I wrote this little piece for
AdAge about
how Brand Tags came to be and what I think the keys to its success were. After the seriously long intro that explains how the idea came to be, I end with four things I learned from the experience: It's a lot of work (answering all the emails and updating a site that takes off is a time consuming thing), nothing beats personal contact (this is something I've written about a bit in the past, but I really believe in answering every email personally), teach yourself some code (again, something I've mentioned in the past here, but I really believe it's worthwhile to learn how to make things on the internet) and be ready for spam (what can be spammed will be spammed).
Anyway, hope you enjoy.