Following the Forbes article (Attack of the Blogs), Villanova University Law School Prof Jim Maule provides some common sense as a welcome antidote to Forbe’s clownish advice.
Maule’s suggestions as to how not to get "BlogBashed" are smart, simple and straightforward — pretty much guaranteeing that they will be mostly ignored by those who should instead be paying close attention to his wisdom.
Here are Jim’s top 10:
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How to Avoid Being BlogBashed
1. Create quality products and services.
2. Sell what you advertise.
3. Make certain your products and services do what they claim to do.
4. Fully test and study your products and services before offering them for sale.
5. Disclose all risks posed to purchasers of your products and services.
6. Tell the truth.
7. Fulfill your warranty promises.
8. Don’t cut corners.
9. Comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
10. Don’t try to buy influence.
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Jim advises: "Follow those principles and the bloggers won’t have any reason to bash
nor will they have anything or anyone to bash. They might even begin
singing your praises without having to be paid to do so. As for the
idiot bloggers who in turn lie, take the high road. . . "
I would add to Jim’s comments: Don’t Spam Blog comments, and don’t create phony Blogs pretending you are an independent consumer . . .
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via Declan McCullaugh’s Politech
That Forbe’s article is just crazy talk.
If corporations follow that advise, specifically:
2. Sell what you advertise.
Then that means sex is for sale by nearly every television advertising company in America, WOO HOO!
Great little peice about the dos and donts. I liek #10 the best because influence is bought everyday on capitol hill
I don’t know how it would fit into the top ten, but if a company welcomes critiques of their products then they achieve two things. One, the receive realtime reports of product quality from a lab that, in the aggregate, is far superior to any they could have in their QC department. Two, by welcoming critique from customers and acting on it, they create a symbiotic relationship with customers, given them a sense of stake in the company and product. Thus, if they find problems they’ll try to get it fixed rather than bitch and turned to another company’s product.