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In the past, an advertiser would have counted on TV to make the point. But as younger audiences increasingly turn to other screens, TV airings alone don't necessarily have the impact they once did. So more TV networks are pitching programs that make use of the chatter it generates in some of the new venues. This week's upfront sessions are likely to include a sizable amount of talk about how Fox, CW and their brethren can use popular TV shows to harness consumer interest in social-media outlets. "Making sure that you've got a layer of digital and social amplification as part of the plan is paramount," said Brent Poer, exec VP-executive creative director at Starcom MediaVest Group's LiquidThread unit, which specializes in weaving ad messages into content and was involved in the pact between CW and Microsoft. Earlier this month, CBS unveiled "CBS Connect," a digital hub where TV fans can aggregate updates about their favorite shows from Twitter and Facebook, and interact with actors from the programs. On Tuesday, for example, members of the cast of "NCIS: Los Angeles" will connect with fans who use the show's hashtag in their tweets and posts during the program's season finale.

Unlike Conde's exchange, though, Hearst Digital Media's platform is not aimed at increasing sell through on its sites; the company will continue to partner with select display and video ad networks to unload its unsold ad inventory. Rather, the new "audience exchange" (as Hearst is calling it) will let advertisers who are making upfront buys with Hearst's direct sales team target specific groups of consumers across Hearst Digital Media's 25-plus online brands, which include web and mobile sites for Seventeen, Elle, Good Housekeeping and Esquire.

"Our top five channels would rank in the top list of cable channels,” which means they average 4.7 to 6.8 million viewers, according to the latest ranking of basic cable audience sizes by Nielsen. 

The Nielsen Co. said Tuesday that 28.2 million people watched Kobe Bryant's Lakers win their second straight NBA championship. It was the most-watched NBA game since Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to their sixth championship over the Utah Jazz in 1998.Except for the Olympics, Nielsen said last Thursday's game was the most-watched show on network TV in the summertime since the finale of the first "Survivor" season in August 2000.It follows a trend of big ratings for big events on TV. This year's Super Bowl reigns as the most-watched event in U.S. television history, with an audience of 106 million.

MTV already has 18 candidates lined up, and is calling upon viewers to choose two more. The 20 Twitter hopefuls will compete in online challenges over the sultry days of summer, culminating in a live show on August 8 during which the audience will choose the voice of MTV’s Twitter stream.

“This is all about finding a way to give advertisers the opportunities they used to have in the days of three networks,” said Mr. Manning, when marketers could effectively and efficiently reach huge audiences just by buying commercial time on ABC, CBS and NBC. “People are still watching television, but they’re spread out among hundreds of channels and the Internet,” Mr. Manning said. “The one place where people re-aggregate themselves back into a crowd again is the retail store.”

ABC News Radio and StatusNet, the open-source microblogging service that serves as the foundation for identi.ca, have "unofficially" partnered to unveil a newswire for the radio service. While the partnership may not be "official", it is yet another vote of confidence in the Twitter-alternative and the open Web.

For now, Patterson says the site will be used for news distribution and audience engagement - the typical use of systems like Twitter and StatusNet - and will be available at abcnewsradio.fm. Earlier this summer, StatusNet received a push in the form of $2.3 million and just recently the company introduced an iPhone app. The decision of a major media outlet to use their service is, in our eyes, a major vote of confidence in something other than the norm.

The audience for social networks is getting younger and younger as more children are drawn to the cute social games that have become the most popular form of entertainment. So Media Chaperone has created its Piggyback app for Facebook that lets parents stay in the loop with their children’s online socializing and gaming activity. Chicago-based Media Chaperone said its software will help allay parents’ concerns about safety on the social networks. (Facebook doesn’t allow kids on its social network, but somehow they manage to get on there anyway, often through accounts created by parents).

The real question is whether solutions like these will be enough. By some estimates in just a few years we will reach a point where all the information on the Internet will double every 72 hours. Double. I'm running out of metaphors to describe the magnitude of this content creation. The predictable result of this is that brands are beginning to focus on content creation when they start to look at social media. What are we going to create, or what are we going to get our customers/patients/fans/audience/victims to create? Is that really the best question we could be asking?What if you were to ask about the person that makes sense of it all? The one who sifts through all the content and picks out the best and most worthy. This person is missing from most corporate communications teams. It's not a commonly defined role on any ebusiness teams. In fact, there are few jobs like this at all. The closest comparative role may be contained within the rising Library 2.0 movement (one I wrote about some time ago), but this is not frequently linked to business communication or marketing. If this role did exist, what would it be called?