Cleaning up my office the other day, I found an interesting chart comparing traffic numbers for top social sites year-to-year between November 2005 and November 2006.

Xanga was number two among the 12-to-17 crowd, increasing their audience 29 percent (to 2.1 million monthly unique visitors). Facebook was sliding, down nine percent with the young ‘uns (to 1.5 million), but up 14 percent among 18-to-24-year-olds (to 5.5 million). MySpace? Tops in both age groups, up nine percent with the youngsters (to 6.4 million) and up 34 percent with the older group (to 6.8 million).

Which led me to wondering how those sites are doing today, which led me to this TechCrunch page of social site rankings for October 2007. From 2006 to 2007, Xanga traffic slipped 49 percent, MySpace increased 28 percent, and Facebook exploded, increasing 118 percent. Digg and LinkedIn didn’t too too shabbily, either, increasing 280 and 257 percent, respectively.

Takeaway for marketers: Diving into the social networking waters? If so, remember that audiences are notoriously fickle. Those top 50 social networking sites listed over here? Well, here’s another 300 looking to eat their lunch … and there’s undoubtedly plenty more where those came from.

My friend John Beal alerts me to this post over on Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine that points up some of the aburdity of the social networking craze. But Jarvis is making a bigger point here: that the clickthrough is dead.

That may be, and Jeff’s post is worth reading and thinking about. I can’t get past the fact that the Pepperidge Farm site is absurd. Look at the heavy focus on “Connections.” What does the brand stand for, cookies? Relationships? Should I be looking for advice on how to live my best life in PF magazine, next to Oprah’s O on the newsstand?

It’s a site that’s all about the company and how the company wants to be perceived by its customers. It’s not a site that takes the way customers perceive the company and builds on that perception. Hasn’t anyone at Pepperidge Farm seen what Dove is doing online?

Unless, of course, I have it all wrong, and millions of women are woofing down double chocolate Milanos as a way of getting closer to their girlfriends. In comfort food there is friendship.

By the way, as much as “Connections” is emphasized on the site, there’s no mention of it at all when one signs up for the email list: “Now that you’re registered, you won’t miss out on any of the wonderful things going on at Pepperidge Farm! You will receive Email updates on new product news, special offers, great promotions and more. Thanks again, and enjoy!” What, no relationship news?

Oh, and if that site cost $2-$3 million, as reported, then I’m swimming with the wrong kind of fish. Then again, I guess it’s like the old line: “How do you sleep at night?” Answer: “On a big pile of money.”

Takeaway for marketers: Listen to your customers. Give them what they want. And if you still like the Pepperidge Farm site, give me a call: I’ll make one happen for you for just $1.5 million.

“Beyond the typical Internet, billboard, magazine, newspaper, television, and radio ads, the network also employed cutting-edge guerrilla marketing techniques, including a sticker campaign, personal canvassing, and 14,000 urinal communicators installed in public restrooms across the U.S.”

Brilliant.

Takeaway for marketers: As Larry Gelbart has said, most jokes carry a bitter truth.

Given the choice and asked at the right time, many professionals might consider waterboarding preferable to yet another PowerPoint presentation.

This presentation by presentation consultant Alexei Kapterev and brought to us by Lifehacker, conservatively estimates that half of all PowerPoint presentations are unbearable. The number would be much less if all of us who had to create PowerPoint would pay attention to this presentation. And while we’re at it, let’s go back and review Seth Godin’s two cents on PowerPoint, too.

Takeaway for marketers: Presenting? Keep. It. Simple.

The Cluetrain Manifesto said it well back in 1999, and big companies and C-level executives are starting to wake up to the idea: Markets are conversations. And sure as “viral marketing” and “social networking” and “Web 2.0” have become (largely) misunderstood and (generally) useless buzzwords, look for “conversational marketing” to become the buzzword of 2008.

Takeaway for marketers: Dig beneath the surface of the buzzword. Read the Manifesto, or check out smart blogs like Age of Conversation.