What do the blogosphere, Wikipedia, and Apache have in common? Basically, huge influence, a great deal of collaboration, and dependence on free work supplied by amateurs. In Apache’s case this has created a huge degree of reliability, and in Wikipedia the more science-based topics are usually very authoritative, too. Even in the blog vs traditional media debate it’s now widely recognized that the comment and response system and immunity to commercial pressures compensate for a relative lack of infrastructure. The news world has in fact reached a point of interdependency.

Now, a lot of the more authoritative blogs are done on a professional basis, but the ecosystem in which they operate is one in which amateur or semi-professional bloggers predominate. This ‘mixed economy’ model is also the basis of the profit in the Open Source movement — companies can use Open Source profitably by using part Open Source, part proprietary software.

So how does this mixed professional and amateur, commercial and free environment affect the way you conduct online PR and marketing?

1. It’s important not to make too big a distinction between amateurs and professionals. Professional is not better, commercial is not more reliable, so hierarchical thinking of this kind can be counter-productive. Mutual respect is the watchword.

2. It’s not all about money. The fact there is so much good discussion in blogs, that Wikipedia is now so reliable, and that the open source movement has produced so much reliable software proves that a lot can be done without money. But it can’t be done without trustworthiness and reliable information. Web presence comes with being a provider of information - not a tit-for-tat process of buying favours but one of becoming a participator. The investment is time and energy.

So perhaps the model companies should use for such participation is Google’s ‘We offer our engineers ‘20-percent time‘ so that they’re free to work on what they’re really passionate about’, but in this case the free time is for participation.

When Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, was published a couple of years ago, the idea swept through the world of online PR that you have to be authentic. It has grown stronger through the influence of wikipedia and social networks, which mean, in effect, any attempt to dress yourself up can be ruthlessly reported on, and you’ll end up looking dishonest and stupid. That’s the first reason you need to be authentic. The behaviour of the social group on the web is to be very open and communicative. If you join the group (and this means any level of real public engagement on the web) you have to play ball. If you don’t join the group, the web won’t do very much marketing for you.

That’s actually a very good thing - and it’s pretty deliberate. The Open Source movement is very influential, for example - think of Netscape (or, now, Mozilla) and Apache. Of course, the web’s straight-talking ethos is also enshrined in the W3C guidelines. Without strong checks you can say more, of course; and the more powerful you are, the more you can say. Which means the powerful end up manipulating the medium and damage the integrity of the web. Clearly it’s in the common interest that everyone can get at the truth, but on the web, uniquely, it’s easy for people who passinately uphold this idea to actively fight misinformation with every weapon they have, fair or otherwise. And that’s why companies have to be extra careful.

Authenticity is not just for the web, of course. A couple of decades ago, I worked for a growing chain of bicycle shops. We felt we were doing well, and wanted to present an upmarket image. We had the glossiest bike ads in London, maybe in the UK, for a few months. I don’t think they sold a single bike for us. What in fact customers loved about us was that we were down-to-earth (many bike shops talk down to customers, most of whom, understandably, don’t know how it all works or what all the bits are called). We also gave good advice and service, explained how things worked, and gave our honest opinions. The reason the business grew was that our customers recommended us. And when we identified the secret of successful customer interactions and multiplied it through relationship marketing, business grew fast. So the second reason you have to be authentic is, it works everywhere.

Web 2.0 - the social web - actually does resemble real society in many ways. The reason is straightforward - if it resembles what we know, we will adopt it faster and know how to use it. So what works for word-of-mouth will normally work on the web. The key is finding out what makes your best customer relationships work, and reflecting that in your web presence - best of all through interactive tools.