‘Websites’

Online Reputation Management to Prevent Social Media Scandals

Online reputation management, known by many as ORM, is not just a trendy term thrown around by SEO companies in the hope to attract more customers and offer a new service. It is indeed an important part of image protection in the virtual world.

Online reputation management is the ongoing process of monitoring the online environment for any accusations, writing or mentioning of a company, brand, product or person’s name in an effort to improve the party’s reputation and to protect against the results of damaging Internet content.

A few techniques used in Online Reputation Management include, but are not limited to:

• Writing of positive articles, blog posts and press releases which are all optimized according to the latest search engine algorithms to push the negative search results further down to the sandpit pages.
• Continues monitoring of social media pages including Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Blog site and YouTube for any negative comments and developing strategies to counter the negative image development.
• Promotion of neutral content in an effort to take out fires.

The Uncontrollable Social Media Monster

A careless Facebook post, advert, picture or tweet can cost a company to lose a lot of influence even with their own loyal supporters. Knowing how to address mistakes and how to deal with the uncertainties of user generated content are what the ORM specialists are best at.

In many instances, a company owner or celebrity will be better off to let the SEO specialists run their Facebook fan pages and Twitter accounts. A recent embarrassment which made headlines on the Internet has highlighted the importance of a sound online reputation management policy.

Durex Twitter Scandal

Durex South Africa, the condom company, made a Tweet joke in an effort to push up awareness. Unfortunately the joke was in bad taste and although negative publicity can work in a person’s favour, it certainly has not been the case for Durex.

The joke was not well received by the public and a blogger quickly mentioned the bad taste of the joke. It wasn’t long before the feminist groups joined in the attack and the team of Durex landed with their backs against the wall. What started out as a publicity stunt quickly grew into a full scale public scandal for the company. Had they managed the situation correctly right from the start, they could have limited damage quickly.

Instead, they chose to fight the accusations instead of simply apologizing for the offense caused. The sooner they did so, the quicker the gossip could stop. It took them several hours before they finally caved in and apologized. It was the end of that, but the fire was already spreading far and wide, and as can be seen by this blog – is still burning high.

The above just goes to show that one should think before you ink. Tweets are made to be followed and quickly get a lot of attention. You, however, don’t want negative attention because of a simple one line joke. Also treat customers with respect even if you disagree with them. Don’t defend, but rather work together to get to a solution that will save your reputation.

McDonalds – Hoax Victim

Another instance where social media caused severe image damage was that of McDonalds who fell victim to a Twitter hoax tag with a picture showing a sign on the company’s door that indicated that because of robberies that the African-American customers would be required to pay $1.50 extra for every transaction at McDonalds. It was a complete hoax, but it caused severe image damage and the company had to act fast to protect its online reputation. They responded with continues tweets that the picture was a hoax and relentlessly responded to all queries relating to that. It wasn’t the first time that the company had to do crisis online reputation management because of hoaxes, but they have done well so far to manage their online reputation.

ChapStick Upset the Feminine Rights Groups

Another incident also made waves on the Internet quite recently. The ChapStick lip balm advertisement showing the backside of a female bending over a couch with the wording “Where do lost ChapSticks go?” was a complete failure because the picture implied something unsavoury. Not their intention, but nevertheless it caused tremendous uproar in the female community. The company eventually removed the ad and apologized for it, obviously a bit red in the face altogether. And where did the fire spread? In the social media front where it is not so easy to control user input.

A blogger spurred more comments on the ad, and some complained that ChapStick removed negative comments at their Facebook page. Many users were upset with the censoring of their comments. The company could have prevented more drama if they simply removed the ad immediately and explained their intention to the consumers rather than going on the defence.

Domino Pizza Employees Joked Around On YouTube

One more example to show how important effective reputation management is in the online world: Employees of Domino’s Pizza a few years ago filmed them while doing some rather disgusting acts while delivering pizzas. They placed the videos on YouTube and it wasn’t long before thousands of viewers saw it. Dominos responded in the correct way by posting an apology video for the behaviour of their employees and needless to say, fired the culprits before taking further legal action. The company lost millions and had their reputation scattered by only two employees who made a joke.

