Something I learned from the Cluetrain Manifesto was this (paraphrased by me): Companies should understand that customers are going to talk about them on the Internet- and they should pay attention because it is those conversations that matter. I believe that to be true in many cases.
My friends at KDA Research have made significant progress in helping organizations understand what these online conversations mean- and how they can be used.
They call it "Virtual Ethnography" and their paper: An Exploration of Virtual Ethnography (Download .pdf 100kb) is a great introduction to the methodologies, considerations, and findings of Virtual Ethnography.
Virtual ethnography enables companies and researchers to tap this storehouse [of online community discussions], discovering valuable insights through the observation and analyses of online community member conversations. Using a framework similar to traditional ethnography, virtual ethnography uses a holistic approach to understand specific online communities and member interactions in the context of a given research question.
It is nice to see folks looking at online communities with an eye on the business implications.