Dan- It sounds to me like you're channeling one of my favorite books, "The Cluetrain Manifesto". In it the authors suggest that the online marketplace is more like an open-air market than a brick-and-mortar retail outlet, not only because of the ability for customers to comparison shop instantaneously but also for the opportunities for informal dialog between customer and merchant. It's a very compelling concept for those who achieve, or even care about, quality and customer satisfaction.
One problem you'll run into as a white-label provider might be disclosure agreements with your clients. These may not even be explicit; one thing to be careful of, with publicly-traded clients, is whether disclosing a business relationship might be construed as insider trading. I speak from experience here...my slides from an IxDA gathering got pulled because I named a client, and that business relationship was not public. I won't make THAT mistake again, I assure you. If your business relationship is public, or the client is privately held, you still have to worry about you client's PR guidelines, and of course any long-term business strategies that might not be aligned between you and your client. For instance, if you are planning an upgrade of your "gonkulator", your client might not be planning to offer this upgrade, or they might charge a premium. I think that if you have the trust and faith of your client, you might be able to communicate in this way, but ASK FIRST. As if you didn't already know. Dante Dante Murphy | Director of User Experience| D I G I T A S H E A L T H 229 South 18th Street | Rittenhouse Square | Philadelphia, PA 19103 | USA Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.digitashealth.com ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
