From Joshua Rappeneker at flickr under a Creative Commons License.

For the first few years of the new millennium, social media was an exclusive club.  It remained relatively untouched by traditional advertising, and the lucky first adopters of MySpace and Facebook could live in peace.  Why, then, are communities that were originally designed for people increasingly being hijacked by companies?

Recent articles in the NY Times and on social media hub Mashable have highlighted how the traditional marketing community is barking up the wrong tree in its use of social media (thanks to Seth for pointing thelinks out).  We all know that it’s only a matter of time until advertising hits social media channels full-on, and until then we get to watch the first adopters - like P&G, and Crest - give it their best shot, and sometimes fail.

Not all social media channels are created the same, however. 

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