Ugobe’s VP of Marketing Lisa Abbott tells how her company built strong communities for the unique lifelike creature called Pleo. Pleo is a baby dinosaur that has attracted the attention of thousands. Targeting both developers and consumers helped drive demand for the dinosaur.

The Democratic campaigns provide multiple opportunities for learning about social marketing. Pete Blackshaw EVP of Nielsen Online just completed an analysis of the campaigns and gives Marketing Voices his perspective on what corporate marketers need to do to make their brands better. Blackshaw also alerts Marketing Voices that he will be releasing his new book on July 2008 called Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends; Angry Customers Tell Three Thousand.

As one of the world’s most renowned gamers, John Porcaro, Manager of the Online Community of Microsoft knows what is happening online whether it concerns games or not. He talks with Marketing Voices of online trends and where the world of online is headed.

Economists are hinting if not insisting that the U.S. is in a recession. Most often marketers are hit hard by a recession, as they and their budgets are the first to get cut. Forrester’s Josh Bernoff gives tips on how marketers should be thinking about social media now and what to do given this environment. Bernoff also talks about his upcoming book on social marketing and media: Groundswell that he is co-authoring with Forrester’s Charlene Li. He spoke with Jennifer Jones for this Marketing Voices podcast.

Guy Kawasaki uses his marketing flair to launch his newest site, ALLTOP. Leading with the egos site which contains the top tech blog feeds, Kawasaki talks how he leveraged the egos focus to drive traffic to Alltop. Kawasaki also metaphorically jousts with Forrester Analyst, Jeremiah Owyang as the young samurai.