UPDATE: On August 15, 2008 The Trendwatch received a cease and desist letter from the lawyers of a company named Fricken, which states that Fricken owns a trademark for the term ‘brandstream’ so that neither The Trendwatch nor Fullsix are allowed to use that term. I’ve edited the post accordingly.

According to a Universal McCann report, content consumed outside of websites has increased by 153% in the last 9 months. Furthermore, 53% of online users are consuming content outside of a publisher’s site (using widgets, RSS readers, social networks and mobile devices). A pretty good example is Ford’s Digital Snippets: YouTube videos, images from Flickr, extensive usage of tags, RSS…

Just by looking at what’s happening in our (new gorgeous) Fullsix office in New York, we’re helping four of our biggest clients to dive into this. And most of the other ones are convinced that they should develop their own content outside of their brand site. So based on this very unscientific poll, I would say that YES, brands are ready!