When I look at social media and how it's transforming marketing and customer relations, I come to one conclusion: Now companies really - no, REALLY, need to do their user research, and they better start early. Let's look at the facts: Your local restaurants "live or die" by a Yelp review. (Well, not entirely, but a negative review can be very hard to recover from.) A new company's customer base can be generated entirely on Facebook and Twitter. Just ask that 20-something next door who knows of no other way to market their booming small business except via social media channels. Yes, it is a whole new world. And companies need to understand that the tables have really turned now. The Internet gave consumers unprecedented influence. That was the talk 15 years ago. Today, social media is making consumer influence exponentially more powerful. So from product design to marketing communications to tracking ROI, pre- and post-launch, users need to be inside your planning process. They don't just tell you about your market; they are your market - the ones who will define it and build it for you. And this, of course, puts Netpop in a unique position to help companies achieve social acceleration.