Dialogue

"A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well." – Jeff Bezos (CEO, Amazon.com)

As thousands of companies and start-ups are trying to figure out social media—the valuation of LinkedIn soared at its debut, the valuations of Skype, Groupon, and Facebook continue to skyrocket, and the valuation of social gaming giant Zynga continues to rise—people are being driven into a money-making, schema-creating frenzy like the dot-com explosion of the late 90s. But what is happening with brands? Who owns them? Who controls them?