The Inherent Friction in the Web

The Internet has always been a struggle between openness and anonymity, between the public and the private. This is why the Web, and its derivative technologies, is labeled disruptive.

This is also why businesses still largely haven't figured out how to effectively harness the Web.

Business success is determined by branding—by becoming so distinctive that your company's name is synonymous with the product or service, such as Xerox&trade or Band-Aid&trade . Branding includes controlling a company's public identity.

But the Web is about ceding control to the masses. The Internet's history and evolution, driven by sex and socializing, is proof of the power of the hoards.

So, how do you take center stage and stand in the spotlight, the way most companies want to, without having to dodge a few rotten tomatoes? Or, in digital terms, how do companies provide mostly decent, but sometimes faulty, customer service, without having to answer to streams of Tweets denouncing their service?