The afternoon at the Strategy & Information Forum featured two concurrent tracks. I attended the panel focussed on monetizing Web 2.0. On the panel were: Brett Hurt - Founder and CEO Bazaarvoice, Paul Martino - CEO Aggregate Knowledge, Joe Chung - CEO Allurent, Jim Calhoun - CEO Popular Media and Steve Papa CEO Endeca.

There were four speakers, a moderator and 45 minutes….it made for a lightning-round session. Brett introduced the topic by asking the audience how many of them had integrated user-generated content into their sites. A large portion of the audience had. Brett compared that to a few years ago when only five of the major retail brands had dabbled in UGC.

People can find the content they want, Google is becoming more of a brand tool than ever. Of course the CMO wants to know, ‘How does this drive sales?’

1. Give you customers a voice
2. Maximize their influence by integrating UGC throughout the brand experience
3. Turn a single voice into a chorus

Integration drives impact. You need to integrate the tools on your site to get people to use them. At PETCO, the initial search filter is now customer rating.

Next up was Paul Martino from Aggregate Knowledge. Their focus is discovery of UGC in non-traditional way. How can you turn people that comment on your products into a sales force? Another focus is interest-based navigation. Driving people through your site based upon user recommendations.

Allow your customers to share their retail experiences within their social networks. However, don’t look at the Facebook Beacon model.

Steve Papa with Endeca addressed information visibility. Retailers have millions of SKUs and other bits of information that get buried. In the physical world retailers organize their stores. In the online world it’s not so easy.

Now layer upon this UGC. How do you organize this content in relation to the products? You need to make the UGC visible. Steve revisited PETCO. User generated reviews are becoming the primary navigation method for users. Allow the customers to organize the store.

Steve stressed that we’re in the first innings of this UGC game and you need to be able to adapt, listening to your customers can help with that.

Next to speak was Jim Calhoun with Popular Media. Jim did a quick review of how the landscape has changed over the past few years. What we’re seeing is a new set of tools that go beyond traditional behavioral targeting. Targeting that is based upon social networks is way more powerful. As botched and as painful Beacon was, it’s the future. Of course the execution needs to be better.

You need to know what percentage of your customer base is participating in online social networks (i.e. MySpace, Facebook). You need to understand how to market your product now how you want, but how the customer wants.

Jim thinks of it as user-distributed content. It provides: Great leads, great customers, high conversion rates, etc.

The final panelist was Joe Chung with Allurent. Joe talked about redefining the shopping experience and perhaps the notion of social commerce. The goal is to move beyond shopping systems built by geeks for geeks. Until now, people would shop in one window or tab and the participate in social networks in the other. Why not a crossover?

User experience can be monetized in the sense that it improves the usability of the site. Make things easier to use. Joe reference a case study where they redesigned the check-out process for a client and drove a 24% increase in sales.

Another concept that Joe showed was widget-based shopping. The ability to browse, select and check-out all within the browser window of another site.

The goal is move shopping and social interaction closer together. Much of this involves taking the shopping experience out of the traditional environment.