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SOP LISENING O YOUR CUSOMERS AND SARINERACING WIH HEM.
For years you’ve been told to talk to your customers, listen to your cus-tomers, get their input, and hear their rustrations. So, you run ocusgroups and send out surveys. You invite customers to your oces ora sit-down. Te problem is that, as business people with conictingagendas, we don’t actually listen very well. And customers still eel they aren’t being heard. Worse, customers can only tell us their response toour product or a problem. Tey can’t dream or us, or help us break through with an innovative or creative concept.
Or can they? 
Over the past ten years, the evolution o the Internet, including themost recent Web 2.0 technologies, has had a dramatic impact on mar-ketplace behavior. Web 2.0, which I’ll explain in a moment, has drivena change in our culture unleashing an environment where customersand prospects are ready and willing (even demanding!) to get deeply involved with our brand, products, and services. But now their involve-ment includes using our brand and our content in ways we didn’t intend,and hacking our product, or blending it with another product (called
mashing 
), thereby treating the warranty with reckless abandon.Another challenge marketers contend with is customers who havethe ability to voice their opinion to millions on blogs or podcasts, or
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on Web sites designed to give them a voice. As a response to this evolv-ing consumer inuence, many executives and marketers have chosento hunker down, protect their brands and intellectual property, andremain in a state o command and control. Tat is a mistake, and risksthe tremendous opportunity made possible by the evolving Web.Te technology, unctions, and eatures o this new Web create asignicant change rom the original, static Web
(Web 1.0)
. Web 2.0is jet propulsion or the 21st century. Te invention o jet propulsionmade the world a smaller place by connecting vast numbers o people.It sped our ability to make and sell products and mobilized culturalchange (not to mention helped win a war and rocketed man to themoon). Tis new Web is proving to have the same eect (well, maybenot on space travel, yet). Te technology itsel is interesting, but it’swhat people are choosing to do with it that has altered the way we dobusiness. It has also created a cultural shif rom the insular read-learn-ollow-along consumer behavior to the participative, collaborative,user-generated, sharing, social, global, open, interactive generation.Tis is the age o engage.Te Web is ast becoming the real-time inormation center or allhuman knowledge and behavior, what many call
Web 3.0
. It’s morethan the books, movies, and music now digitized and available on theWeb. We have created this knowledge center by searching, purchasing,linking, and tagging. Every day we leave our ngerprint o thoughts,needs, wants, and behaviors. apping into this inormation will or-ever change marketing. It doesn’t matter i you sell to business or toconsumers. I you haven’t quite put your arms around the social Webtechnologies and incorporated them deeply into your product deni-tion and marketing strategy, read on. I have some ideas that may help.
The Rules of Engagement
Tere are so many terms used in the lexicon o the Web, they can makewriting about it rather conusing. Web 2.0, a term coined by an execu-
 
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tive at O’Reilly Media, reers to many o the social and live aspects o the Web including blogging, podcasting, tagging, social sites, Ajax, RSS,and a ew other technologies, unctions, and services.
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Te new tech-nologies coming out in
Web 3.0
, a term that rst appeared in
Te NewYork imes
in 2006, create a Web that oers meaning—where the sumo all knowledge and online behavior can be accessed.
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Te descriptor Ilike best is used by Doc Searls, a well-known industry pundit, and oneo the authors o 
Te Cluetrain Maniesto
as well as editor o the
Linux Journal 
. He created the title
Live Web
to describe the dramatic changerom the static Web o the 1990s to today’s interactive Web.
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 I agree with Doc Searls: We need to think o the Web as alive, as anecosystem with a heartbeat that is constantly moving and changingin order to create engaging, interactive marketing, and valuable busi-ness interactions at each touchpoint. Te result or marketers is theability to create, inuence, and participate in the conversations thatmake up markets. So, or the purposes o this book, I am opting to use
Live Web
as the all-encompassing term or Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 andeverything in between.Te Live Web is a place where people meet, converse, create, andlearn. With all o these interactions, it is ast becoming a vast humanbrain trust—a repository we can search, analyze, and organize to bet-ter engage the world around us. Tis evolution o the Web has turnedmarketing on its head. Te Live Web has established users who gener-ate their own content to express themselves or their ideas about yourproducts, and the passionate ew who open up proprietary productsto add to or change them. It isn’t a conspiracy to hijack your brands,but it can make your job more dicult, and it should compel com-panies to rethink and reinvent their relationship with prospects, cus-tomers, and partners.oday’s hacking, mashing, and public expression is a natural evolu-tion o technology catching up with human behavior. Without a doubt,hackers are a part o American culture. For the past several decades,the marketplace has changed products to t personal needs or tastes.
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