9 ms·

Seth Godin takes down pages from Brands in Public

61 points by MrMatt 17y ago

Jim_Neath 17y ago
At least he was listening to what people were saying. Still baffles me that he didn't think of the consequences before launching.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  I don't think the consequences were very obvious. All the service does is aggregate the data pulled in by Google alerts, twitter, and a couple other services so that people can see it all on one page. This is stuff that everyone can already see on their own, so literally nothing has changed. The only difference is that he is offering companies the option to pay money to respond to feedback directly on this aggregated page instead of through the various mediums where it was originated, and I don't think it was at all a given that people would freak out about this.
  - aasarava 17y ago
    Presumably, Godin and his colleagues did their research into similar businesses -- namely, Get Satisfaction -- before starting Brands in Public. And if so, they would have known that some companies were not happy with Get Satisfaction's page design and copy, claiming that it hijacked their brands and confused customers.
    - jeroen 17y ago
      That is probably why the pages mention "unofficial" 5 times and "automatically generated by" 7 times. And contrary to GetSatisfaction, the associated logo isn't on the page.
    - GHFigs 17y ago
      None of the criticism I've seen leveled at BIP referenced the actual design of the site, which is on par with Get Satisfaction's vastly improved design and copy. People are just offended by the business model.
feverishaaron 17y ago
I'm taking this to mean that he received one or more cease and desists for using the company(s)' brand mark. *The above statement is pure speculation.
stakent 17y ago
Hear the feedback. Iterate fast.
- henning 17y ago
  Don't be a jerk.
  - stakent 17y ago
    Yep. Look at your plans through prospective customer's eyes. Before launching.
  - gjm11 17y ago
    Wear sunscreen.
MikeCapone 17y ago
I hear the sound of back-pedalling...
Dilpil 17y ago
Has anyone considered the possibility that Godin just made a mistake and is legitimately not a slime ball?
- conoryoung 17y ago
  I considered it for a moment but immediately erased the thought from my mind.
- falsestprophet 17y ago
  The goal of the program is to invite brands into the conversation that's already going on around the web, to make it easy for them to do it on their terms. No. He can't stop bullshitting; it's pathological.
  - zzzmarcus 17y ago
    Seriously. It's an invitation to a conversation with the minor stipulation that "their terms" include paying him $4800 a year...
    - pmichaud 17y ago
      He probably doesn't understand your emotional reaction to that dollar amount, because in his world $5k is a token amount, not a real cost.
    - lsb 17y ago
      Good PR firms charge thousands of dollars a month, many over 10k/mo.
- tjogin 17y ago
  He is supposed to be a marketing guru, isn't he?
rfreytag 17y ago
"I apologize if anyone was confused by my original post,..." In DC this is called the non-apology apology where you express regret for someone else's error. The real apology version is: "I apologize for my [mistake|error|imprecision|lack-of-clarity]". The Tylenol Scare showed that massive overcompensating action is how you recover from a PR hit (http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/crisis.html http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurde...). You cannot earn back goodwill with half-measures.
- mojonixon 17y ago
  god I hate PR flacks. "As the [pr] plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns." Do it for PR, not because its the right thing to do!
  - rfreytag 17y ago
    Interesting that communicating why one should do 'the right thing' appears wrong. And yes I agree it is somehow unseemly. Perhaps PR has the language to help financial types appreciate the value of good ethics. I think software development has had similar problems making the case for good s/w engineering practices being financially sound and not just an nice idea.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      What was really going on was that J&J put their long-term interests ahead of their short-term interests. It was not as big risk for them to do so as the writer implies, because they knew their brand was damaged by an external factor rather than something they had done themselves - quite different from the contrasting example of Perrier, where the problem was in their supply chain.
- Alex3917 17y ago
  As a rule of thumb, if you are going to accuse someone of being unethical you should have to name the rule of ethics that the person is violating. The criticisms of the original project, at least the ones I read, didn't actually do this. Instead people were complaining because it reminded them of something unethical that someone else had done, or they didn't think it fit Seth's personal brand, or they were afraid he would do something unethical in the future, or they never liked him to begin with. Now if people are saying, "you violated X rule of ethics" then it's really easy to apologize for doing that. But in this case that's not what people were saying, so how exactly do you apologize to those people? Especially since in the end the reason Seth backed down was probably at least in part because his personal brand is worth more than the money he could make from the project anyway, regardless of whether he was right or wrong.
dawie 17y ago
They only "Hijacked" 200 pages. I don't think it's such a big deal. It think he did the right thing though.
raheemm 17y ago
There is a need for this kind of brand management service. Remember that youTube video by two Domino's employees? However, the model to deliver this service needs to be thought through further.
- anigbrowl 17y ago
  Sure, you can aggregate that information and offer a dashboard. But this is nothing a large company can't do for itself, and there's no especial value for them in having a standardized dashboard. It's more useful for consumers who might with to go a standard page to look up aggregated info about any given brand before making buying decisions, but they tend to be domain specific - rate-coffeebrands.com rate-cookie-brands.com or suchlike. It's the old stress on the web - providers and publishers want to be unique and stand out from everyone, consumers would often rather have standardized pages so they can get information quickly and consistently without navigating 100 different kinds of web flair and registering at every site they might be temporarily interested in, which is why portals still exist and probably always will.
adrianwaj 17y ago
"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us" If that was so important to him, why doesn't he open up his blog's comments?
- jeremymims 17y ago
  Opening up blog comments on a relatively popular website doesn't necessarily encourage discussion. See Youtube, TechCrunch, or really any others. Popular bloggers like Andrew Sullivan have shut down their comments precisely because they prefer a more personal conversation via email rather than the anonymous name calling and hate spewed in your average comment section. I happen to think there is a place for comments. But I assume by default that most comment sections are open first, then closed because of the vitriol. That stuff takes a real emotional toll over time.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
zaidf 17y ago
Hate Seth Godin all you want(at times I too cannot resist). Yet, some of the smartest people I've run into were mentored by him. In general, he really can teach how to connect with your users.
josefresco 17y ago
How is Brand in Public different from say Mahalo or even Squidoo. The content is similar: http://www.mahalo.com/home-depot http://www.mahalo.com/home-depot Is the problem people have with the fact that he's charging to give access to some of that content? Also, this really reminds me of the local business scam MerchantCircle is running. They'll register a domain with your company name and aggregate content making a legit looking site which as you can imagine confuses a lot of people.
MaysonL 17y ago
Contrast Brands in Public's PR angle with Doc Searls's Project VRM (Vendor Relationship Management). http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page
Tichy 17y ago
"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us." Of course, while the conversation is happening all around us, it would be impossible to join it without the help of a high paid PR consultant.

