This week saw another patent award (this time for Google), the CDC launch a massive social-media campaign, and lots of academic and MBA-style theorizing about the business value of social-media marketing. And apparently your grandparents are using Facebook.

The Oscars are one brand that still controls its equity from the top down: Winners are chosen by the Academy. But outside of the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, winners are decided by thousands of movie buffs posting their opinions online.

TV, NASCAR, and the U.S. military are all embracing social media? How much more evidence does corporate America need? It ain’t going away, folks.

Most of the effective algorithms for measuring sentiment rely on fairly well formatted, “predictable” text that follows formal grammar rules. But formal writing carries a bias. It is an immensely more difficult task to harvest information from the drips-and-drabs of informal writing such as is found in twitter and forums (or even blogs).

Last week saw Google Buzz already embroiled in controversy, as was Southwest Airlines. There’s lots of love for the Olympics though.

Reactions to the 2010 Super Bowl ads were reported early and often: The tally of mad, mid-game tweets let us know what the digital mavens were thinking. But what about the rest of the country? The folks who prefer to enjoy their social media on work computers in the days after?