Guidelines for Effective Online Presence Management

The online presence should never be tainted with any negative comments or profiles. As such consider what others see when they type your name, the names of your employees, your brand and company name in. There should never be any unanswered comments or questions about you or any of the above mentioned. This also applies to forums and social media sites.

In terms of negative comments, don’t just let them be. Apologize where necessary and take corrective steps. Explain where appropriate and engage with the client to get a positive response. Be careful though there are online trolls who simply love to create even more negativity. Online reputation management teams can assist in identifying the best responses or ways to deal with such.

Scan the online environment for any plagiarism of your website content. Get legal advice as how to act to minimize fuzz, but also to protect the image of your company. Regularly visit high traffic blog sites to scan for any comments about your company which could put you in a bad light and follow the advice of the Online Reputation Management crew in dealing with such. If the tasks seem exhausting, simply outsource such to an SEO and ORM company to help you protect your reputation.

The web strike against SOPA and PIPA is to go ahead on Wednesday 18 January, 2012. The web is to be a dark and silent place with many of the major sites going on a black-out. The occasion – SOPA and PIPA. One the 18^th of January 2012, the unprecedented will occur. Never in the history of the Internet have so many sites protested censorship at once. Wikipedia will also strike in protest against SOPA and PIPA as will thousands of other sites.

Do Your Homework Today

If you have research to do, it will be best to get to work today as for tomorrow, you will find the web on strike against SOPA, PIPA and web censorship. The protest across the web is against the Internet censorship bills to be voted on in the USA Congress on 24 January 2012. The idea behind the blackout, including the Wikipedia strike, is to create enough public opposition against SOPA in the USA House and PIPA in the Senate.

Core Protest

Protesting sites state that web censorship attacks the very core of the Internet. It takes away freedom of speech, creativity, and privacy. Should a government not like what is said about it on a website, it will be easy to ban the site and block access to it, pretending that it has violated copyright through file sharing facilitation or the likes. The Internet belongs to the users and not the governments of the world. If the USA is allowed to enact SOPA and PIPA, they will in effect exert control over the information flow on the web.

Wikipedia Will Not Be Available

Sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit are at the forefront of the all-out strike against SOPA, PIPA, and web censorship. If you are using Mozilla Firefox as your browser, you may very well find it offline tomorrow. DowntownMiamiNews.com will also join the SOPA Blackout. According to them, the MPAA and RIAA, as driving forces behind the bill are the only ones to benefit whilst thousands to millions of users will be negatively affected by the regulations.

Even if you haven’t paid any attention to the information war between large corporations, including the likes of Google, Wikipedia and Facebook and the USA government hoping to push through legislation to censor the web and to prevent online piracy, you will be affected by the all-out one day blackout strike.

Wikipedia is a popular research source on the Internet, used by students, writers, and the general public to get a background on any topic before conducting more in-depth research. Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, announced that the site will not be available for a full 24 hours in support of protest against the shutting down of sites such as The Piracy Bay and other file sharing sites and the proposed bills.

Entertainment Companies Support SOPA and PIPA

At the other end of the spectrum, the movie and entertainment companies fight hard to get SOPA and PIPA through because they lose money according to them, because of piracy, file sharing, and illegal downloading of movies and music on the Internet. Wikipedia has warned students to do their work early because the site will be off for the whole of Wednesday.

The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has indicated that such laws will help to fight piracy and general intellectual property theft. According to them, the protest in the form of a web strike or black-out distracts from the real issue of ongoing piracy. They feel that foreigners, that is users outside the USA, are stealing from the USA by means of downloads; facilitating downloads, and file sharing.

Large Sites Join Opposition to Legislation

Notably, rather useful sites and resources on the Internet are against the proposed SOPA and PIPA including WordPress and TwitPic. WordPress provides free content management blog templates, plugins and resources and with such has the right to oppose such bills. As a free resource with contributions from developers around the world, willing to share their knowledge, it is understandable that they will oppose legislation.