61 points by MrMatt 17y ago

At least he was listening to what people were saying. Still baffles me that he didn't think of the consequences before launching.

Alex3917 17y ago
I don't think the consequences were very obvious. All the service does is aggregate the data pulled in by Google alerts, twitter, and a couple other services so that people can see it all on one page. This is stuff that everyone can already see on their own, so literally nothing has changed. The only difference is that he is offering companies the option to pay money to respond to feedback directly on this aggregated page instead of through the various mediums where it was originated, and I don't think it was at all a given that people would freak out about this.
- aasarava 17y ago
  Presumably, Godin and his colleagues did their research into similar businesses -- namely, Get Satisfaction -- before starting Brands in Public. And if so, they would have known that some companies were not happy with Get Satisfaction's page design and copy, claiming that it hijacked their brands and confused customers.
  - jeroen 17y ago
    That is probably why the pages mention "unofficial" 5 times and "automatically generated by" 7 times. And contrary to GetSatisfaction, the associated logo isn't on the page.
  - GHFigs 17y ago
    None of the criticism I've seen leveled at BIP referenced the actual design of the site, which is on par with Get Satisfaction's vastly improved design and copy. People are just offended by the business model.

feverishaaron 17y ago

I'm taking this to mean that he received one or more cease and desists for using the company(s)' brand mark. *The above statement is pure speculation.

stakent 17y ago

Hear the feedback. Iterate fast.

henning 17y ago
Don't be a jerk.
- stakent 17y ago
  Yep. Look at your plans through prospective customer's eyes. Before launching.
- gjm11 17y ago
  Wear sunscreen.

MikeCapone 17y ago

I hear the sound of back-pedalling...

