Charlene Li Charlene Li
Vice President, Principal Analyst

Research Coverage

Search Marketing, Marketing & Advertising, Web Site Design, Consumer Technology Adoption, Consumer Blogs, Widgets, Social Computing & Web 2.0, Interactive Marketing, Consumer Portals & Search, Media & Entertainment, Customer Experience, RSS

Research Focus

Charlene primarily contributes to Forrester's offerings for the Interactive Marketing professional. She is one of the driving forces behind Forrester's Social Computing and Web 2.0 research, and examines how companies can use technologies like blogs, social networking, RSS, tagging, and widgets for marketing purposes. During her eight years at Forrester, Charlene has also led the marketing and media research team, and ran the San Francisco office.
In her research, Charlene covers such marketing-related topics as consumer portals, search, and media site design. She also leverages her background in newspaper publishing and looks at online local media and online classifieds. In the past, she has also written about online advertising, online gaming, and media content strategies. She also contributes to her Groundswell blog and plans to publish a book by the same name in spring 2008.

Previous Work Experience

Charlene was publisher of interactive media for Community Newspaper Company, a group of newspapers in Massachusetts, where she started its award-winning Town Online Web site. In addition, Charlene served on the board of directors for the Newspaper Association of America's New Media Federation. Before working for Community Newspaper, Charlene was at the San Jose Mercury News, where she managed new product development. This included creating new advertising products and a consumer electronics show.

Charlene is one of Forrester's most quoted analysts and has appeared in outlets like The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer, CNN, NPR, and BBC, as well as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and BusinessWeek. She is also an accomplished and frequently requested public speaker, and has appeared at Web 2.0 Expo, Ad:Tech, Search Engine Strategies, and AlwaysOn. She has delivered keynote speeches at many events, including Forrester's Consumer Forum and Television Forum.

Education

A former strategy consultant for Monitor Company, Charlene is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University and holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Latest Research

Did You Know?

Charlene enjoys being with her family, dreaming about exotic travel, doing logic puzzles, playing video games with her kids, cooking, and needle crafts. She has been known to dabble in triathlons.


Charlene Li serves Interactive Marketing professionals.
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Upcoming Appearances
Charlene Li will be speaking at the following upcoming events:
  • Digital Media Summit
    Keynote Speech: Groundswell
    June 09, 2008, 12:00AM
    Hollywood Roosevelt,Hollywood, CA,US
  • 2008 Ypulse National Mashup
    Moderator: How To Successfully Reach Youth On Social Networks
    July 15, 2008, 12:00AM
    Hotel Nikko,San Francisco, CA,US
Recent Media Citations
MIT Sloan Management Review, "Harnessing The Power Of Social Applications," February 14, 2008
BtoB Magazine, "Marketers Wonder What Microsoft/Yahoo Deal Means For Them," February 11, 2008
CBS News 60 Minutes, "The Face Behind Facebook," January 13, 2008
Forbes, "Where There's A Wiki, There's A Way," January 9, 2008
Advertising Age, "Egg On Their Facebook: Users Force Reversal Of Ad Approach," December 3, 2007

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