In this article, Internet News’ Clint Boulton quotes Peter Sondergaard, Gartner‘s head of global research, as having said during the Gartner Symposium ITxpro 2006’s keynote:
Changes in consumer behavior and preferences will trigger a power reversal in business models… Consumer-to-business will replace the predominant business-to-consumer model.
If I recall correctly, it was Drummond Reed who coined the term "Company Relationship Management" (with the customer being in control, rather than the company, as in case of traditional "Customer Relationship Management"). And Doc Searls has been tireless in explaining how the world changes when that happens.
Well, not only is it happening all around us (the growth of RSS is exhibit A) now even Gartner is talking about it. It surely must mean that the concept will be getting a lot more attention going forward.