Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the US, behind Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report by Experian Hitwise. Web traffic to Pinterest traffic surged 50% from January to February of 2012, enabling the invitation-only site to overtake LinkedIn, Tagged, and Google+ in total monthly visits.

Below, the top 10 social sites in Experian Hitwise's Social Networking & Forums category, ranked by total visits* in March:

Facebook: 7.0 billion
Twitter: 182.2 million
Pinterest: 104.4 million
LinkedIn: 85.7 million
Tagged: 72.5 million
Google+: 61.0 million
MySpace: 43.3 million
MyYearbook: 38.1 million
MyLife: 29.7 million
Tumblr: 29.6 million

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It's helpful to refer to Gartner Research Director Lydia Leong's blog post detailing the process of creating a Magic Quadrant report. 

"We lay this process out formally in the initiation letters sent to vendors when we start MQ research, so I'm not giving away any secrets here, just exposing a process that's probably not well known to people outside of analyst relations roles," she wrote.

Here's Lydia's summary of the objective process that she and the other Gartner analysts follow, which generally takes about four months:

• Step 1: Define a market and inclusion criteria.
• Step 2: Get approval from chief analysts.
• Step 3: Decide evaluation criteria and weights.
• Step 4: Send the evaluation criteria and weights to vendors.
• Step 5: Do hour long briefings with vendors.
• Step 6: Contact three to five reference customers provided by the vendor (however, Gartner mostly relies on the experiences of its clients).
• Step 7: Enter the numeric scores into the tool that generates the Magic Quadrant graph.
• Step 8: Write-up all the text.
• Step 9: Peer review.
• Step 10: Alter text and numeric scores accordingly.
• Step 11: Send the vendors a copy of the graphic and text written about them for fact-checking.
• Step 12: Finally, it goes on to editing and review.

Lydia goes into more detail here.

In Open Leadership, Charlene Li (who also wrote the bestseller Groundswell with former colleague Josh Bernoff at Forrester) offers the next step resource that shows leaders how to tap into the power of the social tech revolution and use social media to be effectively "open" while maintaining control. 

Readers will quickly see that Open Leadership is about how leaders must let go to gain more, and how greater transparency and authenticity can bring significant benefits to organizations.   

The preview copy we received (thanks to Charlene) is now really dogeared - a testimony to this practical work. 

Congratulations to Charlene - We've purchased several copies for Technology PR clients and recommend it to all marketers as a "must read".

See you at the launch party!

Alan Murray, deputy managing editor and executive editor, online, told Media Week today that by using $200 Skype kits for its reporters, the Wall Street Journal's Digital Group has a very low cost model for its new Digits show with no sacrifice in quality.  Murray explained, "Our reporters just need a broadcast connection and they're on." According to Murray, Digits has an economic advantage over traditional news players when it comes to live video on the Web, and that a lot of TV networks have tried this haven’t been able to do justify the expense.  

Beginning today, Digits will air live each weekday at 1:00 p.m. ET from New York and will be available on WSJ.com, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and Dow Jones Newswires. Hosted by MarketWatch's Stacey Delo, Digits will feature reporting and analysis presented by reporters and editors from across Dow Jones, including regular contributions from WSJ.com technology editor Julia Angwin; Wall Street Journal personal technology columnist and AllThingsD.com co-editor Walt Mossberg; AllThingsD.com co-editor Kara Swisher; Eric Savitz, Barron's Tech Trader blogger and columnist; and Veronica Dagher of Dow Jones Newswires.  The show will also be available on-demand following the live broadcasts.

Just a few weeks after Gartner's purchase of AMR Research, Gartner announced today that it has acquired Burton Group.    A few clients have joked that it won't be long before the Analyst Relations business is referred to as "Gartner Relations". 

The reality is that there are still hundreds of other independent analysts and analyst firms that influence the purchasing decisions of today's technology buyers and consumers. 

The key to effective analyst relations is in knowing 1) which firms and independent analysts are end-user focused 2) which are vendor-focused, and most importantly, 3) which firms now employ the individual analysts who know your product category or niche industry really well - well enough to still be influencing the purchasing decisions of your target customer base.