The Fanatics are true believers and evangelists. Their work as citizen marketers may include filtering work, but they love to analyze the daily or weekly progress of a brand, product, organization, or person and prescribe courses of action. They are, essentially, volunteer coaches.

The Fanatics praise great work -- which may vary widely from marketing to accessory development -- but they will also criticize mistakes and lapses in full view of the world, just like a coach may do as a teaching tool.

The personalities of the Fanatics are as varied as the personalities in sports coaching, too. Just as college basketball coach Bobby Knight has a personality (tends to be explosive) that's vastly different than pro football coach Tony Dungy (tends to be even-keeled), both ultimately want their teams to excel and win.

Take McChronicles.com, for instance, a blog written by a New York man who focuses exclusively on McDonald's.

With a good deal of care, he critiques the company's marketing and branding work and conducts regular secret-shopper reviews of McDonald's stores in his regular-job travels. He grades stores on service, food preparation, and cleanliness. Woe to the McDonald's operator whose poorly maintained bathroom he discovers; McChronicles seldom forgives that transgression. His review of a McDonald's in San Francisco's historic Haight-Ashbury hippie district is direct: "Regions with far less (of note) to brag about do a much better job of reflecting their tradition or community than this store does. What should be a landmark is actually a disappointment."

He is anonymous, though. Although that's uncommon among most citizen marketers (we will introduce you to a woman who anonymously blogs about Target), his reasons for anonymity are based on the stakes of his livelihood. He told us in an e-mail that he lives and works in a relatively small city; therefore, "many of my McDonald's experiences are in and around my town. One man owns about 30 McDonald's here. The owner of my company is that man's friend. Both are very rich and powerful." He started the blog in January 2005 because of what he calls "a love-hate relationship" with the brand.

"McDonald's is one of the most significant brands in my life," he told us. "It plays a big role in my past: especially in my childhood (it's almost like Christmas). Secondly, it is a shame to see the once-splendid brand miss the mark of what I always felt it was, what they told me it was, and what it could be. So much of what they do is right -- they're so close to being awesome for so many people around the globe -- that it hurts to see them just miss the mark. I just want them to 'get it,' and achieve it so that so many people can be really happy (including the employees). Actually, I am sure that many employees get it but feel their hands are tied by corporate, legal, the system, just like in other companies."

"I guess you could say I just want McDonald's to be awesome."

The stories of the Fanatics illustrate a central theme: they want to contribute. They face vastly different challenges in their quest to add value, whether it's time or indifference. But they want to contribute and often do so, even if the company isn't listening.