Twitter is in a Catch 22 situation; it is stuck between local country laws and the freedom of speech of the Internet users and has opened its doors to censorship.

To abide with the law of the land in different countries, the microblogging site has decided it MAY ‘reactively withhold’ offensive tweets on a country-by-country basis. Well, so much for being the free-speech platform that it was all this time!  Twitter has even cited reference of ‘pro-Nazi’ contents for users in Germany and France, to substantiate its move in its blog.

In a world comprised of different people with different ideas, this move from Twitter has been welcomed by few though the large chunk of Twiterati is wary and complaining. 

About ‘country-wise’ tweet removals, the social networking service provider has not acted on anything ‘offensive’ yet, though has assured that it will intimate the user whenever it does the same and do so in a transparent manner. As for the removed contents (of country-specific users) – it will be available for ALL other users in different countries.

With Facebook and other social networking sites expanding and incorporating new applications, Twitter it seems is trying hard to spread its wings into new regions of the world. After the China debacle when it got blocked there, Twitter is cautious about its market moves.

So, is Twitter losing its reputation for free speech while wooing countries like China back into its fold? What do you think?

Google’s most popular feature with searches is ‘suggestions’. The suggestions sometimes appear much before you have finished typing. Many wonder how Google knows what you are exactly looking for.

After a court in Italy held search engines responsible for suggesting offensive terms, Google had elucidated that “search suggestion service suggests words potentially connected to the words that users type on the Google search field”.

So that might be the reason when my friend typed ‘Arindam Chaudhuri’ on Google and it suggested the word ‘Fraud’ associated to the name. The user was surprised by the suggestion because Arindam Chaudhuri is the Director of IIPM (The Indian Institute of Planning and Management), a private B-School in India. He posted the screen-shot on Twitter (http://twitpic.com/5f6t8h) on June 22, 2011 for all to see.

Next I decided to do a quick search about IIPM, unfortunately the word ‘Fraud’ showed up next to the name.

Following this, somebody who claims may be representing ‘IIPM and Arindam Chaudhuri’  committed a fatal error, she shot a mail from her personal email ID to the user asking him to remove that picture, else face legal action. The mail further claims that they have settled the issue with Google, but Google gracefully refused to comply unless this picture is taken off.

I am skeptical if IIPM did this since they claim to be one of the premier B-Schools in India, with the so-called best think-tank heading them. Secondly any third-party who sends a mail on their behalf threatening legal action is only going to put the institution in bad light. It only endorses what Google is suggesting.

How can you hold the user responsible for what Search Engines suggest? The Management Guru should know that taking legal action on every negative comment is not the solution, since there are plenty of bad mouthing that happens on the Internet. And with the kind of suggestions that comes up during searches, it’s obvious that users will click on the forbidden combination and you further lose credibility. What you ought to do is to figure out why it is so, and then sort it out amicably. Your reputation is at stake and your prime concern should be to deal with negative contents about you on the Internet if you are really that great an institution; after all everybody deserve to keep their goodwill intact. Let sense prevail!

Have you given up on Google Plus, already? The Google+ rollercoaster has been nothing short of mercurial – The fanfare, the golden invite, the Google+ launch was on hype overdrive; then came the ‘is it dead’ questions and Facebook launching new features to stay in the game. Google is now talking about brand pages in Google+, yet another feature in Facebook; and hence the question – ‘Does Google stand a chance against the social media behemoth that Facebook is?’ 

Google+ syncing seamlessly with Android devices: Google+ of late seems to be more about bringing all your web presence onto a single platform with easy icons and circles. So from easy instant upload of photos from your Android phones to video chat hangouts, its about getting you organised the Google way. The best part about this is that, the photos that get instantly uploaded are not available to your Google+ circles by default; you have to make it available or shared on Facebook etc manually. Google scores on privacy which has always been a sticky point for Facebook always.

Facebook popularity to stay: Facebook and its numerous Apps are the rage worldwide and is not likely to make a difference to its millions of users as far as social media activity goes; and the Facebook ‘likes’ will continue to to be popular and people will continue to share and upload images from Facebook. So on a social networking level there is no way that Google+ will replace Facebook.

Brand building and search implications: For Google+ the focus is on brand building and this is where small companies or professionals should focus on as well; and the SERP privileges of having Google+ page is sure to mount as the days go by. Being the giant search engine that it is, the SEO implications could be phenomenal in the future.

The trick in appreciating what Google+ could be, is to look at it as NOT a social networking platform but as an organiser of all your web activities, contacts, chats, professional meetings (Hangout) and as a means of brand building.

I’d definitely recommend having a Google+ page for your business as Google eventually gets around to what it originally planned in terms of web content importance with more applications coming under the Google+ umbrella.

I got a friend request from a total stranger on Facebook last week. The only thing we had in common was mutual friends. As always I declined that request. But then why would anybody send friend request to people they don’t know, strange but that’s what Social networking is all about. To my surprise I saw my colleague accepting this request from the same person. I then wondered if I had gone overboard by declining a request from somebody with potential caliber? I enquired with my friend and he had not clue; he accepted the request only because there were few friends in mutual circle.

