

Seth Godin takes down pages from Brands in Public - MrMatt
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/adjusting-as-we-go.html

======
rfreytag
"I apologize if anyone was confused by my original post,..."

In DC this is called the non-apology apology where you express regret for
someone else's error.

The real apology version is: "I apologize for my
[mistake|error|imprecision|lack-of-clarity]".

The Tylenol Scare showed that massive overcompensating action is how you
recover from a PR hit
([http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurde...](http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/crisis.html)).
You cannot earn back goodwill with half-measures.

~~~
mojonixon
god I hate PR flacks. "As the [pr] plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's
top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their
companies profit and other financial concerns." Do it for PR, not because its
the right thing to do!

~~~
rfreytag
Interesting that communicating why one should do 'the right thing' appears
wrong. And yes I agree it is somehow unseemly.

Perhaps PR has the language to help financial types appreciate the value of
good ethics.

I think software development has had similar problems making the case for good
s/w engineering practices being financially sound and not just an nice idea.

~~~
anigbrowl
What was really going on was that J&J put their _long-term_ interests ahead of
their _short-term_ interests. It was not as big risk for them to do so as the
writer implies, because they knew their brand was damaged by an external
factor rather than something they had done themselves - quite different from
the contrasting example of Perrier, where the problem was in their supply
chain.

------
Dilpil
Has anyone considered the possibility that Godin just made a mistake and is
legitimately not a slime ball?

~~~
falsestprophet
_The goal of the program is to invite brands into the conversation that's
already going on around the web, to make it easy for them to do it on their
terms._

No. He can't stop bullshitting; it's pathological.

~~~
zzzmarcus
Seriously. It's an invitation to a conversation with the minor stipulation
that "their terms" include paying him $4800 a year...

~~~
pmichaud
He probably doesn't understand your emotional reaction to that dollar amount,
because in his world $5k is a token amount, not a real cost.

------
Jim_Neath
At least he was listening to what people were saying.

Still baffles me that he didn't think of the consequences before launching.

~~~
Alex3917
I don't think the consequences were very obvious. All the service does is
aggregate the data pulled in by Google alerts, twitter, and a couple other
services so that people can see it all on one page. This is stuff that
everyone can already see on their own, so literally nothing has changed. The
only difference is that he is offering companies the option to pay money to
respond to feedback directly on this aggregated page instead of through the
various mediums where it was originated, and I don't think it was at all a
given that people would freak out about this.

~~~
aasarava
Presumably, Godin and his colleagues did their research into similar
businesses -- namely, Get Satisfaction -- before starting Brands in Public.
And if so, they would have known that some companies were not happy with Get
Satisfaction's page design and copy, claiming that it hijacked their brands
and confused customers.

~~~
jeroen
That is probably why the pages mention "unofficial" 5 times and "automatically
generated by" 7 times. And contrary to GetSatisfaction, the associated logo
isn't on the page.

------
stakent
Hear the feedback. Iterate fast.

~~~
henning
Don't be a jerk.

~~~
stakent
Yep. Look at your plans through prospective customer's eyes. Before launching.

------
adrianwaj
"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us"

If that was so important to him, why doesn't he open up his blog's comments?

~~~
jeremymims
Opening up blog comments on a relatively popular website doesn't necessarily
encourage discussion. See Youtube, TechCrunch, or really any others. Popular
bloggers like Andrew Sullivan have shut down their comments precisely because
they prefer a more personal conversation via email rather than the anonymous
name calling and hate spewed in your average comment section.

I happen to think there is a place for comments. But I assume by default that
most comment sections are open first, then closed because of the vitriol. That
stuff takes a real emotional toll over time.

------
zaidf
Hate Seth Godin all you want(at times I too cannot resist). Yet, some of the
smartest people I've run into were mentored by him. In general, he _really_
can teach how to connect with your users.

------
josefresco
How is Brand in Public different from say Mahalo or even Squidoo. The content
is similar: <http://www.mahalo.com/home-depot>

Is the problem people have with the fact that he's charging to give access to
some of that content?

Also, this really reminds me of the local business scam MerchantCircle is
running. They'll register a domain with your company name and aggregate
content making a legit looking site which as you can imagine confuses a lot of
people.

------
feverishaaron
I'm taking this to mean that he received one or more cease and desists for
using the company(s)' brand mark.

*The above statement is pure speculation.

------
MaysonL
Contrast Brands in Public's PR angle with Doc Searls's Project VRM (Vendor
Relationship Management).

<http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page>

------
Tichy
"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us."

Of course, while the conversation is happening all around us, it would be
impossible to join it without the help of a high paid PR consultant.

------
raheemm
There is a need for this kind of brand management service. Remember that
youTube video by two Domino's employees? However, the model to deliver this
service needs to be thought through further.

~~~
anigbrowl
Sure, you can aggregate that information and offer a dashboard. But this is
nothing a large company can't do for itself, and there's no especial value for
them in having a standardized dashboard. It's more useful for consumers who
might with to go a standard page to look up aggregated info about any given
brand before making buying decisions, but they tend to be domain specific -
rate-coffeebrands.com rate-cookie-brands.com or suchlike.

It's the old stress on the web - providers and publishers want to be unique
and stand out from everyone, consumers would often rather have standardized
pages so they can get information quickly and consistently without navigating
100 different kinds of web flair and registering at every site they might be
temporarily interested in, which is why portals still exist and probably
always will.

------
MikeCapone
I hear the sound of back-pedalling...

------
dawie
They only "Hijacked" 200 pages. I don't think it's such a big deal. It think
he did the right thing though.

