Human behavior fascinates me, especially when it’s unusual. And in the Wild West of Web 2.0, human behavior is never usual.

For example, why is it we demand that companies let us have a voice in the decisions they make, then turn around and ask the opposite of other companies?

Take Starbucks and Apple. Starbucks uses Facebook, Twitter and MyStarbucksIdea to crowdsource, or take in ideas from customers and then make the best into a reality.

Along the way, they update customers on each popular idea’s progress and get continuous feedback. We as customers demanded that opportunity, and we got it.

Apple, on the other hand, has no outlets for new product ideas from customers and no Twitter or Facebook presence to ask for advice on decisions. And don’t even think about asking Apple about a product’s status, or if it even exists.

They operate under the style of using mystery, suspense and the power of secrecy to create the ultimate buzz marketing effects on a cult following, or what I like to call crowdsecrecy.

Yet we’re perfectly fine with that. In fact, if Apple started giving weekly new product updates, the blogging community, with a lack of rumors to report, would collapse.

One company with its doors wide open, the other with its doors shut (tightly) — yet we love everything about both of them. In fact, both Apple and Starbucks are among the Top 20 Most Admired Companies in the U.S. in 2008, according to Fortune Magazine.

It’s one of human behavior’s many idiosyncrasies that I had to look at some more.

I found that the Top 20 Most Admired Companies, and some others on the full list, all fall into one of three categories:

1. Using crowdsourcing/social engagement
2. Using crowdsecrecy (mystery, buzz marketing), are standoffish
3. Somewhere in-between, stuck in a rut

Here’s the breakdown of some companies I looked at:

Crowdsecrecy / Standoffish / Closed Doors

- Apple
- Google
- Amazon

The one thing these companies share is the way they develop their marketing and the amount of engagement they’ve set up with their customers in terms of new product ideas and giving them a voice in the company (or lack thereof).

Apple is certainly the ultimate example of this style, but we’ve seen it from companies like Google and Amazon as well.

Take for example Google’s recent announcement of Chrome OS. All that they basically announced was a browser as an operating system. But because of their buzz marketing style and lack of details released, a great sense of mystery was generated that sent the story to the top of CNN within an hour.

Amazon uses the same style whenever they mention anything about their posterchild, the Kindle; very few details, announcements in a dark room for a select number of journalists, and, of course, a bald CEO (the staple of any tech marketing campaign).

And on top of this mystery is a standoffish approach to how customers impact the company, aside from sales. Unlike Starbucks, for example, these companies make all of the decisions from their high towers on their own (although you never know when they’re browsing the forums and blogs).

But since their products are such integral parts of our lives (and in many cases, our “toys”), we welcome the mystery and lack of input.

Whether it’s a trait developed as a child while waiting for Christmas morning to come or simply the way we are, it’s clear that if we know the product will be great (we trust the brand to deliver quality once again), then we want mystery and suspense leading up to the climax when all is revealed and play time begins.

You can apply this idea to other industries, such as television, as well.

On one end of the spectrum you have shows with brilliant buzz marketing on top of epic tales that are bathed in mystery, such as LOST (Read a great article by JJ Abrams about humans and mystery). It’s a show that, because of its endless unanswered questions, has driven people to online communities and created an unbelievable cult following.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is the crowdsourcing of television — reality TV, such as American Idol. You ask thousands of people to come audition for your show, and we, the audience, then get to decide how the show progresses through voting and various other forms of participation. We ARE the show and we’re in control of the product.

So when we let companies take the crowdsecrecy, closed doors route, although we sacrifice having any input or knowing much, the rewarding experience of the suspense and ultimately a truly great product makes it all very worthwhile.

Crowdsourcers / Social Engagement

Mountain Dew
Facebook
Netflix
CNN – iReport
BMW
Dell
Starbucks (MyStarbucksIdea)
Best Buy (Blue Label)
LG, Nokia, Nortel
P&G
FedEx (Brown Bailout)
Target (Bullseye Gives)
Southwest Airlines
Cisco (iPrize)

List continues here

On the other end of the spectrum is a relatively new style, thanks in part to the developments in the Web 2.0 realm.

Rather than teasing us with mystery, suspense and a lack of input, these companies allow us the opportunity to essentially become part of the company.

And it’s a concept I blog about often, because I think it’s one of the greatest advancements for businesses that Web 2.0 has brought us.

By crowdsourcing via social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) for new product ideas, feedback on current products, etc., your most passionate customers become 10 times more passionate. It also connects them with thousands of like-minded evangelists who they can socialize with as well.