Online Piracy is a Problem

Online piracy is definitely a huge problem for the entertainment industry, but although the large companies complain that file sharing costs them millions in revenue, research reports have indicated that book, music and film sales have increased rather than decreased because of or despite file sharing practices.

Information Flow at Risk

The dynamic nature of the Internet is in jeopardy should the USA be allowed to control web access to so-called pirate sites or file sharing sites considered as facilitators of intellectual property theft. It does, however, ring alarm bells even with free information contribution sites such as Wikipedia since legislation will open the doors for more web censorship. It creates the risk of a completely USA controlled Internet.

Google has indicated that they support such a web strike because SOPA would allow for governments and companies to take action against so-called perpetrators without a proper trial or investigation. The free flow of information is at risk with such legislation.

Internet companies joining the web strike said the proposed legislation — SOPA in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate — would allow operators no real chance before government actions could be taken against them. The web strike also including the Wikipedia blackout is a desperate cry-out by the public against web censorship and control over the information flow and freedom of expression that will come about with SOPA and PIPA.

Voting to Go Ahead

The USA Chamber of Commerce has reacted to the proposed web strike with an announcement by Steven Tepp (Chief Intellectual Property Counsel) that concerns about the bills have already been addressed including the wholesale blockage of infringing sites. Accordingly, the criminal activity of intellectual property theft is robbing companies of their rightful income.

The web strike against SOPA and PIPA will reach far and wide with many Facebook pages also joining. It is expected that as many as 5000 websites could join the black-out. There are even sites promoting the black-out in protest with the inclusion of an HTML code or JavaScript in the site’s theme. People are encouraged to Tweet about the blackout and to join the strike effort by adding their sites to the protest sites such as ProtestSOPA.org and Sopastrike.com.

The SA Blog Awards for 2011 lists three top South African blogs for each category and there are several:

• The Groupon – Best Science & Technology
• The Groupon – Best Entertainment & Lifestyle
• Photographic
• Travel
• Music
• Environmental
• Fashion
• The Pick ‘n Pay Best Food & Wine
• The Evox Advanced Nutrition – Best Sport
• Business & Political

The winners of each category of the SA Blog Awards will be announced on 10 December 2011 at the Crystal Towers. Getting the prestigious award is an honour not to be taken lightly. Various sponsors are involved including that of Evox, Pick ‘n Pay, and The Groupon, Ogilvy, and African Pride Crystal Towers Hotel & Spa.

Science & Technology

The three top South African blogs in Science & Technology category are that of:

• D Chetty – a blog about technology also featuring political satire and opinions from the author about cars and business.  The author is 29 years old and has some strong opinions shared in a relaxed manner. (dchetty.co.za)
• Lazygamer – blog features reviews of the latest games, videos, and updates. It covers handhelds, pc, Xbox360, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 3. (www.lazygamer.net)
• BWTH Blog – Another tech blog, but with loads of information about the latest news, developments, gadgets, and events. It features interviews, game reviews and the top 5 lists. (www.bandwidthblog.com)

Entertainment & Lifestyle

The top South African blog contenders in the entertainment and lifestyle category are:

• Watkykjy? – Afrikaans alternative blog catering to the not so conservative Afrikaner with updates on events, guide, letters, opinions, and a place to sell stuff. (www.watkykjy.co.za)
• Baydu –  Baydu Adams blogs about entertainment related news, events and also opinions about actuality related topics. (www.baydu.co.za)
• Just Curious – blog with several contributors looking at African related entertainment news and topics (www.justcurious.co.za)

Photographic

In the photographic section the top blogger sites are:

• Londolozi – blog about the African wilderness with opportunities to share photos and experiences. (blog.londolozi.com)
• Rikki Hibbert Photography -  blog page of the photographer containing a profile and loads of tips on photography. (www.rikkihibbert.co.za)
• Diary of Ward – Profile blog of photos taken at events. (www.diaryofward.com)

Travel

The travel section for the best South African blogs contains three rather compelling blog sites:

