Before hitting the point more directly, let me start by stating two sides of a coin I see companies struggling with. The challenge for public companies, is their need to constantly reduce uncertainty from their businesses as the financial markets are fickle and can exaggerate the oscillation of their stock price based on hearsay. Loosing control of the dialog is not just a matter enabling a freer flow of information w/their customers, but a matter that can have tremendously unexpected financial consequences. Hence, I can understand their reluctance to play in open community environments.

On the other side of the coin, w/the developments in community sites, in search engines, the ease of finding commentary across blogs, and the fact that the timing and distance to this information has been greatly reduced, means that it's already out of companies' control. Hence, they can choose to ignore it (at their own risk) or engage in it, if to at least have their word get an equal hearing in those contexts. The toughest part of the equation for companies is how to come across in a less than overly biased way during these communications. While it's clear who they represent, it will have to be their enthuasiasts and fans that will have to be those chiming in as third party endorsers.

When considering the creation of their own community, the issue of coming across contrived can be significant and lack the authenticity of independence. As well, the temptation for them to control the environment is too great. Afterall, would any company want to see highly disparaging (and possibly true) comments showing up on their company owned Web forums? A tough call for sure.

Participation in forums and communities that are not company owned or controlled at least keeps them aware of the conversation that's happening on their products while also enabling them to participate in the court of public opinion. It gives them a public face and personality that people can relate to. They don't have to be agreeable to all points, but rather earnest in their comments and claims to at least keep the wrong information from being too widely disseminated w/o substantiation. Too often, companies let these sorts of dialog get out of control or try to get too slick about covering them up, and end up making a bigger mess of the incident than a simple "sorry" or "we're working on it" could have accomplished.

I guess in the end, I side w/your last paragraph but shy away from encouraging companies to go too far down the path of forums on their own sites. Perhaps for tech support and such from actual customers, but not for just anyone's participation as people's motives in those circumstances can be suspect.

Looking forward to reading your book Tomi

Cheers...