I was at a cocktail party the other night when the host asked me about flat panel TV's. He'd won a sales award at work and they told him to find the brand/model he wanted and let them know. He'd done some research, but wanted to confirm what he was hearing.

Sidebar: I'm an a/v junkie and spend more of my waking hours on the AVS Forum boards than I'd care to admit. I'm not bleeding edge, but typically jump into technology earlier than most.

Back to the party, first I wanted to know where he wanted to put it and what he intended to watch. The spot he'd picked out was next to some pretty significant sliding glass doors and he was worried about direct sunlight. We ruled out plasma for that reason and I had to admit I wasn't up on LCD technology brands, models and options. I mentioned to him that I'd do some fact checking and get back to him.

The next morning I hopped on the interweb and took a look at the boards on AVS. I sent a quick email to a colleague who'd purchased an LCD TV recently. Once I'd narrowed it down to a couple of brands/models, I went to Amazon and Circuit City to read the user reviews. Pretty quickly it became apparent that the Sony KDL52XBR4 was the machine for my neighbor. A return email from my colleague confirmed this was in fact what he'd ended up purchasing.

I pulled together a quick email and sent it off to my neighbor that morning with my thoughts on his choices and it's highly likely he'll have the Sony KDL52XBR4 hanging in his den in the near future.

This simple example sheds light on how completely disruptive community has been on the AV maketplace and how it will likely continue to spread (and disrupt) other spaces. I didn't run out to talk to the experts at Tweeter or head on over to Sound & Vision to look for expert reviews. Retail sites like Amazon and Circuit City are banking on the hope that community (via user reviews) will keep buyers on their pages long enough to make the sale. Magazines like Sound & Vision are adding blogs and forums to give readers the opportunity to join the conversation. When buyers no longer depend on experts, it's much more challenging to add value to the purchase process.

Over the last few years, Tweeter's been struggling to compete. Their high touch model just isn't compatible with the new world order. This weekend, I took a look at Tweeter.com and stopped by one of their brick and mortar locations. They're beginning to add "expert" blogs to their web site and they've added a "concierge" station to the center of the store. I just don't understand their strategy and wonder how much longer they'll be in business.

Skeptics will point out that AVS Forum is far from a household name and will not likely become a major influencer of purchase decision. True, but Google is pretty well known and a quick search there for "best 52 inch LCD" returned three AVS Forum posts in the top ten. A comment thread on Amazon.com also came up in the top 10. Forums, blogs and other user-generated content typically rank higher on popular search engines because of the # of incoming/outgoing links included in them (check out this post for an example). And who doesn't enter questions like this into Google?

Simply put, companies that embrace community, whether it's by joining forces with estblished communities in their industry or rolling their own, stand a better chance to compete in the new millenium.

Talkback: Have a story of your own? Please add a comment and tell us how community's impacted your shopping experience? If you work for Tweeter, drop me a line, I'd love to help you join the community revolution.