Wednesday night, Makovsky & Company and its client Women 2.0, a group dedicated to increasing the number of women in the tech startup space, hosted an panel discussion titled, “Do Women Dominate the Web?”

Going into it, we joked on Twitter that, certainly, women do. But actually, in terms of owning and launching tech businesses, that isn’t the case.

The women on the panel, which included Dina Kaplan, COO and co-founder of Blip.tv and Joy Marcus, partner with the VC company DFJ Gotham Ventures, told many tales of being the only woman in the room, and being treated differently because of it. At one point, Kaplan said she had to remind a guy, puzzled by a car commercial during women’s programming, “Women don’t just buy tampons. They also buy cars.”

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One of the big takeaways from this week’s School of WOM conference, according to Rod Brooks, president of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and VP and CMO of PEMCO Mutual Insurance Company, is how communications pros are now approaching the whole word-of-mouth topic.

“They’re moving their vision away from the tool set and the importance they feel from being on Facebook, Twitter, or on they’re own blogs,” Brooks said. “They’re starting to look at it more holistically.”

The conference took place in Chicago, where more than 300 attendees gathered (60 percent from agencies and service providers, 35 percent from the brand or company side, and five percent from nonprofits)  to talk about all areas of word-of-mouth marketing.  Digital and technology were of course a big topic, with mobile a particular area of interest for people.

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We’ve talked about it, but now it’s finally here.

Mediabistro’s eight-week online conference and workshop — Social Media Marketing Boot Camp — starts this Wednesday and there’s still space available.

Join speakers such as KDPaine & Partners CEO Katie Paine, FutureWorks founder and Altimeter Group principal Brian Solis, and AllThingsDigital’s Kara Swisher for all of the keynotes, coursework, and networking that the boot camp has to offer.

For more info (and a free gift) click here.

Brian Solis announced today on his website that he will be joining Altimeter Group as a principal.

“My initial focus at Altimeter is on new media strategies and models to design frameworks, creating bridges between companies and customers, employees, and other important stakeholders. This work will also expand into areas of change management,” Solis wrote on his site. He also said he’ll be consultant in a number of areas including metrics and strategy review.

Solis will continue as an advisor at FutureWorks, the firm he founded in 1999. Jeremiah Owyang, writing on the Altimeter site, said Solis will join the San Mateo office.

(Solis will also be participating in Mediabistro’s upcoming Social Media Marketing Boot Camp. More info here.)

PRNewser and the rest of the Mediabistro team has a lot going on these days.

Join us tomorrow between 2p.m. and 3p.m. EST for the latest in our “20 Tips in 20 Minutes” Webcast series, “How to Pitch Women’s Media.” Guest speaker Liz McGovern, VP at Kaplow, will join me to offer tips and answer questions focused on outreach to mommy bloggers, women’s interest magazines, and other outlets across the spectrum of media that reaches the important female demographic. Click here to sign up.

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Last week, we asked whether social media will overtake traditional media as a primary PR tool.  The numbers are in, and nearly 58 percent of respondents were on the fence, saying “maybe” this will happen.

As we noted in that post, Art Stevens, managing partner at StevensGouldPincus, is convinced this will happen in the next two years. About 19 percent of poll takers  agreed, with slightly more than 5 percent saying it has already happened.

Besides the PRNewser poll, there has been considerable buzz around a couple of items focused on social media popularity versus influence. Vocus partnered with Brian Solis for a study about what determines influence and whether there’s a difference between influence and popularity. Mashable also posted a story on the subject, taking the Kim Kardashian angle. Read more

Vocus and Brian Solis partnered for a study titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono!,” which sought to find the difference between popularity and influence, and how to build online influence.  The white paper resulting from the research says 57 percent of respondents would “pay an influencer to help ‘drive actions and outcomes.’” At the executive level, like CEO or CMO, the stat goes up to 63 percent.

According to the press release announcing the research, more than 90 percent of respondents said there was a difference with one respondent answering “Lady Gaga is popular, Bono is influential.” Between August 25 and September 10, 739 people from around the world were surveyed for their thoughts. Read more

Newswire company Marketwire said today that it has acquired social media monitoring company Sysomos. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Social media monitoring and analysis continues to be an incredibly hot space, with media companies from Dow Jones and Reuters and marketing and technology companies including Vocus and Lithium all fighting for market share.

Shift Communications principal Todd Defren and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis both endorsed the deal in a press release.

The deal makes sense for Marketwire, who will use the new offerings provided by Sysomos in an attempt to up-sell clients already working with the company for press release distribution.

Sysomos itself has generated PR recently by issuing frequent data reports on social media usage and trends.

PRNewser caught up with Marketwire president and CEO Michael Nowlan today, who did not rule out additional acquisitions.

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It’s a question being asked with increased frequency as of late: “How much is a Facebook fan worth?” or, “What is our investment in Facebook worth?”

Several companies, notably digital consulting shops Vitrue and Syncapse have released their own studies, which attempt to put a dollar value on a Facebook fan. Vitrue says a fan is worth $3.60. Syncapse says $136.

Do these numbers matter, or are they missing the boat entirely?

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made perhaps his most public of statements today regarding recent concerns about the social network’s privacy settings: an op-ed in the Washington Post.

In the op-ed, Zuckerberg said the company “missed the mark,” regarding privacy controls, while adding, “We have heard the feedback. There needs to be a simpler way to control your information. In the coming weeks, we will add privacy controls that are much simpler to use.”

We asked several PR executives what they thought of the op-ed.

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