Paul Gillin featured VoIP Watch blogger Andy Abramson's Comunicano PR agency and a client in a column for Advertising Age on social media. AdAge is a big deal; congrats, Andy.

It's about building buzz. Andy runs "blogger relations" programs for companies like Nokia. He seeds product hoping for meaningful coverage. [disclosure: I'm using a Nokia N80 phone provided through that program; Jim Courtney is using a N800.] With luck, Andy's clients get a conversation going among bloggers, building Googlejuice and blog cred. 

Word spreads via blogs fast compared to other channels, like print media or the average corporate web site.

Skype is faster.

• Andy triggered this post when he shared the news with me in a 1-to-1 Skype chat message.
• Other SJ posts were triggered by ideas and links in private and public group chats.
• One blogger I know uses a skype-merge bot to broadcast updates to colleagues and friends.
• And a well planned and moderated conference call can seed more conversation and action than any news release.

I'll argue that Skypeland is as connected, with more trusted social ties, than the blogosphere. And ideas flow more freely because Skypeland blends the best of real-time and asynch communication across many talk modes (text, audio, video, desktop, mobile).  

p.s. Andy, the N80's compass rose catches on my beard. A known problem, per staff at the Nokia booth at web2expo.