• Safari Interactive Magazine –  blog of Safari Travel Magazine that provides interactive multi-media travel related content.  (africageographic.com/safari/blog)
• Getaway -  blog of the Getaway Magazine with loads of travel tips, fun stories, photos and destination guides. (blog.getaway.co.za)
• South African Travel Portfolio – contains snippets and opinions of travel destinations, restaurants and more. (travelblog.portfoliocollection.com)

Music

On the music scene, the three top sites are:

• Durban Is Yours – site about Durban featuring a gig guide. (durbanisyours.co.za)
• Alles Gevaarlik – an Afrikaans blog with a personal touch and reviews of bands which includes a guide to events and parties. (gevaarlik.com)
• Funzunzi & Me East Coast Durban Radio – as the name suggests music and entertainment based. (ecr.co.za/kagiso/content/en/east-coast-radio/east-coast-radio-blogs-ecr-life/)

Environmental

The environmental section contains a gardening blog amongst the top contenders:

• Sprig – South African blog about gardening and that is run by garden enthusiasts from Durban. (sprig.co.za)
• Ranger Diaries – a place to visit if you want safari stories, pictures and information. (rangerdiaries.com)
• Africa Geographic  Safari Magazine Blog – the blog features in two of the top contender categories.(africageographic.com/safari/blog/)

 

Fashion

 

On the trendy scene the following blogs made the short list of three for top SA blogs:

• Kim Gray – a beauty shop, fashion tips, news about the latest trends, places to shop and items which you simply must have. (www.kimgray.co.za)
• Superficial Girls – A Cape Town fashion conscious girl blogging about everything a trendy young person should know about what’s hot and what’s not. (www.superficialgirls.com)
• Pop Ya Collar – Street fashion blog by La Muse about fabulous clothing and accessories in Cape Town. (www.popyacollar.co.za)

Food & Wine

For the connoisseur of tastes three South African blogs that stand out are that of:

• Food And The Fabulous – Ishay, an independent blogger shares her recipes, photos, ideas and restaurants in a fun and fabulous way.(www.foodandthefabulous.com)
• Drizzle & Dip – a blog by Sam X for the finer tastes in life; full of recipes, travel and restaurant reviews, as well as some of the best food photos ever. (www.drizzleanddip.com)
• Ask Namina? – a home industry portal with recipes, information about charity and projects, a newsletter and some travel info. (www.namina.co.za)

Sport

For the active sport viewer and conversationalist the contenders for the best South African sport blogs are:

• The Bounce -  a blog for men with bounce girls for every month and a lot of talk about sport.(thebounce.co.za)
• Compleat Golfer – blog of the Compleat Golfer Magazine. (www.compleatgolfer.co.za/subscriber/3062)
• Jabu – lists of sport stars, discussions about team sports including hockey and then also interviews. (www.allthingsjabu.co.za)

Business & Political

For the actuality orientated reader, the three main blog contenders in the business & political category are:

• Road Trip 2011 – Old Mutual Sponsored blog taking the reader on a journey through South Africa.(www.oldmutualfoundationroadtrip.blogspot.com)
• ZANews – political humour at its best with videos and commentaries.(www.zanews.co.za)
• Hayibo.com – political satire about contemporary South African politicians and situations. (www.hayibo.com)

To qualify as one of the three top South African blogs for the 2011 SA Blog Awards,  blogs had to be registered  and had to meet specific requirements such as the blogger residing in South Africa. Only two categories per blogger are allowed and then the public vote phase started. Once a blog has taken up one of the three top spots in the public vote phase, it moves to the top three category list and then the judges decide. The winner of a category is one with the most first places as selected by the judges.

Should there be a tie, the two contending blogs go back for another public vote to decide the outcome. The judges are experts related to the specific fields and most of them are already well respected in the social media fields.  The SA Blog Awards 2011 is a prestigious award that gives recognition to efforts and commitment of South African bloggers.

 

The Internet has become the focus of tremendous clamp down actions from governments worldwide. It is almost as if the inability to control the information highway has caused panic amongst policy makers. The newest clamp down action is in the form of a bill proposed in the USA where The Stop Online Piracy Act is under discussion.

