Just read a really great interview at Web Strategy by Jeremiah (Jeremiah is a Sr. Analyst at Forrester Research, in Social Media). (watch this space for Mary Schmidt's post later today...)

I follow Jeremiah on Twitter, else I might not know about this. I'd like to say I read his blog, but...I only read it when he (or someone else) provides a tantilizing link via Twitter.

Meanwhile, this interview is with Vanina Delobelle, who boasts a PhD in Social Media and online communities for marketing in the internet space. According to the interview, she graduated with honors.

This is very fascinating. A PhD in Social Media. Of course, it had to be a woman. Were there men in her class? One expects so...but this interview is about her, and her thoughts on why she studied for this degree, as well as what she expects to do with it.

Here are a few dynamite quotes: first, on her research as she studied, "This trend was mainly driven by business. I wanted to prove academically these new behaviors... I started to analyze how start ups were behaving with the social media and then I wanted to show the interest of both entrepreneurs and consumers in using this interactivity."

Next, on her results, "Consumers want to take part of conversations happening with companies, they want to be involved, they want to share and this is the company's interest to do the same with the market. Today we see that companies can get so many benefits from setting up a social media strategy. I would even say that it is not even possible for a company not to consider it as the market has changed and they have to change as well, to survive."

Food for thought. Visit Vanina's blog here (it helps to know French). View her presentation here.