Jeremiah Owyang (newly of PodTech) e-mailed me today and made me aware of this e-mail he had received.
Edelman, which was recently embroiled in a blogosphere scandal, set up a pro Wal-Mart organization Working Families for Wal-Mart. The organization’s website uses blogging architecture. It was recently revealed that all the content on that site is written by Edelman staffers.
Edelman covered a lot of their bases, but it looks like they forgot a crucial step: reserving the domain most closely associated with their organization. Now the anti Wal-Mart group Wal-Mart Watch has regitered the domain workingfamiliesforwalmart.com and has set up a spoof website there.
There’s a stereotype in the blogosphere that whenever people sit around getting great ideas, the first person to register the domain wins. The same is true here. Anytime you’re doing anything on the Web, it’s a good idea to register any and all domains that are even closely related to the project you’re working on.
Technorati Tags: edelman, wal_mart, working_families_for_wal_mart, jeremiah_owyang
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Jeremiah Owyang 11.15.06 at 5:06 pm
Good lesson!
I also learned from experience at Hitachi that one should purchase the Ad word key words in Google and maybe Yahoo of a new product.
It’s so easy for a blogger to ’steal the page rank’ of a newly created product name by using a blog.
steven e. streight aka vaspers the grate 11.15.06 at 7:21 pm
Pseudo bloggery will always backfire and wreck whatever marketing campaign is using it.