A week ago, I was followed by @TheBogan on Twitter. After slowly building momentum over the past seven days, his follower count is building and I've seen his tweets retweeted a number of times. I'm not sure if it's because myself and Stan have engaged with him a fair bit, but he seems to be fairly involved with the Australian marketing bloggers. It only occurred to me this morning, but could this be a cunning marketing campaign for VB? While I doubt that's the case, wouldn't it be incredible if it were so? I love the creativity. I love the brand tie in. I love the audience engagement. I even love that it's completely non transparent, and Julian agrees sometimes it's appropriate to break the so called "social media rules". It could also be some guy who just wants a creative outlet. It might even be Stan himself. But maybe, just maybe, it's a genius piece of work by Droga5....

Today I'm going to talk about Daniel Oyston and his entry into the Australian marketing blogosphere. It started early last year when Oyster first sent feedback to the Marketing Today podcast. He followed that up with further comments over the next few months, adding value to the conversation each time. In October, he started his own blog. He was soon commenting on a number of different blogs, adding insight and thought to each post. Building up his online presence, he established networks and from that his own posts started receiving a lot of attention. He contacted me personally and we had a number of emails back and forth about beer and funny internet memes. He still sends me random shit he thinks I'll like. And he offered to host some images on a server he had access to. In less than six months, he's been able to do what I've been trying to for nearly two years. In just this short a time, he's blog is held in incredibly high regard. I believe that while his content is remarkable, his community driven approach and the rules of engagement he followed have attributed to his success. I think if you asked Oyster whether this was a strategy he set out to do or if this was just what he thought was common sense, logical and how a decent friendly guy would act, his answer would be the latter. Brands can learn a lot from this. The way Oyster first monitored the environment, began to put out feelers and ultimately engaged with the right influential people was superb. Brands should use this example when conducting social media response and broadcast....

The only reason I haven't mentioned mUmbrella yet is because it seems obvious you should already be reading it. If this model can be successfully monetised, it will be the future of journalism. Also Mumbles gave me some link love so I feel like I owe him. ;]...

Micro transactions. The new media business model that is going to save at least two industries and possibly cure cancer. Tying in nicely with the long tail, micro transactions work perfectly for a pirate ridden Gen Y and where traditional business models have failed. Gen Y want everything free, but are happy to pay a small amount for instant gratification. If it's worth paying for, we'll pay for it. Here are some examples...