Companies are only just starting to consider ways to exploit social media to their advantage… Case in point, in the last few months, I’ve been asked to interview for several new “social media” business development manager/evangelist positions at large companies.  Social Media is a growing area and one which has evolved through consumer interest, rather than corporate push.  It will be interesting to see how early adopters of social media react as big business starts wading in the water.  The reaction to Google’s purchase of YouTube was certainly mixed, with plenty of folks asking, “Is Google Killing YouTube?”

Yesterday, I talked a little bit about Singshot.com… Last night on Yodel Anectotal,  Yahoo, Inc. announced that it acquired Bix.com.  Bix takes things one step further than Singshot – people to judge all sorts of contests – from Karaoke to photos to dance routines to beauty to comedy and more.  It’s an interesting site, but one that parts of the site don’t appear to have much content/ user participation yet. Today, in his personal blog, Bradley Horowitz admitted, “… We need to get some cooler songs into the Bix karaoke system.” Considering the source, I’m sure it won’t be long before that changes.

In other news, this week, Reuters invested $7 million in an Austin, Texas based start-up, Pluck.  According to Pluck.com, “Pluck helps transform how publishers, media sites and major brands engage their audiences and customers to discover, create and distribute information online. Providing the technologies for content generation, syndication, social networking and news personalization, Pluck helps its customers more easily consume and leverage the new open content model that has emerged as the cornerstone of Web 2.0.”

In my opinion, social media is the next wave of revenue generation and marketing opportunity for big business.  The question yet to be answered is – How will consumers react to the commercialization of something that is supposed to be all about the user?