Marketing, as we have traditionally known it, is over. Gone are the days when a company could broadcast its message through advertising alone and expect a large return of buyers flocking to its products. There are simply too many sources of entertainment and information, too many independent and consumer-driven alternatives, for a dominating advertising message to be effectively delivered.

What has emerged over the last decade is the era of conversation marketing. It is the era of social networks with vast resources and tremendous power to go in directions no company can control. It is an organic system, in that it operates as a group of interlocking systems that are independent, yet feed one another.