Blogs Will Change Your Business. Businessweek story.
As I have predicted, the business community is waking up to the world of blogs.
The story, Blogs Will Change Your Business from Businessweek is in the May 2, 2005 issue
Their first thoughts? How do we avoid the revenue drain, how do we make money and finally what they really want to know, How do we crush dissent? In their brave experiment they have offered their own blog, Blogspotting, WITH COMMENTS! Bully for them! How hip! How edgy! A pun on the popular movie about heroin junkies! But of course the comments will be moderated and my comment will never see the light of day. I SWORE! I defamed! I told a truth they probably don't like! But until my blog is crushed by the full weight and power of McGraw Hill's lawyers I can make my comment on my own little blog! I have 14 readers! That's right 14! Hear me roar!
Here are the brilliant comments of my Vulcan educated mind that I posted on there blog.
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Well let's see how long your comments section last.
Good article, I wonder how many companies will understand how blogs can really mess with their business and what they will do about it.
Here I am, an anonymous blogger. I could post some truly damaging info about you or our competitor. Right here in your own comments page. Or on my own blog. I could be a disgruntled employee working for Businessweek. I could be a kid hired for 100 bucks to roam around and post nasty stuff about Businessweek
You had some predictions, well me too. I see more crap from people like Steve Rubel telling companies how to subvert the blogs. "Screw the authentic customer voice!" Companies can say how great it is to hear it, but their first priority will be to crush any blogging dissent. You want to know what I learned from the political blogging last year? How big a sucker the media is for a scandal and they will run with it with out checking the source or the backing of the rumor starter. Who started the story about Dan Rather? A blogger with deep ties to the Republican party. Don’t get me started on the thousands of crap stories that got fed to Drudge by the republicans and worked their way up to partisan hacks from Fox, CNN and finally to the so called liberal media. It is the nature of most businesses to want to control the information about them. You think the idiots at Free Republic and Little Green Footballs allow dissent on their blogs? Hell no! Do you think that companies will want any crackpot with a laptop to say shit about them and NOT try and track them down and destroy them? Hell no!
How? Lots of tricks. I don't want to reveal them all here because if I know the people who are reading these comments they will be taking notes, “Hey boss! I found out how we can stop the bloggers!” But since they are already doing it and you mentioned it… We’ll see things like using SEOs to tweak their own blogs to the top. Hiring fake bloggers to say nice things or nasty things about competitors. They will create flogs, or Fake Blogs. Guess what McDonalds already did to trick consumers.
But even if GM doesn't pay for positive coverage in blogs (HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY DON'T?), just consider the possibilities in this new footloose media world.
There's little to stop companies from quietly buying bloggers' support, or even starting unbranded blogs of their own to promote their products -- or to tar the competition. This raises all kinds of questions about the ever-shrinking wall between advertising and editorial.
Yep, that makes sense about what you care about, not the ethics of buying support or starting fake blogs, but what happens to the advertising revenue. LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICURE! Blogs can be SO easily subverted. And they will be because until companies figure out how to crush the voice of unhappy bloggers their brands are at risk. Of course they COULD do the right thing and make good products and give good support. But that is much harder than gaming the blogging system.
We'll cover that later, when we get to the blogs' impact on our own business -- the media.
What if someone blogs on a topic that is outside the norm on their personal time. Does the employer have the right to fire someone who is blogging on socially distasteful, racist, or sexist topics?
Say that I work for Clear Channel and in my off time I post to my blog talking about how I think that all the prisoners in Abu Ghraib should have a stick of dynamite put in their behind and dropped from 30,000 feet from an airplane. Now is that okay? What if I say it during my radio program? http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/2004/12/fcc-hate-speech-okay-pixilated-breasts.html
Is that okay? Well that is what Michael Savage did. He works for Clear Channel. But he said this ON THE AIR! Would it have been acceptable on his blog? What if he worked for YOUR company?
Bloggers are lucky; there is a window of opportunity to talk to the rest of the world. But this tool will be subvert and junked up to practically uselessness like email has been by spam. The fact that BusinessWeek is writing about this signals the beginning of the end for authentic voices on blogs.
Say Goodbye to blogs hello to flogs.