We’ve seen this in action several times from all of these companies. Most recently, Mountain Dew sent out test flavors to 50 fans to vote on and talk about and ultimately elect a new product.

Also recently, Netflix held a contest for programmers to come up with an algorithm to improve their recommendations system by 10% — the winner, to be announced, would get $1 million.

And one of my all-time favorites, Target continuously asks its Facebook fans who they should give their $3 million in charity money to each week.

These companies are inviting their fans into the company to make decisions on new products, to develop important improvements, to manage charity donations, and so much more.

The doors are wide open with these companies, and we love it just as much as we love them shut (laughing at yourself yet?).

In-betweens in a rut

- Microsoft
- Yahoo!
- MySpace
- eBay

“What you see is what you get.”

And finally, there are the companies who were once dominators, but have fallen to the level of has-been (exaggeration).

They haven’t quite opened their doors to any input or branded themselves as crowdsourcers, nor are they entirely closed off.

Their now lack of truly innovative products has made buzz marketing far more difficult than it once was, and their momentum is on the way out.

They also tend to be the companies with ex-evangelists who have found greener pastures and now have a quickly fading customer base.

Microsoft was once an untouchable monster but has started to feel the effects of Apple’s revolutionizing every industry it touches. The effect has pushed them into this rut where announcements like IE8 or Windows 7 only have the nerdiest of Microsoft diehards listening.

MySpace has watched Facebook surpass its traffic in both the world and now the U.S. The MySpace population is now referred to as a “digital ghetto” and its only real product left with any momentum is its band profiles.

Both Microsoft and MySpace don’t run any mainstream campaigns asking for feedback, new ideas, etc. nor have they had good enough products to have a successful buzz marketing/mystery campaign.

Finally, Yahoo! has seen Google trample over its traffic in the last five years. And although pushing out redesigns based on user feedback is good, the redesign needed to be significantly more different and a much greater fanbase is needed to promote it.

Let’s now get a visual understanding of these categories and companies:

What the graph shows us is that the companies that are succeeding and are admired today are those that either make you a part of the company’s decision making process through effective crowdsourcing, or they’re companies that take a more standoffish approach with little social engagement and a greater focus on mystery and buzz marketing (for truly great products).

Then there are the companies who have pushed themselves into the middle from a lack of effective social involvement and few products deserving of any buzz, thus resulting in less admiration over time.

Is there a way out of the rut?

You might be wondering if companies who have great products but are stuck in the middle can move toward one of the other quadrants on the graph and revitalize their brand and their customers.

Best Buy is a great example of a company that went from a “closed doors” model, with decent buzz and a great product; from a highly hierarchical corporate structure to something far more loosely defined, as evidenced by its many social campaigns, both internally and externally, in the last year alone.

In short, they went from the middle as a bland retailer with a great product to the top-left of the graph and now not only have a great product, but more brand advocates and more passionate customers.

But I think there comes a point of immobility simply from a lack of momentum. Imagine if tomorrow Circuit City tried to follow Best Buy’s lead with a crowdsourcing campaign of some sort. Unless Circuit City came out with something unbelievable that generated a world of buzz, their lack of momentum would make the campaign fall flat on its face.

When in doubt, find a friend

That’s why it’s no surprise to me that companies in the middle are now joining forces — take Yahoo! and Microsoft as a prime example. The momentum required to be able to compete in either quadrant is daunting, even for behemoths like Yahoo! and Microsoft.

Thankfully, however, Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing, has the buzz, momentum and slight hint of mystery that could certainly revitalize the two companies’ brands.

And I certainly think incorporating both ends of the spectrum, at the right balance, can be greatly effective.

Obviously these two factors I’ve discussed, crowdsourcing and crowdsecrecy, are only a few of the deciding factors in what can make a brand admired, popular, successful and mainstream these days. The real killer ingredient is a good product to start with, of course.

But what’s most interesting is what this study of what you might call a Web 3.0 world tells us — that companies that lose momentum from a lack of interesting products, a lack of involvement with their most passionate customers (i.e. crowdsourcing) and a lack of great buzz marketing (i.e. crowdsecrecy) can, over time, get stuck in a rut that could ultimately prove to be fatal.

But as companies like Best Buy have proven, if you still have a great product, you can still revitalize your brand with the help of one of these styles.

And while it doesn’t matter whether you choose to open the doors to your company or keep them bolted shut on both sides, the key is to have a strategy, take a direction and know why your company is in the quadrant that it is.

Because when Web 3.0 does arrive, new brands without a strong identity and understanding of that identity will collapse before they can even build a door.