Marketing Pilgrim

GigaOM has news that PR firm Edelman and RSS aggregator NewsGator are joining forces to create user-created communities called “Hosted Conversations”.

Brands will be able to allow consumers to participate in an online community and share news, blog feeds and conversations. They also plan to tie-in banner ads which will run content pulled from the hosted conversations.

It’s a neat idea and expands on a concept Converseon (disc) has been utilizing with their clients for a few months now. Instead of companies trying to muscle their way in on already established conversations about their products, they can have better success by embracing the consumer from the outset.