The web meme "All your base belong to us" appears to have reached its nadir with a story in digitalMASS at Boston.com. The article quotes Henry Jenkins, director of MIT's Program in ComComparative Media Studies: ''The fact that people are able to claim something that is relatively trivial, and make it into something much bigger - that's the Web community flexing its muscle.''

There's a story in this for business, both exciting and terrifying. The interconnected nature of the internet allows a brand to have a more intimate relationship with a customer than has historically been possible. It's also a relationship that cannot be controlled by either the firm or the individual customer...