Good point about the isolated message boards Peter- and something to which I don't have an immediate answer. However, there are folks like Steve at KDA research who are working on that in a form of Virtual Ethnography.

I would think that if a company is successful in being part of a losely linked community of blogs and other resources, their posts would end up in the isolated forums, posted by members seeking to add to the discussion on behalf of the company.

Of course, this sword cuts both ways. If a company tries to address an issue and fails, the company will be derided in the community, causing further problems.

The key is having a way to get the message out there using new tools and forms of communication that make it easy for news to spread into the isolted communities through members.