Anyone who uses Wikipedia (somewhere on the order of 340 million of us) has seen the banners that ran at the top of each page during the last few weeks of the year as part of the non-profit online encyclopedia’s annual fundraiser. The banners alternated between comments from donors explaining what Wikipedia means to them and a direct appeal from Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales.

It got me. Upon seeing the quote from Jimmy Wales, I immediately clicked to donate. It could have been the starkness of the request. Or the ridiculous ambition of Wales’ vision for Wikipedia. “Free access to the sum of all human knowledge”? Really?

And yet, that’s what Wikipedia is providing. It’s the third most popular site on the Internet, a vast, real-time, community-sourced knowledge repository that remains…free. No ads, no corporate sponsors. But only because a few hundred thousand donors like me (and maybe like you?) have opted to pay for it.

Does no advertising equal purity of content? Not necessarily. After all, Wikipedia is community-sourced, which means anyone with an agenda can create or edit Wiki pages, leaving it to the crowd to make corrections. Wikipedia has seen its share of controversy about accuracy and comparisons with Encyclopedia Britannica.

The purity — and genius — of Wikipedia comes not from its accuracy, but from the crowd. At any given moment, Wikipedia is an evolving, ground-up view of the current zeitgeist: a view that could be fundamentally altered by the top-down influence that advertising can bring. Wikipedia’s ability to raise enough money to maintain their current model (they raised $6 million in 8 weeks) tells us the crowd cares more about “free of advertising” than free.

When Number 26 on Forbes’ list of Most Influential Women in Media has a bad experience with your product, you have a problem. When she shares that bad experience with her Twitter followers — all 1,145,058 of them — you have a pretty big one. Maytag now faces a customer-service-meets-social-media crisis of the magnitude of the United Airlines busted baggage jingle or Domino’s Pizza viral video, thanks to one unhappy, high-profile customer.

Heather Armstrong, a.k.a Dooce, is the most popular mommy blogger ever — arguably the most popular personal blogger, period. She chronicles life as a stay-at-home mom in colorful language, sharing detailed accounts of everything from post-partum depression to her relationship with her Mormon family to natural childbirth. It’s hard to find numbers on her site traffic, but her posts draw anywhere from 300 to 1,000 comments, and advertisers on her blog include several blue chip companies. And her Twitter following is just as big.

When she was unhappy with the way Maytag responded (or failed to respond) to her almost brand-new, $1300 broken washing machine, she took it up with the same vivid gusto as any other topic.

It’s caused a big stir in the social media space, because when “Dooce” issues the call “DO NOT BUY MAYTAG,” it’s the Web 2.0 equivalent of a boycott. Her readers and followers have been supportive and amused, while others have called her a bully who’s been irresponsible with her media power. Either way, following #maytag makes for a pretty fiery read.

Maytag has put a toe in the social media water with a couple of Twitter feeds, neither of which is particularly active. But the company now finds itself thrust into the space — with zero control over the dialogue. Without an established social media forum to speak from, Maytag is at the mercy of Dooce, her supporters and her detractors to convey how Maytag may or may not be addressing the situation. Maytag has issued no official statement yet, but Dooce’s tweets on the subject indicate they are working quickly to resolve the issue to her satisfaction.

However Dooce and Maytag settle the issue of the broken $1300 washing machine, it’s yet another cautionary tale for brands that a meaningful social media presence is an essential element of public relations.

Editor’s note: this is the first in a series of Point/Counterpoint entries that present differing views on a single topic.

Starbucks invented the premium coffee category and culture. All those little white cups, our fluent java-nese, an entire generation of start-up companies launched on wireless Internet, and, frankly, a new standard for what the brown stuff should be: roasted, delicious, sometimes dessert-like, sometimes serious, but always excellent.

Starbucks is right to remind us of that in their latest ad campaign. They raised coffee out of its sludgy commodity status and they need to keep it there. When the coffee conversation is about price, they lose, when it’s about quality, ceremony and storytelling, they win.

As much as people are still looking to cut back, they’re also seeking small luxuries and ways to feel good about what they’re buying: what am I really getting with this cup of coffee? The new Starbucks ads have some solid, interesting answers to the question, and the social components of the campaign invite their customers to answer as well.

[Note: I admit to being an occasional Pike's Place drinker, but lest I sound like a Starbucks shill, let me encourage you to get even more meaning by the ounce from your local coffee shop.]