:: Link-n-blogs ::

:: Friday, July 12, 2002 ::

The fact that many big corporations try to debunk their competitors and detractors is not a new thing. It is also not unheard of for them to fib a little bit while doing it. Ahh, but what if they are doing it annonymously? What if they are posing as a regular person, or maybe an unbiased professional?

It seems like it would be a pretty tough thing to do in the "old" media.

The internet to the rescue. One of the great things about the Web is the annonymity that it affords people. We have all seen that this can be a good thing (helping some people break out of their shell) and a bad thing (pedophiles stalking teens in a chat room).

Well, now there are public relations firms who specialize in changing peoples views surreptitiously. This, to me, is a very dangerous thing. This is off the cuff, so forgive me if it's not a perfect example, but imagine this: You visit a website dedicated to reading books. It has a vibrant message board that you participate in. A new book "Aaabb" is touted on the board by "Jim." Soon another person, "Jane" seconds that opinion and they begin to have a big discussion about the book. Based on this, you go out and buy the book. What you don't know is that "Jane and Jim" are the same person in the PR department of the publisher. Seems pretty harmless, right? What if you are a teacher visiting a website frequented by other teachers and a specific text book is being discussed. This discussion helps you decide between two texts. Would you have made the same decision if you knew that the people discussing the text worked for a rival publishing firm?

Read the article at the above link. This concerns me.

By the way, I am in no way associated with The Biving's Group's rival PR firms. ;-P

Thanks to Stuff about Things!!

Discuss Annonymous PR

:: Barly 9:22 AM [+] ::
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Here is a building made almost entirely out of water. Pretty interesting but I was unimpressed by what it looked like from the inside.

Discuss Water building

:: Barly 7:51 AM [+] ::
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