Few things bring out my inner Sam Kinison than seeing Christmas merchandise in the stores in September … unless, I suppose, it’s seeing Christmas merchandise in the stores in August. Thankfully that didn’t happen to me this year, though anything sooner than the day after Thanksgiving is, in my mind, completely wrong. So when I saw shelves of holiday merchandise in the stores today, it was all I could do to hold in the primal screams. Let the humbug begin.

Last night’s Rachel Maddow Show had an interesting segment that detailed how Facebook can be used by news media (and, not incidentally, politicians) to gauge the interest level of the general public in specific issues. In this particular case, Maddow talked about a veterans jobs bill that got killed in the Senate, and how a story about it received significantly higher-than-average interest on Facebook. Her observations are relevant to news media, politicians and social media marketers of all stripes.

Here’s a pretty good primer on how to gruntle them.

It’s right here, according to the Web Marketing Association.

Everything PR reports on holosonic marketing — which sounds very Minority Report, but nevertheless sounds pretty cool … until, I suppose, we’re walking down a busy street and new audio commercials are assaulting our ears with every new storefront we pass. One more reason to have an iPod, I suppose.