The story, Blogs Will Change Your Business from Businessweek is in the May 2, 2005 issue
Their first thoughts? How do we avoid the revenue drain, how do we make money and finally what they really want to know, How do we crush dissent? In their brave experiment they have offered their own blog, Blogspotting, WITH COMMENTS! Bully for them! How hip! How edgy! A pun on the popular movie about heroin junkies! But of course the comments will be moderated and my comment will never see the light of day. I SWORE! I defamed! I told a truth they probably don't like! But until my blog is crushed by the full weight and power of McGraw Hill's lawyers I can make my comment on my own little blog! I have 14 readers! That's right 14! Hear me roar!
Here are the brilliant comments of my Vulcan educated mind that I posted on there blog.
---------
---------
Well let's see how long your comments section last.
Good article, I wonder how many companies will understand how blogs can really mess with their business and what they will do about it.
Here I am, an anonymous blogger. I could post some truly damaging info about you or our competitor. Right here in your own comments page. Or on my own blog. I could be a disgruntled employee working for Businessweek. I could be a kid hired for 100 bucks to roam around and post nasty stuff about Businessweek
You had some predictions, well me too. I see more crap from people like Steve Rubel telling companies how to subvert the blogs. "Screw the authentic customer voice!" Companies can say how great it is to hear it, but their first priority will be to crush any blogging dissent. You want to know what I learned from the political blogging last year? How big a sucker the media is for a scandal and they will run with it with out checking the source or the backing of the rumor starter. Who started the story about Dan Rather? A blogger with deep ties to the Republican party. Don’t get me started on the thousands of crap stories that got fed to Drudge by the republicans and worked their way up to partisan hacks from Fox, CNN and finally to the so called liberal media. It is the nature of most businesses to want to control the information about them. You think the idiots at Free Republic and Little Green Footballs allow dissent on their blogs? Hell no! Do you think that companies will want any crackpot with a laptop to say shit about them and NOT try and track them down and destroy them? Hell no!
How? Lots of tricks. I don't want to reveal them all here because if I know the people who are reading these comments they will be taking notes, “Hey boss! I found out how we can stop the bloggers!” But since they are already doing it and you mentioned it… We’ll see things like using SEOs to tweak their own blogs to the top. Hiring fake bloggers to say nice things or nasty things about competitors. They will create flogs, or Fake Blogs. Guess what McDonalds already did to trick consumers.
But even if GM doesn't pay for positive coverage in blogs (HOW DO YOU KNOW THEY DON'T?), just consider the possibilities in this new footloose media world.
There's little to stop companies from quietly buying bloggers' support, or even starting unbranded blogs of their own to promote their products -- or to tar the competition. This raises all kinds of questions about the ever-shrinking wall between advertising and editorial.
Yep, that makes sense about what you care about, not the ethics of buying support or starting fake blogs, but what happens to the advertising revenue. LOOK AT THE BIGGER PICURE! Blogs can be SO easily subverted. And they will be because until companies figure out how to crush the voice of unhappy bloggers their brands are at risk. Of course they COULD do the right thing and make good products and give good support. But that is much harder than gaming the blogging system.
We'll cover that later, when we get to the blogs' impact on our own business -- the media.
What if someone blogs on a topic that is outside the norm on their personal time. Does the employer have the right to fire someone who is blogging on socially distasteful, racist, or sexist topics?
Say that I work for Clear Channel and in my off time I post to my blog talking about how I think that all the prisoners in Abu Ghraib should have a stick of dynamite put in their behind and dropped from 30,000 feet from an airplane. Now is that okay? What if I say it during my radio program? http://s88172659.onlinehome.us/2004/12/fcc-hate-speech-okay-pixilated-breasts.html
Is that okay? Well that is what Michael Savage did. He works for Clear Channel. But he said this ON THE AIR! Would it have been acceptable on his blog? What if he worked for YOUR company?
Bloggers are lucky; there is a window of opportunity to talk to the rest of the world. But this tool will be subvert and junked up to practically uselessness like email has been by spam. The fact that BusinessWeek is writing about this signals the beginning of the end for authentic voices on blogs.
Say Goodbye to blogs hello to flogs.
2 Comments:
WTF is a blog?
Don't you start with me Ntodd!
Hey, my post made it in the Bweek blog! That will last till about Tuesday when they figure out that they shouldn't allow people to post.
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