Create clear goals and choose tools accordingly. "Have a very clear mission statement when you go into it," says Marino. Edmunds' CarSpace.com arose from a philosophy that customers should have is a "clean well-lit place" to come together and discuss the ins and outs of car buying, as well as car ownership. Customers can log on to CarSpace and say, I just test drove such and such car, who else did and what did you think? They can talk about how to install a certain part, or even write a how-to guide. Forums, message boards and other tools support various customer needs. "It all goes back to core philosophy and making technology selections that support it," says Marino.

"There's a lot of folks that may want to jump on the bandwagon and take everything on, but I think it makes sense to look at strategy first and then at tools," says Dietz. IdeaStorm grew organically as a way to fill a customer need, she says. "We already were interacting with 3 million customers a day online and on the phone, but we needed to have tools to harness creativity and thoughts of customers." The company looked into a number of options, and of primary importance was the capability of voting ideas up or down.

It's also important to consider how you will deal with the intelligence that comes from Web 2.0. "Think about how you can use these tools to benefit the entire organization," says Dietz. How will you get information to marketing, sales, various regions, and so on. "If you're going to ask customers for ideas and feedback, you need a process in place to funnel information." To this end, one tool Dell uses to get information back to users of IdeaStorm is an "Ideas in Action" tab on the site, which details the ideas that are being implemented and how.

Be open to criticism. The big benefit of Web 2.0 for Behenna and others is taking advantage of the wisdom of crowds while also getting close to your customers. As an illustration, he points to the "crowdsourcing" used by James Murdoch, CEO of British Sky Broadcasting, who invited groups of customers to give him a one-minute pitch on improving the company. Out of those, Murdoch chose a new loyalty card program that will reward green and socially responsible behavior. But that closeness can sometimes be painful.

"A lot of people will flame you for no good reason," says Behenna. "But you can't filter too much, even amongst the flames and rubbish. You will kill the good stuff." He points to biting comments on his own blog. "You live with that and some of them make you think."