Which brand made the best use of new media? How?
Chas Edwards: Cisco's "Welcome to the Human Network" campaign invited thought leaders (and blog authors) to write their own definitions of "human networks"-- definitions that ran as copy for ads on their own websites. Readers of those sites were invited to a landing page where they could vote for their favorite definitions and submit their own. Before long, the phrase "Human Network" made its way into Wikipedia (with Cisco getting credit for popularizing the term), and press and blog coverage of the campaign boosted the page rank for Cisco's websites-- landing them atop the organic search results at Google.

Chrysi Philalithes: A familiar brand, NewsCorp, in their purchase of MySpace made a major move to enter and stay ahead of the new media pack.

Which brand, in your eyes, missed an opportunity? Why?
Tom Hespos: I think AOL missed an opportunity to capitalize on goodwill generated by giving their service away free to broadband customers. For years, they had been telling people that their content was second to none and couldn't be found outside of AOL and their various offline media properties, and then suddenly this content was available for free to a lot of people. My initial reaction was that opening it up was a great idea, but I think they could have done a better job of highlighting what they were giving away.

What industry made the best use of interactive in 2006?
Hespos: Believe it or not, I was impressed by some of the efforts of book publishers to build community around ideas in order to boost demand for a book prior to its release date. Some book publishers are adapting to the changes brought about by interactive media really well.

Jonathan Epstein: The automotive industry has shown its commitment to exploring all of the new media possibilities, from dynamic in-game advertising to in-game product placements, mobile marketing and many other formats.

Philalithes: The automotive industry, once again, has made excellent use of interactive media in 2006. The automotive industry has fully realized that people are going online to research which cars to buy. If automotive companies are not advertising online, they may not capture people during an initial critical stage of the buying process-- research. And should they miss out on being considered at this stage, the likelihood of a purchase is minimized.

What was the biggest shake-up on the brand side?
Hespos: Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart.