Open-Source Marketing

Matt Galloway's recent post compares open-source marketing to word-of-mouth marketing, wondering what the difference is.

Well, they don't "smell alike" to me, Matt.  They should be the same thing, yes.  But most companies are not ready to relinquish control of their marketing process to their customers, any more than most companies are ready to relinquish control of their information systems to some of the best programmers in the world.

Companies are ready to try WOMM because, to them, it seems like a great idea.  Get people talking about my product!  Yippee! Maybe we can make a cool cartoon that people pass around in their email!  But most of them don't realize what it means to really build great word of mouth.  Yes, getting customers participating not only in the marketing process, but actually in product development, is the key to real word of mouth marketing.  But try getting most companies to accept that.