I firmly believe that it is worthwhile to take a few minutes every so often and Google yourself. Or your company/brand name. Despite the commotion that social media sites make (and they are important, don’t get me wrong), search engines are not dead yet. This week there were two big changes in the search engine [...]

Back in the day (which was October 2009), John wrote a post about Utilizing Customer Reviews to book hotel rooms. In the post, he wrote, “Don’t fear negative reviews, embrace them.” This still holds true, nearly a year after the fact (which is about 31 internet years). Today, Google rolled out the ability to respond [...]

Full disclosure: I have an iPhone 4 and I love it. Moving on… By now I’ll have to assume that you’ve heard about iPhone 4′s reception issues. If you haven’t, check out the videos on YouTube. Or just Google it: The new iPhone’s sales have been very impressive, but the release has not been drama [...]

Sometimes when we least expect it, we can be suddenly tossed into the limelight. For a local co-owner of a coffee shop, that time was last month. I’ll give a quick bit of background, but this post will focus on the reputation management side of things. I’m not here to place judgement or provide an [...]

It can probably go without saying that there is no other company that currently has a worse reputation, online or off than BP. When your company has caused one of the worst environmental disasters in history, there is no good way to begin repairing your reputation. But just for fun, let’s take a look at [...]

TRUSTe, an online privacy certification company, has secured another $12 million of funding bringing their total to over $22 million. The company’s goal is to certify companies with quality online privacy practices, and to let consumers know what companies can be trusted with private information. The TRUSTe badge has potential to become another display of [...]

Pew Internet and American Life just released a report speaking to how different social media users protect their online reputation via their privacy settings.  This information is very timely especially after Facebook’s recent updates to their privacy policy. According to the report, more people are concerned about the online reputation now than ever before.  “57% [...]

If you’ve recently viewed Reputation Watch, or visited any of the thousands of WordPress blogs that were part of a large-scale malware attack, it’s likely that your browser was hijacked. The virus was disguised to look like a spyware scanner, and told website visitors that their computers were infected. Unfortunately, clicking on the “solution” would [...]

Have you ever “Googled” yourself? Why not, are you chicken? Maybe you’re scared about what you might find? Well, you’re actually not alone. A study, commissioned by Microsoft, asked 2,500 professionals (HR representatives and recruiters) and consumers if they had ever Googled themselves. The survey showed that only 42% of Americans have actually done it. [...]

Most recently, the FTC has been cracking down on their advertising laws, particularly in relation to Internet advertising and blogging. I have a feeling that most of these new laws have come as a result of the myriad of high converting less than truthful affiliate ads which can be found all over the net (if [...]