The wait is over, Top Gear fans. The long-running speculation about The Stig’s true identity is now revealed. Regardless of who he actually is (cough… Ben Collins), the build-up of speculation and subsequent controversy has sent viral discussions throughout the social media landscape.

American Apparel, the upscale basic clothing retailer with a cult-like following, has fallen into serious financial trouble in 2010, with sales sagging despite a reputation as an edgy brand popular with the “urban cognoscenti” and Facebook crowd alike. Meanwhile, Abercrombie & Fitch has been lowering prices and investing in social media as its primary strategy to stave off sales declines in this rough climate.

We were lucky to be able to call upon the expertise and insight of a number of top social media thinkers at this year’s Social Media Influence conference. Adam Brown was one such expert.

Millward Brown today released a new report ranking the world’s most valued brands. While the research agency mentions the importance of social media in future valuations (it’ll be big, they say), it bases its methodology on more traditional metrics. We thought it might be interesting to do a kind of mashup of the results, taking a look at how their top ten ranked if you added a measure of their social media presence.

First phishers, now hackers — the Twitter security concern got a little scarier yesterday, with the news that 33 high profile accounts, including those of Britney Spears and Barack Obama, were hacked. Twitter is acting …