Purpose of the Act

The Act has as purpose to stop the widespread copyright infringement that takes place on the Internet. Although certainly a plus for authors struggling to keep others from copying their work and for musicians attempting to make a living without seeing all their music copied and distributed for free, it is seen by many as too much control.

Balance the Measures

The ideal will be to get a middle ground rather than putting into place an act that will give authors far too much power without any control mechanisms. If an author finds infringing content at another website the author will have the right to have the site banned from the search results and even online payment houses such as PayPal must comply in cutting off the site.

The problem is not in taking action against copyright infringing sites, but the lack of control over the process. Someone can simply decide to get rid of a competitor and then allege copyright infringement. Without so much as a warning the site can under the proposed Piracy Act be banned and totally blacklisted. It will surely be an easy means to get rid of a competitor. Google and other ad providers will not be allowed to send visitors to the site and the alleged copyright infringing site will basically have pariah status until proven not-guilty.

Guilty Until Proven Not-Guilty

The onus will be on the alleged copyright infringing site owner to proof the plaintiff wrong and in the mean time the site’s reputation will be destroyed. In addition the owner will have no income from the site. For many website owners it could mean bankruptcy.

Current Situation
Up to now, site owners would get a letter about copyright infringement and the opportunity to remove such before the service provider was informed. If the site owner did not respond further action could be taken, but with the new proposed stop online piracy legislation, the above steps are removed leading to an immediate ban on the site.

Internet service providers will, if the act on online piracy is accepted be forced to act as policing agents regarding copyright infringement. If they don’t act against the so-called perpetrator then they face penalties. It does seem like big brother techniques and almost reminds of dictatorship where the service providers are burdened with additional tasks and blackmailed to report and ban sites.

Alternative Methods for Dealing with Culprits

If a site is indeed guilty of ongoing online piracy or copyright infringement, such should be removed from the Internet with no further avail, but allowing anyone to simply point a finger with the service provider in the middle to take action against a site, is unfair.

There should at least be standards and guidelines as to how much information must have been copied without proper citation or music made available when making a judgement regarding whether online piracy has taken place or not. Innocent sites can easily fall prey to the system.

For a country where freedom of speech is promoted and open source programming is promoted such an act seems grossly out of place. There are those who feel that it would severely hinder the growth of the Internet. With the Internet not belonging to anyone, governments should not be allowed to exert so much control over websites.

The mere fear of possible online piracy or copyright infringement can leave websites empty. Not only has Google recently made it more difficult for websites to perform well, but now with the proposed online piracy act there is the risk that large companies can misuse the rights to get rid of competitors. The Internet consists not only of large websites, but also smaller ones, blogs, forums and more where one can expect some extent of infringement.

Give Users The Right To Choose

The three strikes law should be more appropriate and will be less draconic than the proposed online piracy act. The short name for the act will be E-PARASITE. Although piracy is a huge problem world-wide the control of information platforms should be limited. Users must have the rights to propose measures to counter piracy and should not be forced to accept draconic laws that will lead to the slowing down of information growth.

Internet Service Providers will have to use additional resources to monitor the websites hosted on their servers. It almost becomes a new state of control where there is one party watching another who in turn must watch that another party complies.

Proper Referencing

A solution may be to force website owners to reference the sites from where they obtained information. If such references are lacking, a warning can be given and then can one request removal of the specific site until the site commits to non-infringement.

It does seem as if the openness of the Internet will be something of the past. You will not know that there was a site since it will be completely removed from ads, search results and the DNS servers.

One can even be so bold as to state that such action will be the same as censorship and thus deciding on behalf of individuals instead of users managing the Internet and information sources. The large players on the Internet will be fine, but users can expect to see a diminished information highway should everyone be allowed to have sites removed. The choice should be with the consumer and not a government body.

The USA proposed act to stop online piracy will place the country in the same category as China that already controls what their citizens can see and do on the Internet.

The recent death of Dennis Ritchie, co-father of the C programming language and co-developer of UNIX has not received the same attention in the media as did the death of Steve Jobs from Apple, but without his groundbreaking work in programming, much of the digital world of today would not have existed.

