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The World Wide Web has been steadily creating a widespread surge in social capital through E-mail conversations, chat rooms, newsgroups, and e-zones. These ongoing connections are not an underground phenomenon, but a mainstream movement that is rapidly overwhelming traditional business models, according to the authors of another recent book, The Cluetrain Manifesto.
"Our longing for the Web is rooted in the deep resentment we feel towards being managed," writes co-author David Weinberger, a columnist and commentator on the Web’s effect on business. The Cluetrain Manifesto argues that knowledge workers are finding it intolerable that their employers require them to speak in artificial "business voices". The Web has become the ideal alternative: a public place where people can converse in their "authentic voices", outside of an organization’s official communications channel.
Some of the social capital generated by these independent Web conversations is being used by its creators to circumvent the authority of corporations. For example, a car owner who thinks he was overcharged for service to his vehicle posts an inquiry to a newsgroup for people who own the same model of ear. Group members respond with their advice and personal experiences of getting their own cars serviced. The newsgroup is not owned or controlled by the car company. In fact, a mechanic employed by the car company participates in the conversation, offering his knowledge of what charges are reasonable and how company policies vary from dealer to dealer, and even suggesting which dealerships offer the best service.
According to co-author Rick Levine, tile mechanic "was speaking for his company in a new way: honestly, openly, probably without his boss’s explicit sanction." In effect, an employee of the company independently joined a network of consumers to directly help satisfy a customer. "Companies need to harness this sort of caring and let itsviral enthusiasm be communicated in employees’ own voices," writes Levine, former Web Architect for Sun Microsystem’s Java Software group.
As more and more people work online and form Web relationships, shared knowledge could become increasingly personal in cyberspace. Whether business joins in the conversations or not, it seems likely that this fast-growing strain of social capital will remain valuable for those who help to create it.

Employees with on-line relationships can benefit the company because（）