Dilpil 17y ago

Has anyone considered the possibility that Godin just made a mistake and is legitimately not a slime ball?

conoryoung 17y ago
I considered it for a moment but immediately erased the thought from my mind.
falsestprophet 17y ago
The goal of the program is to invite brands into the conversation that's already going on around the web, to make it easy for them to do it on their terms. No. He can't stop bullshitting; it's pathological.
- zzzmarcus 17y ago
  Seriously. It's an invitation to a conversation with the minor stipulation that "their terms" include paying him $4800 a year...
  - pmichaud 17y ago
    He probably doesn't understand your emotional reaction to that dollar amount, because in his world $5k is a token amount, not a real cost.
  - lsb 17y ago
    Good PR firms charge thousands of dollars a month, many over 10k/mo.
tjogin 17y ago
He is supposed to be a marketing guru, isn't he?

rfreytag 17y ago

"I apologize if anyone was confused by my original post,..." In DC this is called the non-apology apology where you express regret for someone else's error. The real apology version is: "I apologize for my [mistake|error|imprecision|lack-of-clarity]". The Tylenol Scare showed that massive overcompensating action is how you recover from a PR hit (http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurders/crisis.html http://www.aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/TylenolMurde...). You cannot earn back goodwill with half-measures.

mojonixon 17y ago
god I hate PR flacks. "As the [pr] plan was constructed, Johnson & Johnson's top management put customer safety first, before they worried about their companies profit and other financial concerns." Do it for PR, not because its the right thing to do!
- rfreytag 17y ago
  Interesting that communicating why one should do 'the right thing' appears wrong. And yes I agree it is somehow unseemly. Perhaps PR has the language to help financial types appreciate the value of good ethics. I think software development has had similar problems making the case for good s/w engineering practices being financially sound and not just an nice idea.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    What was really going on was that J&J put their long-term interests ahead of their short-term interests. It was not as big risk for them to do so as the writer implies, because they knew their brand was damaged by an external factor rather than something they had done themselves - quite different from the contrasting example of Perrier, where the problem was in their supply chain.
Alex3917 17y ago
As a rule of thumb, if you are going to accuse someone of being unethical you should have to name the rule of ethics that the person is violating. The criticisms of the original project, at least the ones I read, didn't actually do this. Instead people were complaining because it reminded them of something unethical that someone else had done, or they didn't think it fit Seth's personal brand, or they were afraid he would do something unethical in the future, or they never liked him to begin with. Now if people are saying, "you violated X rule of ethics" then it's really easy to apologize for doing that. But in this case that's not what people were saying, so how exactly do you apologize to those people? Especially since in the end the reason Seth backed down was probably at least in part because his personal brand is worth more than the money he could make from the project anyway, regardless of whether he was right or wrong.

dawie 17y ago

They only "Hijacked" 200 pages. I don't think it's such a big deal. It think he did the right thing though.

raheemm 17y ago

There is a need for this kind of brand management service. Remember that youTube video by two Domino's employees? However, the model to deliver this service needs to be thought through further.

anigbrowl 17y ago
Sure, you can aggregate that information and offer a dashboard. But this is nothing a large company can't do for itself, and there's no especial value for them in having a standardized dashboard. It's more useful for consumers who might with to go a standard page to look up aggregated info about any given brand before making buying decisions, but they tend to be domain specific - rate-coffeebrands.com rate-cookie-brands.com or suchlike. It's the old stress on the web - providers and publishers want to be unique and stand out from everyone, consumers would often rather have standardized pages so they can get information quickly and consistently without navigating 100 different kinds of web flair and registering at every site they might be temporarily interested in, which is why portals still exist and probably always will.

adrianwaj 17y ago

"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us" If that was so important to him, why doesn't he open up his blog's comments?

jeremymims 17y ago
Opening up blog comments on a relatively popular website doesn't necessarily encourage discussion. See Youtube, TechCrunch, or really any others. Popular bloggers like Andrew Sullivan have shut down their comments precisely because they prefer a more personal conversation via email rather than the anonymous name calling and hate spewed in your average comment section. I happen to think there is a place for comments. But I assume by default that most comment sections are open first, then closed because of the vitriol. That stuff takes a real emotional toll over time.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]

zaidf 17y ago

Hate Seth Godin all you want(at times I too cannot resist). Yet, some of the smartest people I've run into were mentored by him. In general, he really can teach how to connect with your users.

josefresco 17y ago

How is Brand in Public different from say Mahalo or even Squidoo. The content is similar: http://www.mahalo.com/home-depot http://www.mahalo.com/home-depot Is the problem people have with the fact that he's charging to give access to some of that content? Also, this really reminds me of the local business scam MerchantCircle is running. They'll register a domain with your company name and aggregate content making a legit looking site which as you can imagine confuses a lot of people.

MaysonL 17y ago

Contrast Brands in Public's PR angle with Doc Searls's Project VRM (Vendor Relationship Management). http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/projectvrm/Main_Page

Tichy 17y ago

"to join in to the conversation that's already happening all around us." Of course, while the conversation is happening all around us, it would be impossible to join it without the help of a high paid PR consultant.