Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The CB radio craze from decades ago proved that people were so eager to communicate with other people that they would talk to just about anyone. Then cell phones allowed us to talk with whomever we wanted at almost any time. Now, with social networking, we can communicate with dozens, even hundreds, of friends at once.

Double Dog Dare. The Monster. Argyle Nuthouse. Cleavage Creek. Fat Bastard. Yellow Tail.

These could be nicknames for your mother-in-law or the characters in a pirate movie. In reality, they are wine brands. The wide world of wine is a brand bazaar with literally thousands of labels looking to carve out a share of the market estimated at $25 billion a year in the United States.

What makes a brand real and resonant with its target audience? What makes one brand become part of a person's self-image while another has to discount to make its quarterly numbers? How real does a brand have to be - how "authentic" - to have selling power? And how does today's blog-posting, Facebook-empowered consumer change that equation?

Ross Perot, in his squeaky Texas twang, would have put it this way: "What you're gonna be hearing, folks, is a giant sucking sound." In the marketing world, that noise is now coming from a shift in media spending more dramatic than in any of the last 25 years.

You need only look at the success of Chinese-made merchandise to see that "Made in USA" does not carry the cache it once did. Although calls to "Buy American" arise during any economic downturn, American consumers vote otherwise every time they hop into their Japanese-made car, fill it up with gasoline refined from foreign oil and motor over to Wal-Mart for the sale on patio furniture that was made in Mexico.