Excuse me, would you mind doing our marketing?

In the early days of the Web, corporate sites were little more than electronic brochures. Today, many savvy corporations are inviting consumers to share their stories.

That important evolution has finally made staying up until three in the morning to watch convincing infomercial testimonials seem like a silly waste of time. Now, stay up until three in the morning sharing life-changing experiences about Castrol Tectron Extra motor oil, Rosetta Stone foreign language CDs, WIN sports detergent, American Express, Coca-Cola, eHarmony, and today's-shoemaker-gone-tomorrow, Crocs.

Even Haliburton invites the world to share oilfield technology success stories: "Your team is tops for analyzing drill data across domains. We were able to establish ad hoc query capabilities and gain rapid access to all our drilling data. Thanks, Haliburton!"

There's something democratic about allowing consumers to share their motor oil adventures,
but this feels like lazy marketers asking customers to do all the hard work.