I later learned that Facebook is sending friend requests automatically without users’ consent. I thought Facebook is a great place to be in touch with friends and it contributes to web searches. But if it is going to ask me to add people I never want to, I might then have second thoughts. This latest glitch has already earned the wrath of users from across the world.

Facebook on the other hand has stated that this latest development has nothing to do with their official feature. They suggest that some rogue Facebook applications could be responsible for this, The Herald Sun reports.

Isn’t it that Facebook is one such online brand that everyone trusts and the reason why users enter their personal details.  It’s so vague to believe that anyone can develop a Facebook application and Facebook never bothers to check the authenticity. Maybe the level of trust Facebook enjoys, that users end up giving access to their account to such third party applications.

ReputationManagementFor.com – Every brand to survive needs that driving force called trust and you cannot qualify by overlooking any factor that leads to trust deficit. Today the pressure is on the companies to maintain that faith with every association they make- business or social; it should be imperative for any organization. So, what’s taking Facebook so long to set things right before such Applications eat up their reputation?

Canada’s technology champion, Research In Motion Ltd is scrambling to remedy back its reputation, as an extensive series of lingering service blackouts around the world left millions of BlackBerry owners in the dark without access to emails or instant messages. The international confidence in RIM plummeted.

Last week, blackouts that began Monday in Europe, Africa and the Middle East spread to North America, knocking BlackBerry users in the United States and Canada off-line. Service disruptions were also reported in South America, Hong Kong and Japan. The annoyed BlackBerry users around the world took to Twitter and Facebook to vent out their anger. This is an example oh how the reputation of one company can be spoiled within minutes with one mistake.

RIM is now working “night and day” to correct the problem, which was caused by a core switch failure within its own infrastructure. Making matters worse for the company, this week, RIM’s chief rival Apple Inc. is making the latest version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5, available to iPhone users. The new software includes iMessage, an instant messaging technology that is exclusive to Apple devices and that duplicates many of the same features offered by RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger platform, a key differentiator for the company.

As the disruption hit North America, shares of the BlackBerry maker dropped more than 4% at one point in Toronto Stock Exchange trading.

Reebok’s reputation as an earnest athletic brand that could make people jump and run faster was all intact until the company introduced its toning shoe ‘EasyTone and RunTone’. The product claimed to burn that extra fat and get you that Jessica Alba kind booty. Well this was enough to tempt people to buy and fine tune their shape.

But it seems like the Federal Trade Commission did not agree with Reebok and charged the company for misleading advertising. It further slapped a fine of $25 million as settlement to resolve charges regarding their toning shoes. Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, Mr. David Vladek, said in a news conference that the company’s claims —

that they strengthen and tone muscles better than other shoes” — were not backed up by sufficient evidence.

Though Reebok has agreed to pay that $25 million settlement “to resolve charges’, this incident has taken the toning shoe market on to a false start, and possibly on to a phase-out. Now an important question remains…what should Reebok be doing? I think the company should be worried about how it deals with this keeping in mind the reputation and loyalty the brand has among its customers.

Faith in companies is trembling as of now, and this will not help. Reebok hasn’t rebutted the claim, so if they are still confident, then they need to reassure customers that the brand will bring in more products in this line or move-on to other lines while assuring that EasyTone and RunTone has undergone all the quality measures just like any of their other products.

Do all hotels need to give a thought about reputation management; is this a critical new function in the travel industry? The answer is ‘Yes’. In the era of volatile social networking,  how a potential customers’ buying decision is influenced by traveler’s reviews is an important factor to be considered. Well precisely; it’s about monitoring, examining and responding to reviews and opinions of your hotel and taking part in social media to mold the perceptions of your brand.

Hotel industry has realized the importance of online reputation management, but is not sure how to handle the complexities of online reviews and comments.  Hotels have been prompt to adopt social media, but I believe a lot of hoteliers are mixing up priorities.

ReputationManagementFor.com- suggests that Hotels need to have minimum Reputation Management and Social media understanding.  Why? This is because it is regarded as a marketing tool that almost touches every aspect of a hotel, from operations to revenue management.

Talking about social media, Facebook and Twitter can be competent channels to involve travelers to get them to speak, but the buying decisions are made on review sites. Hoteliers should know the difference that people go to Facebook to socialize and that TripAdvisor is not for shopping but it’s a review website. And the minimal hotels should do is to monitor and respond to online reviews.

It is also crucial to note that reputation management is not about attempting to eliminate negative content. It’s a fictitious statement. It’s about genuineness and transparency since your business deserves the best.

TripAdvisor was the first to introduce review sites for travelers, and today it has 50+ million opinions and reviews on its website. Taking into account the bulk of visitors TripAdvisor has and the amount of reviews posted directly, it is crucial hotels to monitor and react to such reviews and opinions.

