Ever have that moment when you’re in the middle of some inane conversation and the thought flashes – this could be a Dilbert strip! Well rejoice, for the newly launched Dilbert website offers you the chance to make just that happen. Oh the opportunities that this new world offers. Write your own ending, write the dialogue for an entire strip or start the strip and pass it along to friends to add their dialogue.

For a comic strip, this is pretty huge. Enabling user generated content or feedback to filter into a brand is something that companies struggle with on a daily basis. The fear, and reasonably so, is that if you give people the chance to talk about your brand they’ll say mean things.

Dilbert’s creators understand that people are already saying, and doing, much of what this new website offers and have made the decision to become a part of that conversation.  Good for them.  I wish more companies embraced this type of user feedback because an essential part of a product or service lifecycle is hearing what customers want and making the offering better. I know, it takes time and a lot of convincing to even get an audience to start the conversation, but it’s not going away anytime soon.

So what do users think about this 2.0 version of the Dilbert site? They think it sucks. Yep, that’s right, after all that hard work to add more features they want the old site back. Why? Loss of functionality and compatibility. Apparently the old site made it easier to view daily strips and find old ones.  Site creators have apparently been monitoring this feedback and added a blog post saying that they’re looking to make some changes in the next few weeks. User feedback rocks!