The Internets iz a scary place!

Lots of hubbub this morning about a well respected blog for higher education marketing being taken down, due to to disagreements between the blogger and the blogger's higher-ups.

Basically the back story is this: The blog is a personal blog, tastefully and humorously written, that fictionalizes the blogger's roadblocks at work. Identities of the people, places and events being referred to are not disclosed or heavily fictionalized in the form of cartoons, and the blog brought some insight into the blogger's life and the background of the work he was doing for his school. But, the school decided that he was too openly criticizing their processes and as soon as they found out about the blog he was "given a talking to" about the blog, and the writer decided to shut it down. Basically they were afraid his critiques, though cleverly disguised, were not disguised enough and it would hinder their web redesign process even more if others saw it and were afraid of how they would be represented on it. (Granted in a humorous, cartoony way.)

This got me thinking, as it did many others.

The Internet is empowering to everyone- anyone can go on it and instantly have a voice via a blog or twitter or commenting on articles that is public and out there for the world to see. And that scares the bejeebus out of some institutions and whatnot (the college I worked for previously was one of these places, and closely monitored anything students said about it and would not allow any kind of public commenting forum because of what students might say on it), because they can't 100% monitor what is being publicly said about them.

And you know what? I think that's great.

That isn't to say I approve of the people who go on various articles and say terrible things about anyone that disagrees with them. But if someone has a terrible experience somewhere this not only gives the ability to share that with others who could potentially go there, but also a heads up to that institution/company/ etc. that someone had a terrible time and there is a situation to be remedied. Maybe it's too late to fix that one experience, but it's a chance to find an underlying problem and fix it. Plus if you can find something like this and then apologize and rectify everything how good does your company look then???

Sure we only want to see great things about whatever it is that we're involved with, but I think with the prevalence of the Internet authenticity is now valued more than constant pitches. A good review on a blog of a product or place is worth more than a thousand advertisements saying how good the product is. Why? We are all savvy now to being pitched to. No one wants to be sold anything, they want to find it organically, from a source they trust.

That being said, I think more people are more likely to trust a blog's opinion or a Tweet than an advertisement because it's an authentic reaction to whatever it is the blog or Tweet is about.

Sadly, many places still try to monitor everything that is being said about them, directly or indirectly, as in the case of this blog. But that just isn't possible anymore, and hey, if you can't beat them- join them! And let's face it, you can't make everyone happy all the time.

Again, I don't think there is a place for what I call "internet litter" (the hateful remarks spewed on some comment forms at other posters or the article itself) but conversation can be critical and be OK... as a college or company isn't it better to know someone is unhappy so you can do something about it rather than pretend it never happened?

Times is a changin'... some of the old ways of marketing and PR just don't work anymore with the "web 2.0" stuff.

I have to share the initial blog's response to the outcry on the web from blogs such as this one. What a beauty of a response- well done!

And on that note- have a fantastic weekend everyone!