Word of Mouth - you can't ignore it

There's big things happening in 'word of mouth' measurement. Nielsen just bought two of the biggest players to form http://www.nielsenbuzzmetrics.com/ It even has it's own acronym CGM (consumer generated media) Nielsen are selling this as a brand reputation and marketing effectiveness tool. i.e. a monitor of what's going on with customers in the offline world - ratings tell you how many, buzz tells you what they are saying. It's essentailly viewing blogs, boards, forums etc as a massive real time focus group The companies really picking this up in the states are PR companies. For a quick overview have a listen to the start of the company announcement / podcast. Agencies take note - which discipline owns this area?