James Governor points to some more links in the "Dell Support" meme that seems to be spreading. He makes the same point I've been making - either you define your message, or watch it get defined for you. But it's deeper than that now - small anecdotes that previously would just fall to the floor now echo around the world. Witness this, from the link above:

I happened to be sitting across from a couple of bank tellers from TD Canada Trust, the bank in our building. These two ladies I'd seen before so I knew where they worked.

Lady one: I was going to buy a new Dell but did you hear about Jeff Jarvis and the absolute hell he is going through with them.

Lady two: Yeah, I know the IT guy told me that the cobler blog was recommending we stay away from Dell.

Okay, after you are done laughing at this; laughing at Scoble's name being mangled, laughing at two random bank tellers talking about some one line blog entry about some guy pissed off about his Dell experience; after you are done: Pay Attention.

This is the result of Jeff Jarvis' initial rant being ignored. The larger companies seem to think that this kind of thing is normal, and that they should just ignore it. That used to work, but it doesn't anymore. What they need to do is track mentions of their products and services, and watch for emerging memes that might need higher level handling. Even worse, for a larger firm - there's too much being said for the tracking to happen centrally. Realistically, each business unit is going to have to monitor their area, and then get ahold of corporate when something bad comes down the pike. That may well be a hard adjustment for outfits that like strong central management.