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!

Siri’s obvious unwillingness to help a woman to find abortion clinics has created ire. The latest controversy could not have come at a time when the company is facing tough competition from their Android-powered counterpart.  Angered by Siri’s failure to locate even one result has had people sign mass petitions to Apple. Blogs and comments are keeping the controversy alive thus putting Apple in a delicate situation. We have to see how they tackle this serious issue.

As always, the problem with Apple is they fail to understand that to develop such an effective feature, Siri has to learn about the user; it should customize itself to know every detail about an institution or an individual. Guess what? Siri transforms your speech into a search algorithm and uses the 3rd part search engine to obtain result. If the search engine fails to return the information, Apple gets the blame for not having programmed that way. 

So is Apple actually trying to keep you from having an abortion or finding contraception? Well Siri, helps you find many things associated with men but few things for women. Though it’s not like that, but it seems that way.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said

These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that, as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks.

As for the comment about beta version, apparently Apple has programmed the system to pick out millions of combinations of input; nevertheless they acknowledge it is under process.

Apple has not rebutted Siri so far; unlike in the past when they acted on moral ground and pulled off several apps from its iOS App because they were objectionable or offensive. A “gay cure” app, which purportedly keyed out renowned people, vanished after users raised fears.

So in one way, Apple is setting example for others, and needs to be careful, because to do something like this it needs a great deal of trust in the party that collects this data.

Here you have another product of Google to hit the trash. Well, I wouldn’t say Google Sidewiki is a complete failure, but relatively a Google product that failed to keep up with the expectations”.  Google has finally decided to close it down, and is offering its users to export all of their data. December 5, 2011 is the day Google will discontinue Sidewiki and erase all the content. Users’ can visit http://www.google.com/sidewiki/  and follow the manual to retrieve the data.

I believe Google Sidewiki didn’t catch on with everyone simply because of the fact that it was a complex tool. Not only that you have to install Google Toolbar, you had to ensure it was turned on.  It looked pretty promising in the initial phase along with other Web Annotation tool and this would have clicked had this been user friendly.

If  Sidewiki had implemented “reviews” for businesses, to be frank it would have been a reputation nightmare. Sidewiki could prove to be a potential tool to damage your business reputation. As the algorithm works, pages that attract maximum visitors would experience incessant flow of spammers. Webmaster trying to get rid of negative comments on their website might take longer days to erase all the negative comment.

Well! As of now Google Sidewiki will go off the air on 5th December 2011.  I doubt Google’s reputation as the king on the Internet, this latest development only reiterate that they have failed products, and the latest is Google Sidewiki.

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.

Sportswear giants Speedo have taken a break from smuggling budgies and started down the path of smuggling bloggers to court as it’s revealed they’re unhappy with one Australian blogger who’s “using their brand name in vain”.
Speedo are suing Dave Evans, 24, for his website (found here and please note some may find the content offensive/funny) which is said to jeopardise their “substantial and valuable reputation” and “goodwill associated with the name and trademark SPEEDO”. Since its creation in 1914 in Bondi, Australia, Speedo has become a household name and one of the biggest sportswear companies in the world. Their swimwear is so well designed, there have been claims that they’ve offered an ‘unfair advantage’ to Olympic competitors wearing their designs over those of rival brands. And while this wasn’t enough to dent their reputation (mostly because the claims were outlandishly absurd anyway), you have to wonder whether this latest move was particularly well-advised.

Handling negative content online is a dangerous minefield of potential catastrophes in itself, as addressing detrimental media incorrectly almost always exacerbates the situation. Speedo have gone from having a website which features their product in a rather questionable light, to having potentially thousands of websites talking about the original negative content as the story is picked up by newspapers, television, radio, online news sites and other blog based websites as well. So not only have their actions brought an audience to this website which far surpasses anything it would have achieved independently, but they’ve also created a David vs. Goliath perception of corporations picking on the little guy. A position Evans has solidified by insisting he can’t afford to fight the lawsuit. He also says that even though he owns a suit, not a tie and he could not possibly attend Federal Court in Australia improperly dressed.

The internet is what it is, and there’ll always be somebody saying something positive and there’ll also be people airing their opinions that go the other way. How you handle the negative content is a far bigger issue than having the negative content around to begin with.

Speedo are trying to control their brands in the same way that some alcohol companies recoiled from an association with rappers who extolled their products in videos and songs. Remember how upset BMW were when they discovered that aging Beemers were often called “Black Man’s Wheels”! Brand owners are having to learn that in the hyper social world you cannot control how your customers connect with your brand or use your brand. Imagine if Campbells Soup or Brillo had taken Warhol to court for his use of their brands in his art. In the end Cristal celebrated its relationship with black music and built a new and very profitable angle on their business. You cannot help feeling that Speedo’s attitude has more than a little homophobia about it. Would they have done the same if the pictures were of nubile young women?

Were Speedo within their rights to challenge the blogger about the nature of his website (and their trademark/brand)? That’ll be for the courts to decide. If Speedo were within their rights – and if they had a case for legal action – does that necessarily mean it was a good idea?

Generally we advise against court action against bloggers, and the circumstances have to be pretty extreme before you should even consider it. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself with a lot of publicity and attention that doesn’t necessarily agree with your position and, like with Speedo, the content you’re wanting removed will be granted a far larger audience than it’d otherwise be getting.

Check out our top 10 list of things NOT to do in reputation management here.

Wikipedia began with the noble intention of providing all with free information on anything under the sun. So yes, the content should be impersonal or neutral and in an openly editable model. So unlike an encyclopedia, which is written by experts, the Wikipedia content is largely written by volunteers who do so without pay.

