366 Days of Word of Mouth Blogs: January's All-Stars

A common refrain I hear, particularly from newly enthusiastic fans of word of mouth, is "where do I go for inspiration?"

So I thought this year, I would pull together a roll call of the best 366 sources of word of mouth inspiration (remember, leap year this year) covering off the full range of the 10 categories of word of mouth -  a) general/non-categorized,  b) word of mouth/customer evangelism, c) community building, d) buzz marketing, e) viral marketing, f) user generated marketing, g) influencer-led, h) social media, i) social network and j) innovation, research  and/or design-led.

January's list is padded with the All-Stars - they are your staples and you should be reading them if you want to be a great peer-to=peer marketeer, flack or general practitioner for the 21st century marketplace.

No big surprises here, they are generally well known blogs with some Canadian faves slipped in (and yes, already after looking at the list, I recognize I have left off a number of well written friends, please don't hate me) ...so with no further adieu:

You should visit on January:
1st - Seth Godin (Innovation)  - heck the man even has his own action figure now
2nd - Micropersuasion - Steve Rubel (Social media) - posting less freqeuntly not that he is an Edelman but still very solid and gert links
3rd - Ad Rants - Steve Hall  (Buzz marketing) - marketing news with attitude and a whole bunch of buzz and guerrilla activity - great daily chewing gum for the mind 
4th - Web Strategy - Jeremiah Owyang (Community) - Forrester's new hire always has great debate and discussions on the role of community and legitimacy as a former Hitachi community manager
5th - Publishing 2.0 - Scott Karp (social media) - the media mavericks document the tidal wave of changes in the publishing world
6th - Adverblog - Martina Zavagno (viral marketing) - a deluge of new and fanciful interactive and viral with a  decidedly international perspective
7th - Brand Autopsy - John Moore (customer experience) the North American John Moore parlays an intimate understanding of the workings of Starbucks and Whole Foods into a world of customer centricity 8th - Church of The Customer - Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell (customer evangelism) -  a personal fave, Chicago-turned-Austin's dynamic duo navigate the worlds of customer evangelism  and citizen marketing, for two people, they should post more, but the content is great
9th -  Logic + Emotion - David Armano (customer experience) - colourful stickmen concepts dot Critical Mass's user experience guru's blog - a remarkable talent for translating complex ideas into simple concepts
10th -  Community Guy - Jake Mckee  (community)  - Lego's former social glue provides an ant eye's view on fan clubs, online communities and customer-company interaction
11th - Marketing Profs Daily Fix - Collective (General) - a cavalcade of really smart people making real smart posts on the future of marketing
12th - The Viral Garden - Mack Collier (social media) - the charttracker and social glue of the 2.0 set
13th - Canuckflack - Colin Mckay (social media) - blogging about social media and PR  before I even knew names like Scoble and Calacanis existed
14th - Ad Goodness - Frederik Samuel (buzz marketing)-  buzz and ad campaign judgment from one of our own, fellow Canuck Frederick Samuel and his army of ad surfers
15th - The Social Customer Manifesto - Christopher Carfi (social networks) - blogs, wikis and social networks from a theorist AND practitioner
16th - Springwise - Reiner Evers (Innovation/design) - scanning the world for some of the best business ventures and ideas, colourfully playing them back to you
17th - Experience Curve - Karl Long (customer experience) - Nokia's pro pulls together  the three legs of the modern marketing stool - customer experience, social media and  participation marketing
18th - WOMMA's Blog (general)-  a steady stream of buzzable content from word of mouth's trade association
19th - Communities Dominate Brands - Alan Moore/Tomi Ahonen (communities) - charting new media, marketing, convergence, engagement and tech
20th - My Name is Kate - Kate Trgovac (social media) - pieces of social culture randomized with some of the most interesting links this side of Technorati's hot list
21st - Jaffe Juice - Conversational and crayon-ic musings about the new world of customer participation marketing from an industry innovator
22nd - Experience The Message - Max Lenderman (brand experience) - another Canuck demonstrates how experiential marketing is changing brands
23rd - What's Next - B.L. Ochman (social media) -   the social media world according to an internet pioneer-ette
24th - Influential Marketing - Rohit Bhargarva (customer evangelism) - a catch all on how brands can get their personality back
25th - Gaping Void - Hugh Macleod (general)  the Scott Adams of the social media set, comics with painfully insightful punchlines 
26th - Ad Freak (buzz marketing) - the good, the bad and the ugly from a few guys named David
27th - How to Change The World - Guy Kawasaki  (general) - the art of the start provides magic for the startup, fast movers and incumbents
28th - Damn I Wish I Thought of That - Andy Sernovitz (customer evangelism) - WOMMA Emeritus now gets to speak freely on word of mouth and corporations
29th - Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog - collective (innovation) - star power musings about 7 key elements of marketing, strategy, innovation and design
30th - Modern Marketing -  James Cherkoff (user generated content) - inspiring posts on user collaboration from a fresh-thinking Co-creation architect
31st - Buzz Canuck - Sean Moffitt (customer evangelism) - heh, you gotta love your own work too, 400+ hard scrabbled posts all focused on WOM and a great way to nightcap the month

Enjoy this inaugural month of blog posts and I'll be back for February's listing with a group of under-the-radar, but no less influential, word of mouth blogs.

Some of the best blogs are camouflaged behind the established popular social media set.  Please provide some of your own fave "diamond in the rough" WOM blog suggestions too...