We feel TripAdvisor is the most decisive factor of a hotel’s online reputation management program. If a hotel is inactive in social media circuit, it ought to be taking heed and responding to TripAdvisor reviews and use the feedback to improve their customers’ experience. As mentioned above customers have more than dozen options to air their views. Reputation Management becomes more complex with Social Media, because travelers post their views on social sites, review websites or other forums, and monitoring alone can be intense, before you decide what step is to be taken

Social media can be a massive waste of time if we don’t have a clear idea how to deal with it, and still if you clutch on to the orthodox marketing activities it will reflect on your revenue. The way travelers’ decision making and communication mode has transformed dramatically we need to have massive resources to arrest further damage. With the need to adjust to this situation, hotels must keep a tab on the latest happening and publish useful, pertinent content on review sites and social websites.

The Anna Hazare fast, now that’s its over, was a nifty PR campaign and a great political one at that. While the 74-year-old Anna with his 12-day fast resembling the many fasts that Gandhi made for the country before and after independence has become an icon; ‘Team Anna’ walked away with PR success.  Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi and other popular people like actors Anupam Kher, Om Puri and Aamir Khan all made up the PR machine behind the scenes for Team Anna. 

Carefully planned use of the Mahatma image, which has irked a lot of people,has proved to be the main reason for the stupendous success the campaign received from the masses. Now, here when one uses the  term ‘masses’ loosely, one refers to the great Indian middle class who are tech-savvy and who are the most unhappy with the scams in the country.

Popular culture called the movement – ‘The second freedom struggle’ and so on; from cheesy prayer-like songs to humour on placards, every angle was dealt with beautifully. Team Anna even resorted to street play like characterization of the two-faced politicians with even an on-the-spot skit by the hero-worshipped former Police Chief, Kiran Bedi. If there were points of conflict in team Anna it was not visible to the people.  What was visible was this…

Anti-Graft movement

Peaceful protests

Festival-like  protest ground (Ramlila Maidan)

Frequent Media appearances

Negotiations

Bollywood/celebrity backing

Youtube videos

Tweets and Facebook posts

SMSes

Candle light marches

Rhetoric

Medical Bulletins

Drama on live TV

India Against corruption campaign had it all and in the centre of it all a patriotic 74-year-old activist who never married and was without any political aspirations. Team Anna says the battle is only half won while in the Parliament a couple of parties did remind the Congress and the main opposition that the Anna Campaign was ‘elitist’ and did not have anything in it for the real masses out there – the poor!

Nevertheless, this campaign was a lesson in running PR campaigns for a large country like India which stands apart in its national reputation from its neighbours in the region. Democracy won finally - both with the people and in the Parliament.

We live by five star ratings to just about anything you can buy or do in the online world these days. To plan a holiday or buy a best-seller we go by ratings and reviews online on TripAdvisor or Amazon. Real people telling you their joyous experiences helping you decide it all. Or NOT! This New York Times article lifts the lid on fake rave reviews. Here is an excerpt…

“For $5, I will submit two great reviews for your business,” offered one entrepreneur on the help-for-hire site Fiverr, one of a multitude of similar pitches. On another forum, Digital Point, a poster wrote, “I will pay for positive feedback on TripAdvisor.” A Craigslist post proposed this: “If you have an active Yelp account and would like to make very easy money please respond.”

As Reputation Managers we are constantly approached by people, firms and other service industry people about negative reviews. Negative reviews are scary for anyone and usually or mostly always done with malicious intent in our experience. If you look at it really how many times have you written about a hotel experience you did not particularly like or restaurant not having met your expectation? Its usually the good experiences one blogs or writes about with a couple of constructive criticism thrown in.

However, 5-Star reviews that we see everywhere from Amazon to TripAdvisor and review sites are being fed by the growing need to provide rave reviews to attract more customers. It is not as easy as spotting spam and people tested could not identify the fakes. The NYT article talks about Cornell researchers trying to make an algorithm to sieve out the fake rave reviews from popular websites.

There are sites that now offer positive reviews and ratings on books to music to hotels and restaurants. The more credibility and value that can be converted into hard cash will soon find an industry to alleviate the demand for them.  It will be interesting to see what the hotel industry or online shopping sites do to tackle it when this problem gets rampant and loses credibility.

Our finding shows that most doctors worry about negative reviews posted about them on review websites. Physicians’ know that it’s just the mouthing off unhappy patients. Review website often doesn’t take the responsibility to ascertain the negative reviews are baseless and fictional. For example In one case we found a “review” that was demeaning beyond belief, the so-called patient was an ex- girlfriend of that physician and she had a personal agenda in doing so. But not everybody will realize the quality of such information and the significant impact it has on the physician.

Doctors’ knows that all patients do not agree with their opinion. And the disgruntled ones go online and post their opinion, despite the doctor being absolutely right based on the medical condition of the patient.

We have another sticky situation here, happy patients do not bother to go online and post their experience, but on other hand disgruntled patients’ response accumulates. Either way the doctor has to bear the brunt and live with the general belief that a section of patients believe he is not a good doctor.

Reputation Management For.com understands that patients posting their reviews about doctors on review websites are more inclined to amplify. Online reviews about doctors are informative that helps find low-quality physicians, but not as effective in picking out quality physicians from average ones. We are not sure how many physicians’ know to deal with such a situation and that they need a legitimate system in place for their patients, to defend quality of information that beams out from your not so good wishers.