NY Times has a nice piece about the "open source" movement. References Firefox Flicks among others. The "brand reformation" part is priceless. We can now all engage in a direct relationship with the "Almighty Brand".
“The rise of consumer-generated advertising can be viewed as either a
boon to brands (outsourcing marketing to loyal customers) or a threat
(handing marketing over to a bunch of uncontrollable amateurs). When
G.M. solicited consumer input in online ad-making for its Chevy Tahoe,
many people responded with anti-S.U.V. messages. Grant McCracken, an
author, anthropologist and consultant, takes a broader view, describing
consumer involvement as a kind of branding Reformation: marketing
professionals used to be the high-priest gatekeepers, but now we can
all have a direct relationship with the Almighty Brand.
He refers to
this as brand "co-creation" (a term he credits to C.K. Prahalad, a
business professor at the University of Michigan),
and sees it as both inevitable and smart, even in the case of the Tahoe
controversy. "The era of the brand that's blandly constructed and hopes
not to offend anyone — to be pleasant — that notion is really dead,"
McCracken says."
