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One of the dirty little secrets all newspapers share is the give-and-take relationship they have with their advertisers in relation to news stories.
The quid pro quo of positive news stories showing up in black-and-white in return for advertising dollars happens more than it should (which is never).
In contrast, companies who fail to ante up the dollars give up the favorable press they could have gained with an open wallet.
This corporate playground of payola-on-the-down-low has gone on since advertising first appeared in the print. As far as I know, no one’s gone to jail, but I’m telling you it happens.
As the blogosphere grows by leaps and bounds, it’s creating legions of reporters, pundits and jokers - many of whom also service the industries they write about.
As this evolution continues, will newspaper-like extortion, intimidation and bullying follow?
Don’t want to buy someone’s product or utilize their services? Then expect to be crucified in a round of blog entries, or eternally be ignored in future writings.
Don’t want to use Jobster? Declining to retain HRSEO? Passing on exhibiting at the next ERExpo? As punishment, the blogging Gods will not be very kind to you and your company.
The above examples are fictional, of course (which is why I included my own firm), but it represents what could be, if not already reality.
Regardless, there’s a growing level of suspicion by companies. Industry people joke with me on a regular basis that they’d better watch what they say to me because I just might blog about it.
I like to sleep at night believing my blogging activities remain separate from my corporate existence, and that things said in confidence will remain that way. The cosmic justice system known as karma scares me too much to do otherwise.
That said, people are people. Power still corrupts. And blogging is putting scary levels of power into the hands of a lot of people who wouldn’t have it otherwise.
December 2nd, 2005 at 10:06 am
I agree Joel - and it is something to watch out for.
The difference, is for once, that power is spread out over tens of millions of people all with the same playing field.
A blogger that gets too big for their britches only has authority because of the other bloggers and readers that come to their site.
The blogosphere is famously self-correcting - so if single bloggers had that power, it would be scary - but since it’s the blogosphere as a system that rewards good blogging with traffic and links - well, we shouldn’t have the same problems.
Not to say they won’t occur - but they will be sniffed out. Dan Rather was a good target because he was perceived as important. Top bloggers right now, many who make a living off their ads, know they are one bad post away from losing their livelihood.
Keeps em on their toes.
December 2nd, 2005 at 12:19 pm
Good title. Made me want to read this.
December 2nd, 2005 at 4:05 pm
This was reported today. Nice follow-up:
Don’t Mess With Bloggers, They’ll Shut You Down
Mediapost demonstrates the power of the blogosphere by covering the unfortunate events that led up to the blog Digital Connection raising hell with PriceRitePhoto.com.
After the blogger received very poor customer service, he proceeded to post an account of the episode on his blog.
He posted an account of his experience on Digital Connection, and also mentioned that he had found the retailer through Yahoo! Shopping. As of Wednesday, PriceRitePhoto.com still appeared on Yahoo! Shopping with a rating of four stars out of a possible five, but by Thursday, the site had been delisted.
That’s when things went turned very bad for PriceRitePhoto.com.
Howard Baker, a manager with PriceRitePhoto.com, said the business had suffered “millions of dollars” worth of damages in the last two days, apparently at the hands of consumer vigilantes who had read the Digital Connection post.
“In the last couple of days there was one disgruntled customer that posted a blog that caused thousands of people to come out of the woodwork and jam our Web site,” said Baker–citing viruses, denial-of-service attacks, and thousands of prank calls. “We’re talking to our attorneys this afternoon, and will probably be taking legal action.”
“They’re basically trying to destroy our business in our busiest month, and they have,” Baker said. “No hard-working small business owner should ever experience something like this.”