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What if Santa Claus' identity was revealed when his cookie trail exposed his exact whereabouts on Christmas Eve? This would not only take all the fun and wonderment out of Christmas, it would be providing too much information for too many inquiring minds.

Labeled A-Hole Foods by some, an army of bloggers have taken to full battle gear ever since John Mackey's op-ed appeared in the Wall Street Journal on August 12, 2009. Triggering significant backlash, Whole Foods may have a hard time overcoming a social media nightmare spurred on by their leader.

There's lots of talk about the Twitter Effect and how it can make or break a movie. When it came to Bruno & GI Joe- thumbs down! In the case of Inglorious Basterds and District 9 -thumbs up! If Twitter has this effect on improving movie ticket sales, do we even need critics anymore?

Remember in the days of Mad Men, when  Grandma and Mom use to cut those store coupons out of the newspaper and strategically categorize them for redemption when they  went shopping. That popular form of advertising was for the cost-conscious generation that had lived through two World Wars and a Depression.

It all started in 2008 when Sony rolled out its "Reading Revolution,"  to spark the imaginations of young readers and engage the public in digital reading. However somehow along the way, Sony lost its steam and Amazon's Kindle seized the moment to become the dominant force in the burgeoning e-Reader industry. Now late in 2009, the Sony Reader is re-engaging its marketing prowess to beat down its competitor and regain prominence.

The infamous 'United Breaks Guitars' video that went viral with over 5.2 million views is now receiving some push back from an airline branding company. SimpliFlying, an international marketing firm based out of Singapore has filmed their own editorial video to provide United Airlines with some useful social media tips as to how to counter this negative publicity.

The definition of drinking from the firehose according to the Urban Dictionary is "being overwhelmed with information, to do something intensely, to be inundated." When drinking from the firehose, the glass is not half full - the glass is not half empty - the glass is just too damn big!  We're all drowning in data overload, and need all the help we can get! Guzzle.it is one tool that can cut through the noise.

Apparently anti-matter exists even though we're not sure what causes it or why? At an early age, one learned that  antidisestablishmententarism was one of the longest words in the English language! One can be anti-climatic or anti-war! And now there's even an Anti-Twitter, a macroblogging platform that allows you to write until your tweets runneth over.

While the movers and shakers on Twitter might be just "micro" bloggers...they sure know how to create a "macro" influence. Forbes Magazine compiled a list. Every country has their own top ten ranking. The top most influential tweeps within the DC Beltway according to Politico lists Barack Obama as number 4 behind Dick Gregory, Claire McCaskill and Karl Rove. You can determine your own list by tallying a user's number of followers, their number of tweets, their number of status updates -- or an algorithm thereof.

What is the "social share of voice" amongst pharmaceutical companies online? While some drug companies have been reluctant to embrace social media for fear of running afoul of FDA regulations that govern the advertising and promotion of prescription drugs, others are embracing social networks to help brand and position their companies in a positive light with consumers and practitioners. Here are the TOP TEN Pharma companies that are presently useing social media to reach out to larger audiences.

"They tried to make me go to rehab, but I said: no, no, no!"  A 'rehab center' for all those socially networked, gaming addicts out there.... has opened its doors. And for the low, low cost of $14,500, your followers, contacts and friends can send you straight from your intervention to its Redmond, Washington headquarters. 

Holy Roller, Batman, apparently social networking has gotten a little too risque for some. Since language is not censored on sites like Twitter and Facebook, Christians soldiers are marching onward in a pilgrimage to clean up the social media space, with a beta launch of Cross.tv. While the social networking space is getting a little crowded, Cross.tv is one of the first to focus on a faith-based approach to reach out to prospective network members.

Social Networks that connect business professionals abound on the Internet, but known have reached the comprehensive approach or critical mass of LinkedIn. While Plaxo, FastPitch and others have reached out to business professionals daily trying to woo them over, none have scaled nor held their ground as firmly as LinkedIn.

Several months ago, Jon Stewart's parody of Twitter by his faux-techie correspondent, Samantha Bee surfaced some of Twitter's potential new competitors. Strangely enough her prescient  investigative report may have been a premonition of things to come, as she described the new social network of "Stalker."

Is posting an altered image of the president to Flickr an acceptable practice? Or should copyrighted photos in general never be altered and published online or in print? If so, why are do so many contrived photos and artwork popping up daily on social networks and in magazines?  Check out this TOP TEN list of altered images that have have sparked censorship controversy over the years, right up till today.

This past July, Twitter alerted the Twitterati that it would be purging 'spammy' accounts. This led to a major expulsion of pornbots and questionable auto feeds in the 1000s. For those who were not tracking their followers closely, many of us woke up one morning to witness a significant drop in one's follower count. Users soon learned that hundreds of “friends” with questionable profiles was less valuable than connecting with a select number of people you can trust, even if you don't know them personally.

To grow a population larger than Brazil and slightly less than than the US does Facebook need to adapt to change? And if so, could its underlying success become its ultimate downfall? Being all things to all people normally dilutes the effectiveness of any system. If governments have failed at it is Facebook enough of a chameleon to take on the challenge? Just how many faces does Facebook have?

Katrina's devastation of New Orleans was BSM (before social media). It's hard to think that we lived during a period of time without social networking, but only 4 years ago Facebook was barely one year old, and Twitter was yet to be inked out on a restaurant napkin.

Since Web 2.0 is now passing its 5th year anniversary, there is enough data to assess just how much of an impact social media has had on our lives. While there are still those who believe it's nothing more than a passing fancy, a fad, the Studio 54 of our day...one cannot deny the numbers. Statistics don't lie and Kagan, Fisch, McLeod & Qualman are here to prove it so!