In preparation for the New Marketing Summit, I've been looking at the technology companies are using to build new digital relationships and translate these into sales. Certainly, social media takes a strong headline in all this, but there are all kinds of interesting technologies being used to deliver business value to organizations. Here are a few I've come across (note: most of these are also sponsors of the New Marketing Summit. I'll also cover some non-NMS companies, too).

• ZoomInfo - Email marketing is alive and well. The folks at ZoomInfo have a great database of contact information for professionals within companies. It's a great tool to find people and build connections.
• Compete - This site allows you to see traffic information for websites. Put your website in the first box, a competitor in the second, and see where you match up.
• Drupal - Content platforms like blogs are a vital part of social media. Free, open-source products like Drupal are coming into the mainstream more and more. (For instance, FastCompany.com built their site on it). Several great commercial content platforms will be on display at New Marketing Summit as well.
• Identi.ca - You might have heard about Twitter, which allows for brief one-to-many messages. Identi.ca is built on an open source client and hints at how one can do behind-the-firewall implementations of Twitter.
• Jive Software - We used Jive's Clearspace product for our Project Dogfood, and as communities are a worthwhile way for lead generation, customer retention, and even new product ideas, looking at a product like Clearspace is a good start. See also Mzinga.
• Radian6 is a listening tool that helps with understanding where people are speaking about you. It monitors blogs, websites, online news, and even social platforms like Twitter and more. I've worked with Radian6 on our series of Radian6 is a listening tool that helps with understanding where people are speaking about you. It monitors blogs, websites, online news, and even social platforms like Twitter and more. I've worked with Radian6 on our series of Twebinars (webinars meet twitter), and the next of these will be August 19th at 2PM ET ( Register here).

I could add another three dozen platforms just based on who's coming to the New Marketing Summit, and who we work with in the new marketing space, but there are more things to cover in the newsletter. Take from this the realization that marketing technology is alive and well, and it's not just shiny graphics and banner ads. This space is hot, and technologists and marketers are finding bridges to understanding each other's needs. Does your company offer a marketing technology product that I didn't cover? Let me know at [email protected] . Sharing new technologies with the ITEC community is what we're all about.