More on the Wal-Mart Scandal: Rubel the Ombudsman and Apologizing Through Scoble
There are two very notable bits of blogospheria surfacing from the aftermath of the Wal-Mart/Edelman “fake blog” scandal. Both can be found in the comments on Steve Rubel’s post about the snafu.
- The call to make Steve Rubel Edelman’s blogosphere ombudsman… Rubel is taking quite a beating for his lack of immediate response to the controversy. Several of his readers have put forth the idea of making him Edelman’s blogosphere ombudsman. I think it’s a fantastic idea that would make him Edelman’s equivalent of Scoble.
- When you want to apologize to the blogosphere, call Robert Scoble… I find it remarkable that when businesses want to get the blogosphere’s attention to manage a crisis, they call Robert. I think that really says something about the respect he commands in this space. Robert seems satisfied with the mea culpas of Richard Edelman and Steve Rubel. The rest of the blogosphere will likely follow.
And of course, I wouldn’t be any kind of a self-promoter if I didn’t at least mention that Robert will be speaking at our conference next week.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Good points here Teresa
The time it took to respond is also not what is preached by blog business experts.
Would you consider this response by Edelman to be filled with passion of a true apology?
Echoing Jeremiah: good post, Teresa. When you mentioned how Edelman called Scoble, I also thought, Yeah! That’s amazing because of what it means in terms of power shifting to bloggers as news sources and opinion influencers.
Jeremiah, I think Richard Edelman’s apology on his blog was sincere, but I can still see lots of other companies continuing to publish blogs whose intent is not to disseminate truth or share corporate personality, but rather to deceive and manipulate for the purpose of turning a profit. Of course blogs aren’t by nature immune to that sort of shenanigans. But hopefully this event will serve as a wake-up call to big businesses and change the course of corporate blogging for the better.
Jeremiah: The apologies of Edelman and Rubel aren’t terribly passionate, no. But I don’t believe that they need to be filled with passion in order to be sincere. It’s not as if these guys got caught jacking up the price of their stock a la Enron or sexually harassing subordinates. They created a campaign for their client that was less than 100% transparent. That’s not worth self-flagellation, IMHO.
Easton: I share your hope that this will improve business blogging. But sometimes I wonder if companies aren’t reluctant to get into the blogosphere because of the echo chamber that amplifies moderately-sized screw-ups into colossal scandals.
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