Dennis M Ritchie was found dead at his home earlier this month. The cause of death was not announced, but his health deteriorated fast during the last couple of months and he died quietly on 12 October 2011. He was often referred to by his username of dmr, which is quite appropriate considering that he was a programming genius that has shaped the operating system environment of today.

Dennis Received Several Awards during his Lifetime including:

• Turing Award in 1983 – Ritchie and Ken Thompson received the award jointly for their work on the development of a generic OS and the UNIX OS.
• Elected to the National Academy of Engineering – for the co-development of UNIX OS and C programming language.
• IEEE Richard W. Hamming Medal 1990 – Ken and Dennis jointly received the award for their development of C and UNIX.
• National Medal of Technology 1999 – Ritchie and Ken received the award for their development of C and UNIX. The medal was awarded by the then President, Bill Clinton of the USA.
• Japan Prize for Information & Communications 2011 – they received the award for their work on UNIX.

Career Path of Ritchie

It is the revolutionary thought processes of Ritchie and Thompson that have made it possible to have Windows 7, advanced search engines including the likes of Google, and smart phones used widely. Dennis and Ken worked together from the early sixties and have jointly made one of the best contributions to the world of technology which has shaped the modern computer world. Ritchie retired in 2007 as head of the Research Department as Lucent Technologies System Software and it is believed that his death is related to his earlier struggle with prostate cancer.

His career started after finishing school in New Jersey at Summit High School. He received degrees in applied maths as well as physics from Harvard and then began his computer career in 1967 at the Bell Labs. He continued his studies until finally receiving his PhD at Harvard upon successful completion of his thesis about the computational complexity of programming structures.

He will, however, best be remembered for his work on UNIX as an operating system and C, which was at that stage a high level programming language, although today seen as a low level language. Without his work, however, numerous applications and embedded systems used today would not have been possible.

Importance of his Work on C Programming and UNIX OS

Although no longer used as a high-end programming language, C is still the core of many programming languages including C++ as well as Java built applications. Linux, the free and open source variant of UNIX, co-developed by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson, powers numerous data centres and with the Internet virtually running on it, one can get an understanding of how they helped to fast-forward the world of digital technology. Linux is also the core foundation for computing systems such as the Apple iOS.

The C programming language and UNIX were totally different from any other computing programme back in the seventies. The cost of computing could be reduced significantly because of the introduction of the above. Both were ideal for minicomputers and allowed for collaboration. The idea behind the development of C as programming language was to help system operators get optimal OS performance as well as improve compiling.

Considering the levels of programming language of today, one may wonder what the fuzz is about, but note that most of the languages of today as well as Internet applications and normal computing would have been years behind the level we are now, if it wasn’t for the development of C and UNIX.

Dennis Ritchie was well-known amongst computer and programming experts and almost a household name with Linux developers and multinational technology corporations. For the average man on the street, his name means little. It is only once you realise that even when using applications such as the iPhone 4S or working on Windows as OS has something to do with his groundbreaking work, that you come to appreciate his contributions to digital development.

Even though most of computer users never even heard of him, they already did without knowing so, simply because they enjoy the fruits of his labour. Almost every computer system is in some way related to C and its descendants such as C++. In essence, UNIX also forms the foundations of OS X.

Steve Jobs received a lot of praise and rightfully so. Both of them have done enormous work and both were private persons. Steve, however, created the designs that one could visually appreciate and it is thus easier to see what he has done for the world of mobile computing. Dennis on the other hand, was so private that many of his colleagues knew almost nothing about him. He did behind the scenes work which would have an enormous influence on the world of computing. With his work not directly visible, consumers have not realised until now, what a loss his death is to the world of technology.

Worth a Moment’s Thought

In summary, when looking back, one may realise that while we remember names such as Thomas Edison or even Tesla for great inventions, many of the inventors of today have become obscured simply because we have become so accustomed to luxury and advanced technology that we never stop to think who made it all possible.

Dennis Ritchie, Steve Jobs, and co-developer of C and UNIX, Ken Thompson, are names that will make the history books regarding technological developments that have shaped the modern world.