Best Buy Inc. (NYSE: BBY) is taking the world of social media by storm. Instead of relying on traditional marketing and communication methods, hundreds of Best Buy employees are chirping on Twitter.com to assist in technology advice. The retailer is becoming more transparent and communicative on its own online forums. And, it's producing video blogs to engage its consumers beyond the world of text.

What does all this add up to? As the last national big-box consumer electronics retailing chain left in the U.S., Best Buy's "community managers" will be speaking at the Engage! to explain why they are doing what they are doing. Best Buy's strategy here is to adopt the communication and networking arenas its existing and potential customers are already in -- and win more sales that way. Its "Twelpforce" effort of offering advice is just a start.

The good, the bad, and the hilarious. Those are the three leading categories in the summary of election campaign videos on Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) YouTube. We also have the Youfomercial, Youspoof, MudslingTube, and any other manner of real or counterfeit political propaganda that you could possibly imagine. PCMike's E-Journal, tech news blog states that his favorites are, "the John Edwards "I feel Pretty" video. Runner up: John McCain's
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Iran" to the tune of an old Beach Boys song.

Early in April, YouTube had officially announced the debut of CitizenTube in a declared attempt to improve direct accessibility to videos with specific political intent. While under the steady eye and watchful guidance of YouTube's news and politics editor, Steve Grove, it would seem that the project is succeeding. SplashCast blogger Marshall Kirkpatrick had expressed some concern at launch time about the service's apparent lack of social diversity, but I suspect that by now, "click weighing" has taken care of most of that.

Now, there are two things I expect shall continue to evolve from this high-powered communications medium. First, I am virtually certain that there is a serious round of hiring going on within the political camps that is aimed at building the teams that shall be attempting to fully exploit the "vid-clip-n-vlog" realm. There is simply too much power there to ignore. The smartest of the campaigners already have their teams assembled, I'm sure, but I'll bet there are a number of teams still trying to play catch up.

The second development that I see as already gaining some serious steam is the use of vlogging by political activists for getting their various messages out. Ah yes, democracy at its finest as expressed in the free flow of ideas. Do be careful out there though because we have entered the age wherein digital media can be easily manipulated to create the appearance that nearly anything is real. There are some nasty "spinmeisters" who will stop at nothing in pursuit of pandering their ideals. So if you happen to see a video of Hillary Clinton knocking back a couple of beers at Hooter's with Larry The Cable Guy, you might want to seek a second opinion.