Thursday, May 10, 2007

RepuTrace Tidbits From Around The Web, First Installment

My comments in red.

I’ve been called out for seemingly conflicting points-of-view on transparency. The post I wrote about the Sunsilk wig-out calling for full transparency from those uploading supposedly consumer-generated videos to youtube, etc. seems to counter what I espoused as being a valuable feature of the Reputrace product–masking your IP address from bloggers you may be monitoring.

Sounds like Dave is conflicted...he wants openness and honesty from others, but it's OK if he or RepuTrace is out snooping around the web.

I see the two as very different. As a snooper, sure you do!

If you are creating content and making it available to the world, my personal opinion is that you should disclose if you have a vested interest (commercial, personal) in people reading, listening to or viewing your content. Corporate America, and even President Bush don't...how about if everyone, including RepuTrace starts being a bit more honest?

However, I don’t think you have to be completely transparent when monitoring blogs. Given that we may be monitoring blogs on behalf of our clients or companies, we should have the ability to review content without announcing to the blogger that "I’m here and I’m watching you" by leaving a record of our IP address/domain in the blogger’s dashboard. I don’t necessarily want to be forced to engage the blogger until I’m ready to do so. In order to make the right decision on what to say, when and how, I’ll need to read the blog, poke around back entries, links, etc. So, you want to be a snake? Or, you have no balls, like most bullies, only willing to attack when you can beat your victims into submission?

When I do come up with a response (or not), I’ll be doing it with full disclosure. The only difference is, I make the call on when to alert the blogger to my presence. See my comment above.

Is it OK to lurk without being transparent? If I mask my IP address/domain from a blogger am I being less than transparent? If I’m not obliged to list the blogs that I monitor through my feed reader or the Technorati searches I’m running, why do I have to let every blogger know who I am when I visit their site if I don’t want to? If someone is masking their ISP, they usually have a LOT TO HIDE.

2 comments:

David Jones said...

I appreciate your point of view, even if it's a little extreme for my liking.

If I just read your blog entry from my home computer that doesn't leave a trail you can follow to me, am I snake?

If I leave a comment like this, does it elevate my status?

I can appreciate you don't like RepuTrace, but I'd like to understand your argument better.

How do I have to act to become a snoop, snake or bully?

If I just read your blog am I a snoop? If I read but don't tell you am I a snake? If I contact you about something you wrote am I a bully?

What are the rules of engagement with bloggers in your opinion? I don't have the answers, but I am trying to figure out the best way to interact with bloggers as a professional communicator.

Daniel said...

You might not be a snoop or a snake, but you're something of an idiot, that's for certain. I mean, his points were pretty easy to follow.

Of course, you’re not asking questions because you’re genuinely curious, are you? No, your ilk is paid to play mind-games and to muddy the waters. Undermining your victims is far easier than addressing any issues that they may have with you or your clients, after all. You knew exactly what he meant, but you were trying to create a climate of uncertainty, and were banking on people being too naïve or ignorant to see through your bullshit. The thing is though, that we do. We see right through it, and we see right through you. Go crawl back into your hole, snake.