Buzz Marketing with Blogs: Knee-Jerk Blog Policy at Technorati

Knee-Jerk Blog Policy at Technorati

Niall Kennedy works for Technorati, a blog-tracking service. Kennedy has a blog, on which he just posted about how corporations may start taking extreme steps to suppress blog posts from employees. He makes a correlation between the “Loose Lips Sink Ships” posters in WWII and the way some corporations might choose to try to discourage bloggers from writing.

His employer’s response? According to Kennedy, he

...was threatened with ‘serious consequences’ for not seeking corporate approval for a weblog posting relating to an industry issue. Tomorrow will undoubtedly bring many conversations about if employees are allowed to have their own voice and write weblog entries without passing through an executive mouthpiece first.

The post was removed briefly, and is now back up with a “this is my own opinion” disclaimer. On another blog, Kennedy says employees personal blog posts must be reviewed by staff members. That’s a short-term reaction, but it doesn’t scale well, and it doesn’t set a long-term atmosphere of trust.

I don’t blame Technorati—there are two sides to every story, and companies do need time to work through these issues for themselves. Maybe they ought to have chosen a less ironic post to censor, but… still, I expect Technorati will to try to mitigate the situation soon. They’re very dependent on the good will of the greater blog world for their success.

Thanks, kottke.org, for the pointer.

Posted by Travis Smith on 03/07 at 06:55 PM • Blogging News

Comments

Hi Travis,
Thank you for joining the conversation. I have posted a lengthy summary on my site if you are interested in learning more about what happened.

Posted by Niall Kennedy on 03/07/05 at 11:55 PM