This has to be social media marketing at its finest. You, me, and everyone else gets to decide (thumbs up or down) if the ad that you have placed on a website is worth keeping. We the people hold the power to decide if your product or investment will succeed or fail. Think of that immeasurable power for a second. We are “the Deciders”. A mass band of merry internet dwellers, trolling the web when all of a sudden American Express pops out of the corner with the new “titanium plus VIP low interest can make you waffles faster than your mother” card, and what’s that? You don’t like it? Was it too bright on your eyes? Did it interrupt your streaming of the latest “Battlestar Galactica” episode? You gave it a thumbs down? Did you notice that 500 other people had given it a thumbs down? The site just had the ad yanked because of your opinion. Feel better now? You can go on watching “Battlestar Galactica” in peace. You sure made a fool of them.
In the same sense, say something catches your eye, you give it a thumbs up. The ad becomes a huge viral marketing success, and people totally eat into the product. You just helped to make it popular. Regardless of what happens, the company will still have to pay for the ad placement. You are spearheading a make or break policy, and in a social sense, the company has to work a lot harder to convince you of something. This is social interaction, the evolution from us telling you, to you telling us. This isn’t traditional advertising, it’s “socially endorsed advertising”. Regardless there is still a long way to go, but consider that the product becomes successful. Marketers will pay a fraction of the price in comparison to traditional forms because word of mouth and popularity will carry that product higher.

This is the social media revolution.