Ad Rants has a summary of the goings-on at the Blogging Goes Mainstream event in midtown yesterday. According to many of the participants, blogs offer an opportunity for marketers to join the conversation about their products and services:

"The largest theme at the seminar was that weblogs create conversations and, to take advantage of these conversations, marketers should join the conversation rather than try to manage it. In a world increasingly filled with consumer created content, created outside the control of big media companies, marketers must subdue their desire to launch the typical top-down, scream from the rooftops marketing campaign. Rather, marketers can leverage consumer created content to listen to what's being said about their brand and join the conversation, just as one would at a cocktail party, rather than attempt to control it."