That’s the good, albeit brutal, news. The bad news though is that as recently as 2010, half of all large organizations were still blocking employee access to social media sites in the name of security, a new Gartner study says. The number of social-censoring enterprises is falling, but those who hang on in lock-down mode are actually creating a different type of security risk

The shakeout of winners and losers has begun. Google’s now infamous search algorithm change last month is diverting eyeballs away from so-called content farms and middle-man publishers. Who gains? Big media, for one. And brands-turned-publisher, too.

It goes by a few different names: “branded content,” “branded publishing,” and, more recently, “social media branded content.” What is it? It’s company-produced content – not just blog posts and Twitter updates, but long-form narratives, games, video and crowdsourced initiatives, to name a few – that pulls in the public. New studies say it could be the biggest marketing and corporate communications trend of 2011.

According to a new piece of research by Custom Communication, “Social Media Screw Ups – A Short History,” along with the surge in social media investment comes a surge in social media screw-ups by major corporations using these channels to reach the public. 2010 is on pace to see more reputation-bruising social media gaffes than in any previous year. Haven’t they learned anything from the Kryptonite lock fiasco of 2004? Apparently not.