An iPod Touch fan video, posted on YouTube by 18-year-old amateur cineaste Nick Haley, has become the next commercial for Apple's music player. Is Apple abandoning the ironfisted control of its image to embrace crowdsourced content?


Not exactly. Apple and TBWA/Chiat/Day, its ad agency, invited Haley to Los Angeles to participate in a professional remake of the ad. But let's ignore the fact that TBWA completely redid this supposedly up-from-the-grassroots effort. TBWA's chief creative officer, Lee Clow, is talking the loser-generated talk: "People's relationship with a brand is becoming a dialogue, not a monologue." But plucking a good idea from the public sphere to use for themselves is nothing new for the iPod maker. Acknowledging the original producer? Now that's new.