Seth Godin takes down pages from Brands in Public

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/09/adjusting-as-we-go.html

by MrMatt • 17 years ago

61 35 17 years ago

sethgodin.typepad.com

Jim_Neath• 17 years ago

At least he was listening to what people were saying.

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

Alex39172• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

feverishaaron• 17 years ago

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.

stakent2• 17 years ago

Hear the feedback. Iterate fast.

henning• 17 years ago

Don't be a jerk.

stakent2• 17 years ago

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

gjm11• 17 years ago

Wear sunscreen.

MikeCapone• 17 years ago

I hear the sound of back-pedalling...

Dilpil• 17 years ago

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

conoryoung• 17 years ago

I considered it for a moment but immediately erased the thought from my mind.

falsestprophet• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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

tjogin• 17 years ago

He is supposed to be a marketing guru, isn't he?

rfreytag2• 17 years ago

"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...). You cannot earn back goodwill with half-measures.

mojonixon• 17 years ago

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!

rfreytag2• 17 years ago

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.

Alex39172• 17 years ago

As a rule of thumb, if you are going to accuse someone of being unethical you should have to name the rule of ethics that the person is violating.

The criticisms of the original project, at least the ones I read, didn't actually do this. Instead people were complaining because it reminded them of something unethical that someone else had done, or they didn't think it fit Seth's personal brand, or they were afraid he would do something unethical in the future, or they never liked him to begin with.

Now if people are saying, "you violated X rule of ethics" then it's really easy to apologize for doing that. But in this case that's not what people were saying, so how exactly do you apologize to those people? Especially since in the end the reason Seth backed down was probably at least in part because his personal brand is worth more than the money he could make from the project anyway, regardless of whether he was right or wrong.

callmeed• 17 years ago

It may not have been in the original article, but someone here on HN stated it best–this is basically a protection racket

From Wikipedia: "A protection racket is an extortion scheme whereby a powerful entity or individual coerces other less powerful entities or individuals to pay protection money which allegedly serves to purchase protection services against various external threats, usually violence or property damage."

Powerful entity: Brands in Public with their authority domain and SEO ranking

Purchase protection services: if you pay BIP, you can edit your page, thereby protecting your reputation.

External threats: in this case, not violence but the PR damage your company might suffer if negative/false information appears on the front of your BIP page.

dawie• 17 years ago

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

raheemm• 17 years ago

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.

anigbrowl2• 17 years ago

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.

adrianwaj• 17 years ago

"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• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

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.

MaysonL• 17 years ago

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• 17 years ago

"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.

Seth Godin takes down pages from Brands in Public

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