British Telecom last week announced the production launch of BT Tradespace, a foray into the world of small business social networking.  But bringing tools like PODCasts and blogs to the masses of small businesses requires a different mass-marketing approach....something you probably haven't seen from YouTube and MySpace.  The kindly old cobbler that lives down the street may not spend as much time on his iPod and in chat rooms as a twenty-something in the bay.  BT's strategy is to appeal to the broad common denominator of foul-mouthed humor.

Here's a quote from an article in The Register titled:  Gordon Ramsay mashes up small businesses for BT

"BT has fingered marathon-running potty mouth Gordon "b*llocks, a*se, sh*t" Ramsay as the ideal Michelin-starred gourmet to extol the virtues of social networking to Britain's small business owners."

"In one promo, Ramsay struggles to set up his computer, while his kitchen catches fire in the background.

The groundbreaking marketing move comes ahead of the launch later this week of BT's business to business social networking platform Tradespace. It's live now in trial form. BT's hoping to charge some users £15 per month for extra services, like Skype-style click-to-call."

For US readers, Gordon is from the reality show Hell's Kitchen.  Screaming.  Crying.  Spilled pasta.  Everything you need for a party.

What this shows is that the evolution of broadband brings massive company marketing ideas, plans and investments to the 'started in my basement' web 2.0 world.  In fact, the sub-title to the article is 'F*ck off 2.0'.  This won't be the first of such massive, traditional media efforts to bridge the web 2.0 world with the millions of SMBs.  With existing customer relationships and massive distribution opportunity, evolved broadband providers are in an interesting position to capitalize.