02/01/2007 07:34:00 PM 
(1) 
(1) Messages are flowing onto forums chastising the brand for letting them down and selling out to the big guy.
Users fear that their names are just going to end up on a giant marketing database as Yahoo looks to maximize its every asset, in its desperate quest to play catch up with Google.
From Flickr's perspective, the move makes logical sense; it will enable greater efficiencies and provide a better service for its users.
However, money as usual, is at the root of everything.
The early users of Flickr probably feel resentful that the company got rich because of them, they adopted it, helped it grow and feel they deserve to be treated as early stage emotional shareholders or perhaps even more.
The Flickr case shows that something's shifting in the relationship between consumers and brands.
At the heart of all this are unclear ground rules.
Brands emerged as symbols of trust, proof of quality for products or services, nothing more.
The same thing in Flickr's case, people chose it because it did a better job than anyone else out there. People jumped onto it, liked it and told their friends, for the social connectivity that recommendation brought. The more they used it and the more they reaped the benefits, the more they built an affinity for the brand and became to think of it as their own.
This is where the trouble begins.
Flickr just wanted to do a good job and presented itself as a nice, friendly human organization, but were its users reading more into the relationship than Flickr ever intended?
Were they being lead on?
When Yahoo acquired them, Flickr made the following announcement.
"Don't forget to breathe. It's not the end, it's the beginning! As the wise woman who taught us The One True Way of Flickr Massage says, the only thing permanent is change. But we're going to stay true to our vision and to the people who made us what we are -- that's you, the Flickr pioneers. Thanks for making the first year of Flickr so wonderful."
It's possible to interpret this statement in many different ways depending on what you believe, staying true to the vision, means.
Flickr, like other members of the new power brand generation; Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, were built out of great product experiences and an understanding of the importance of community.
These brands never set out from the beginning to create a new type of contract between themselves and their consumers; they just wanted to share a better way of doing things. They never made any promises other than to deliver great product experiences and in a traditional sense, they over-delivered, because they gave their services away.
The problem started when they became rich because of their users.
YouTube is feeling guilty and now wants to share revenue with creators. This move will have a big ripple effect.
Community-based brands of the future, the ones that rely on user-generated content and the ones that demand more involvement for the consumer, will need to develop a new type of brand "contract" and make it clear from the get-go.
Here are 2 for starters
1. The Pure Community Model
Centered on maintaining the purity of the experience with a "contract" that implies the community governs everything the brand does. The brand listens every single step of the way and only does what the community wants it to do- the Craigslist model.
2. Revenue Share Model
Offering different types of incentive streams for users: from early stage stock for initial subscribers, membership points for community to contributions, to revenue share for the most viewed or desired content.
When the user truly becomes the shareholder, the consumer will truly own the brand and the implications will be monumental for all concerned.
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Excellent post. For all the talk about co-creation, "communities own brands" and all of that, the rubber is finally meeting the road, as business takes over. <br>I think the idea of crafting a new "brand contract" is exactly right, and it will be even better if it's not just a word and handshake (a la craigslist). I suspect that consumers the "community" will increasingly demand more.