The big advantage: By virtue of being a favoured site by Google, the SEO or ORM implications of having a Wiki page for your small business are huge. Wikipedia pages usually rank on the first pages of Google and other search engines.

Should you have a Wikipedia page for your small business? There are a few risks to keep in mind -Wiki pages can be edited by anyone and there are numerous people who keep a tab on new pages. If you look at the way people with an axe to grind keep at forums to deliberately malign a brand or name, one should tread carefully as this is also the case with a Wikipedia page. So there is no rule-for-all from a small company reputation management aspect and we would advice a case-by-case decision for creating a Wiki page.

What if you already have a Wiki page? If you already have a Wiki page for your small business and do not have negative content issues with it, it would be best if you don’t make too many changes.

What do you do if you have too many negatives being added on your Wikipedia page? If you do have a Wiki page that is being regularly updated with negative content, there are still a couple of things to be done. First of all make the tone very neutral; and add a host of new info on your page to water down the negatives or push it down further.

So there it is, depending on how well your business is doing in a certain area and taking into account the added publicity a Wiki page will bring in and with the help of reputation managers to watch your back you may have a Wikipedia page for your business with the positives far outweighing the risks.

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.

This happens when you don’t handle crisis the way it should be. Murdoch’s News Corp is facing the heat over its phone hacking scandal, which is doing significant damage to its reputation. Interestingly the news broke out just in time when Murdoch was going to take over the British Sky Broadcasting. Later giving in to the pressure from the UK Govt, he dropped his plan.

The company though claims to have handled this phone scandal neatly has already lost $18 billion to reputation damages. James Murdoch in a statement further approved an out-of-court settlements and rejected the claim that incidence has dented the image of News Corp and that they have detached themselves from this issue and it’s business as usual.

Contrary to James Murdoch’s statement, it was noted that Murdoch-owned Times and Sun’s Sunday circulations was at all time low. A clear case that readers have opted to move away from them to their competitors. This latest salvo will also damage Murdoch’s businesses in other parts of the world, right now in the UK Murdoch media empire is on weak knees. Surprisingly this situation was in store for them looking at the way they were running the newspaper business.

Put your house in order, and that’s where News Corp failed. Instead, they were quick to blame their competitors to have colored them black. Arrogance, ignorance call it whatever, News Corp is paying for its miscalculation, and it’s going to be tough for them to recover their brand value.

More trouble in waiting for the media giant. The US lawmakers have recommended a formal probe into the whole phone-hacking scandal, and if proved, it will be a clear case of “criminal” misdeeds.

If you think that the online information about your product is as secure as you thought, I will be sorry to say you are wrong. You never know unless you are tracking your online reputation if any disgruntled customer or competitor is griping about you on Facebook and twitter. A close introspection and we found that Facebook status and twitter updates appear in Google’s search results faster. Why Google? Because that’s where 90% of internet users go to fetch information about you. So make sure what you want them to know about you because your understanding about your brand and product is not what you say, but what Google suggest it is.

Twitter and Facebook have cut a deal with Google regarding updates over six months ago. Other search engines who do not want to be left out of the race are pursuing and seem to have reached similar agreements with social media sites. So it means that if a client or customer happens to search on your Twitter or Facebook username they will see everything and anything that has been tweeted recently or posted on your FB status.

Negatives if any will be visible to any and all of your potential clients. Trust us, if you fail to deal with this you are never going to make a second good impression.

Why do you need to manage your online reputation? It’s anybody’s guess, what will happen if a client or customer researches about your product or service and finds 25 negative tweets and status citing some strange issues on the first two pages of Google.  But what if those 25 negative rants are replaced with positive ones and made to rank above the negative contents?

Ask us is that possible? And ask yourself does your company need it.

Well our answer is, yes it is possible, if you are serious about your online reputation. Remember when you have 25 negative reviews to surmount; you have a serious reputation management problem. Frankly most companies don’t have that much unless their products or service is that bad really. But with reputation management you get a fighting chance to protect what is yours and give your best shot.

We’ll explain a little why physicians should be worried about online reputation management (ORM).

As the online world is wide and handy, bad reputation takes shape here. Online Reputation Management is the monitoring process that addresses or alleviates the SERPs (search engine result pages) or entries in the online media and social networking domains.

Just like anybody Physicians are as visible as anyone on the Internet and they can be at the receiving end too. Physicians, though they are never considered super-humans, are role models so the expectation and responsibilities is obvious. But looking at the speed information travels on the Internet (through blogs and social networking media), the reputation of a physician can be grounded in no time.

We, at ReputationManagementFor.com did an advanced search on Google on selected Physicians and took screen shots of the first page results. Some of the Physicians were shocked – the negatives that showed on the first page were purely false. In several cases the errors were momentous. Some doctors expressed their helplessness; they are worried when any misinformation appears on sites like Yelp, HealthGrades etc.

A senior doctor once reflected on how it took several months for him to persuade a patient to retract the scathing review posted about him on a review website. The problem starts when doctors or Hospitals do not have enough knowledge about such reviews and by the time they realize, the post might have received thousands hits. Now that’s what we say is a reputation management problem!

We know more patients are doing research about physicians online. Some doctor keep a tab on what is been said about them.  Another example is about a doctor who overlooked this factor because he was employed, but it was a collective reputation so he along-with the Hospital took the beating.

Ignoring online reputation is like endorsing somebody’s view that you are a burglar. It is your professional reputation that’s at stake. You’ve worked hard to get and you owe it to defend and manage your ORM.