I spent an hour with Nathan Gilliat this morning and learned a TON about the “listening” portion of the social media marketing software industry – key players, how they work, and how they’re different.  Plus some interesting thoughts about how use cases vary by company/industry.

If you’re looking into a significant listening software purchase, you should check out his social media research firm Social Target.  You’ll save a lot of time with vendor research, checklisting, etc.