I found this great New Media primer [via Theater North Carolina].

Read this excerpt, then read the full article (link listed below)

Deciding if social networking is going to be an asset or liability is dependent on how your company chooses to approach it.

Companies who look first to their communications objectives and selectively choose which aspects of social networking can accentuate their messaging are the most successful.

Those that choose to look on social networking as a means to blanketing the connected world with their messaging fail.

Whether social networking is going to be an asset or liability depends on your decisions of how to use it.

Starting With Web 2.0

The idea of the Internet being more responsive and participatory is one of the aspects of Web 2.0, a concept defined by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Media.

One of the best books written about the adoption of Web 2.0 and the rapid growth and popularity of social networking sites is Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, from Forrester Research.

Josh Bernoff writes the Groundswell blog as well.

Subscribing to it gives an excellent education on how social networking is changing how companies are adopting these technologies.

[Make sure you read the full article for a great explanation of all the buzz words of our web2.0 culture]