We come from different backgrounds I think, and it's an interesting question, which I have broached a few times as to whether writing on the Internet where one might have influence over many people, should be guided by ethical principles of balance, etc, but that's another topic completely; Should one consider possible misimpressions on the part of potential readers that could cause them or others damage? I'll leave that to people smarter than I.

You probably know me well enough to know that I am distressed at the overwhelming positiveness of the material about social media as it appears in media, and the costs (I think very real costs) or creating false impressions on the parts of those who's expertise lies outside of "social".

Creating situations where people are investing time, energy and money in failure is not good for owners, customers, or the economy in general, and it's just my opinion, but it's MY job (maybe not yours, that would be up to you), to do the best I can to provide people with information so they can make reasoned decisions about their businesses, or as customers, if they want to do business with companies that try crowdsourcing and fail to provide ANY support in any way.

But, that's the role I've chosen, and while I wish others thought in similar ways, I forget that they don't.

As for crowdsourcing for customer support, of course it's been going on since there were computers, literally, and it's probably the oldest and best established function of what people call social media. When it works.

I could probably, in an afternoon, come up with hundreds of url's to crowdsourcing attempts, many by major mulitnational companies that have failed badly, and in some cases the lack of support as a result of taking that path has probably cost their customers hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost income, ruined the companies reputation, and cost the company millions.

I think people should know.

Guy, well done research on this, but I have a question. The landscape is littered with hundreds if not thousands of failed "crowdsource" communities that frustrate and anger customers while damaging the reputations of the companies associated with them. They far outnumber the "usual suspect" success stories you mention in your articles (those few poster child companies that crop up all the time as successes).

My favorite example was the American Express forums up to about 18 months ago, which should have been a horrible embarassment -- they finally did it right, but there are tons of examples TODAY.

Do we not have a responsibility to exercise some journalistic ethics and portray both sides?