include? Here is the list so far:

The USA Team

1. Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell – Church of the Customer (Austin, Texas)
2. Andy Sernovitz – Damn! I Wish I Thought of That! (Chicago, Illinois)
3. Pete Blackshaw – CGM (Cincinnati, Ohio)
4. Jim Nail – Influence 2.0 (Boston, Massachusetts)
5. Idil Cakim – dot WOM (New York, New York)
6. Jeremiah Owyang – Web Strategist (San Francisco, Calfornia)
7. Rohit Bhargava – Influential Marketing (Washington, D.C.)
8. Owen Mack – CoBrandIt (Boston, Massechussetts)
9. Walter Karl – WOM Study (Boston, Massachusetts)
10. Fred Reichheld – Net Promoter – (Boston, Massachusetts)
11. Max Kalehoff – Attention Max (New York, New York)
12. Olivier Blanchard – The Brand Builder (Greenville, South Carolina)
13. Charlene Li – Charlene Li (San Francisco, California)
14. Sam Decker – Bazaar Blog and Decker Marketing (Austin, Texas)
15. Joseph Jaffe – Jaffe Juice (New York, New York)
16. John Moore – Brand Autopsy (Austin, Texas)
17. Peter Kim – Being Peter Kim (Austin, Texas)
18. Mack Collier – The Viral Garden (Florence, Alabama)
19. Spike Jones – Brains on Fire (Greenville, South Carolina)
20. Ron McDaniel – Buzzoodle (Cleveland, Ohio)
21.John Jantsch – Duct Tape Marketing (Kansas City, Missouri)
22. Kim Proctor – How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences (Los Angeles, California)
23. Rob Walker – Murketing (Savannah, Georgia)
24. Lois Kelly – Foghound (Providence, Rhode Island)
25. Ann Handley – MarketingProfs (Boston, Massachusetts)
26. Shiv Singh – Going Social Now (New York, New York)
27. Laurent Flores – Customer Listening Blog (New York, New York)
28. Tom Asacker – A Clear Eye (Manchester, New Hampshire)
29. Francois Gossieaux – Emergence Marketing (Boston, Massachusetts)
30. Geoff Livingston – The Buzz Bin (Washington, B.C.)
31. Dave Balter – BzzAgent (Boston, Massachussetts)
32. John Bell – Digital Influence Mapping Project (Washington, D.C.)
33. Todd Tweedy – Word Spreads Quickly (Charlottesville, Virginia)
34. Marta Kagan – the Secret Diary of a Bonafide Marketing Genius (Boston, Massachusetts)
35. Greg Stielstra – Pyromarketing (Nashville, Tennessee)
36. Willow Baum Lundgren – Small Planet (Kansas City, Missouri)
37. Amber Naslund – The Brand Box (Chicago, Illinois)
38. Greg Verdino – GregVerdino.com (New York, New York)
39. Paul Chaney – Conversational Media Marketing (Lafayette, Louisiana)
40. August Ray – Experience – The Blog (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
41-42??? Your Turn

The International Team

1. Frederick Herrman – Netszkobold (Germany)
2. Emmanuel Vivier – Culture-Buzz (Luxembourg)
3. Sean Moffitt – Buzz Canuck (Canada)
4. Rachel Clarke – Behind the Buzz (England)
5. Gavin Heaton – Servant of Chaos (Australia)
6. Sam Flemming – SeeISee.com (China)
7. Ian McKee – The Power of Influence (Singapore) 
8. Mirko Pollera/Alex Giordano – Ninja Marketing (Italy)
9. Russell Davies – Russell Davies (England)
10. Simon McDermott – Attentio (Belgium)
11. Andy Lark – Andy Lark  (New Zealand)
12. Max Lenderman – Experience the Message (Canada)
13. Paul Marsden – Viral Culture (England)
14. Laurent Valembert –  Marketing Alternatif (France)
15. Mike Rowe – 1000 heads (UK)
16. Par Thunstrom – Buzzador (Sweden)
17. CLeber Martins – Blog de Guerrilha (Brazil)
18  Willem Sodderland – Buzzer (Netherlands)
19. Jean Nasr – Alt-Buzz (France)
20. Igor Beuker – Viral Tracker (Netherlands)
21. Grant McCracken – This Blog Sits At...(Canada)
22. Mitch Joel – Six Pixels of Separation (Canada)
23. Justin Kirby – DMC (U.K.)
24. Sebastian Provencher – Praized  (Canada)
25. Alan Moore/Tomi Ahonen – Communities Dominate Brands (England/Hong Kong)
26. Anna Farmery – The Engaging Brand (UK)
27. Neil Perkin – Only Dead Fish (UK)
28. Johnnie Moore – Johnny Moore’s Werblog (UK)
29. Joanna Kocieba – BuzzReporter (Poland)
30. Hjortur Smarason – Marketing Safari (Iceland)
31. Krishna De – Biz Growth News (Ireland)
32. Fred Cavazza – FredCavazza.net (France)
33. Bart van Der Aa – Icemedia (Netherlands)
34. Gianluca Artesano – Frozen Frogs (Italy)
35. Ivo Laurin – Outbreak (Czech)
36. Chris Abraham – Chris Abraham (Germany)
37. Mark Earls – Herd (U.K.)
38. David Eicher – Brainwash (Germany)
39. Pepe Wietholz – Buzz People(Germany)
40 Christian Wilfer/Carolina Schulz –  Viralmarketing.de (Germany)
41. Dean Hunt – DeanHunt.com – (UK)
41-42??? Your Turn