How would you contrast this with a convential 3rd party threaded forum? For instance, perhaps a site like Notebookreview.com? Or even forum.thinkpads.com (not owned / sponsored by IBM or Lenovo, yet dedicated to the products?) What is lacking in those scenarios, is direct company participation. It’s all customer based.

I think you answered the question right there. What I see that is different is that they allow the company to “officially” join the discussion.

I agree satisfaction looks different, but I think it’s trying to accomplish the same idea. Right?

I’d say it is doing it in a far more wide-reaching (more companies and conversations) and organized way. It’s really easy to jump from company discussion to company discussion.

Not to mention, something has to be said for the implementation. Satisfaction is just … slick. Something you can’t really get from just an off the shelf forum (unless it is highly tweaked). Let’s face it, forums have way too many features that just aren’t used.

Things like the emoticons in Satsifaction are really taking off. So, people enjoy using it.

Maybe that leads to more realistic discussion instead of flame wars…

So this is a discussion facilitation site? How would you contrast this with a convential 3rd party threaded forum? For instance, perhaps a site like Notebookreview.com? Or even forum.thinkpads.com (not owned / sponsored by IBM or Lenovo, yet dedicated to the products?) What is lacking in those scenarios, is direct company participation. It’s all customer based. I agree satisfaction looks different, but I think it’s trying to accomplish the same idea. Right? Please do clarify my misunderstanding…

I’m personally interested in how we (everyone) can evolve the old model of seller/buyer, producer/consumer, company/customer, into more of a partnership.
I suggest partnership, because so far, individuals and companies are still just using social media as a new way to perpetuate conventional self interested thinking. Monitoring – what are they saying, blog posting for PR, customer’s posting to get help, or making noise to try to leverage a change in policy, or to get some concession. etc. (I’m painting with a big, sloppy generalization brush here , I know)

The breakthrough could come where the producing/consuming ecosystem of the world becomes more obvious to everyone and we stop trying to manage solely to our individual (or collective) self interests. (again, the big generalization brush – no personal indictments) The partnership idea implies a symbiosis that goes beyond the transaction at point of sale.