MEDIAPOST — Verizon has hammered AT&T in a relentless ad campaign, triumphed over its chief rival in a recent court challenge, and easily bested the carrier in the latest cell service satisfaction survey from Consumer Reports. Now Verizon is thumping AT&T in another arena: Facebook. The nation's largest wireless carrier has recently ramped up marketing efforts on the social network as part of broader to promote the launch of the Motorola Droid, Verizon FiOS and its V Cast media service, among other products...

ALL FACEBOOK — Black Friday is known for its ability to attract the most fanatic shoppers, some of which have even been trampled to death by the massive crowds. This year there were fortunately no deaths, however many consumers logged on to Facebook on Friday to become a fan of some of their favorite brands. While a rapid growth in fans is not necessarily a sign of how well a company will perform for the holidays, it may provide a bit of insight into what’s popular...

In one of his more recent posts, FastForward colleague Jon Husband urges organizations to look past traditional return on investment (ROI) measures in today’s Enterprise 2.0 organization, because there are many intangibles that bring value to the organization. Return on Investment in Interaction may be a more effective measure, he says. Straight ROI is difficult in Enterprise 2.0 environment, but there are some areas that can potentially be measured, as illustrated by Forrester analyst Natalie L. Petouhoff, Ph.D., in a recent study titled The ROI Of Online Customer Service Communities. One of those instances is the potential returns from online customer service communities...

Here's the job description: You spend a few hours a day, up to 20 a week, at your computer, supplying answers online to customer questions about technical matters like how to set up an Internet home network or how to program a new high-definition television. The pay: $0. A shabby form of exploitation? Not to Justin McMurry of Keller, Tex., who spends about that amount of time helping customers of Verizon’s high-speed fiber optic Internet, television and telephone service, which the company is gradually rolling out across the country...

Stories of one company or another coming to the aid of its customers via Twitter are now legion. Consumer-facing firms like Comcast have made it a priority to scan the twitterverse for unhappy customers and to make them happy. What you will find less often on Twitter are stories of one customer being simultaneously wooed by multiple companies eager for that person’s brand loyalty. That’s just what happened to Baltimore doctor Gary Kerkvliet, who found himself being courted by Comcast and Verizon — via tweets and direct messages — for his home-Internet business...