Instead, Parr links to analyst Jeremy Owyang's compilation of people with social media job titles at "Fortune 5000" (sic) companies. There's no such thing as the "Fortune 5000," but other than that, Owyang's list is real enough. And yet he has only identified 129 jobs among America's largest corporations. That's hardly a new career category — any company that size has many more people writing the product manuals no one reads.

On increasing reach and traffic, Parr says:

Social media allows people to spread their message to hundreds, if not thousands, of friends, followers, and strangers. Some companies can only dream of that kind of reach, while others pay millions in advertising for the same effect.

Companies pay millions for what? For TV ads, and for a reason: TV reaches not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of people. That's orders of magnitude more reach than Twitter, with proven results. The conclusion that mass media advertising is dead and the kids only trust teh tweets now doesn't come from market research. It comes from social media consultants looking for new clients.

Twitter allows a company to respond to customer complaints quickly (I’ve had personal experience with Comcast’s Twitter account).

That's called Twitter Appeasement. Parr has been glad-handed by a customer service rep in Philadelphia cherrypicking menial problems to address. Southwest Airlines does this, too. Comcast has realized that by fawning over a few select users, they can claim to be turning around their bad reputation for customer service. Three of the country's most-read newspapers — USA Today, The New York Times, and The Washington Post — have picked up the tale.

But what fraction of the company's support load do you think Comcast's lone tweeter represents? He sends about 50 "Can I help?" messages a day, and talks to an average of ten of the company's customers. All too often, he ends up routing Twitter users into Comcast's support email, which they should've used in the first place. As customer service, this is terribly inefficient. As cheap PR, it's awesome.

Parr also claims social media jobs increase corporate revenue — again without any stats to back it up. Which new hire do you think would bring in more money: Another salesman or another FriendFeed guy?

Here's a more realistic conclusion: Social media technologies are new IT tools for the same old roles. Parr and his fans desperately want to believe Corporate America will soon create entire new divisions of social media jobs just for them. They'll be their own special-forces arm of the company, with a Chief Social Media Officer reporting directly to the CEO. Any day now!

Yes, big corporations will adopt social media to stay in touch with customers. But they'll do it by giving social media tools to existing parts of the organization: Customer support. Marketing. Public relations. And contrary to Parr's thin-air claims, I'm guessing that in a downturn, the guy who spends all day on Twitter will be first to go.

"I'm used to being online 12+ hours a day, just to keep up with the news in the rapid fire tech industry," Owyang writes on his blog. "This really reinforces why I love the tech industry, as this is a good reminder what it's like in many other industries." Yes, it's dreadful, isn't it? (Photo by refractedmoments)

Facebook ads work like endorsements. How it works is a member can "friend" a business. The business can then purchase an ad which, to friends, looks like a product endorsement from this member. This will work. Consumers trust friends. Brands will beg for fans. Payment is auction based CPC, CPM. Two social ads show per day, driving demand past supply and prices too high for all but national brands.

On MySpace, businesses can build profiles and target ads on user profile pages according to their content. Watch for clutter. Ads will remain ugly. Expect ad inefficiencies due to misinformation. MySpace's huge member base and local business membership will lead to success.

Scoble, "famous" blogger in his own right, bills the video thusly:

Tina Magnergard Bjers is on loan to PodTech this summer (she's a Swedish journalist who is here to learn more about the tech industry and new media from the inside) and asked, in a video, Google Vice President Marissa Mayer, me, and PodTech's Web Strategist Jeremiah Owyang this question: how will Web 2.0 Change Journalism?

You might think it's a group interview or conversation, but you'd be wrong. The Mayer quotes, the most well-reasoned and measured of the statements, appear culled from a few seconds of a post-speech interview. The rest of the thankfully brief PodTech video are the PodTech employees rehashing the most banal of Web 2.0 mantras (Scoble: "It'll be faster and more interactive", Owyang: "It'll morph into many different shapes... it'll be amorphous") or worse (Scoble reciting the number of feeds he reads for the 622nd time) in answer to the question.

There's nothing wrong in asking the question "How will Web 2.0 change journalism" nor in producing a mix of the answers, but if you want to avoid the taint of self-promotion and self-aggrandizing, make sure you interview more than one non-employee, better yet — that they outnumber employees... or at least that your employees have something worth saying.