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During the back half of the 1990s, I was in charge of corporate marketing at Cyrix, a Texas-based microprocessor company, and at National Semiconductor, the company that bought Cyrix.

Today, I looked at some of the CNET news stories I was quoted in back then. I couldn't believe some of the blustery crap that spewed effortlessly out of my mouth.

Everything we did was the fastest, most powerful, most highly integrated, lowest cost, blah, blah, blah. The processor gods blessed everything we designed. Customers were lining up around the block. Intel was the devil incarnate. Advanced Micro Devices was just a lowly also-ran, doomed to forever live in Intel's shadow.

As the story turns out, Cyrix imploded and National Semiconductor blew I-don't-know-how-many-billion dollars cleaning up the mess. Intel's still the world's largest semiconductor company, and AMD--well, AMD at least survived. ... Read the full post at CNET's CES 2010 blog

Concerned about what your customers say about you online? Well, you should be.

You probably think you have your bases covered by allowing product reviews and client testimonials through your Web site, but the truth is that the blogosphere can make (or break) you as a company if Google includes a customer's blog post in the SERPs (search engine results pages).

Prominently positioned customer blog posts in the SERPs that either love you or hate you can be more powerful than product reviews for several reasons, the most obvious one being that many blogs act as word-of-mouth advertising when things go right--and when they go wrong.

While some bloggers may have a reputation for always pointing out things that are wrong with the world, make no mistake about it: "acts of kindness" do get talked about, in a big way! You may have already overheard some of the positive buzz about Zappos, a fashion retailer of shoes and handbags, probably due in part to its free overnight shipping, very liberal return policy, and enthusiastic customer reviews. Here's a blog post you may not have heard about, "I Heart Zappos."

We all understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and Zaz LaMarr (the writer of the post) could be any one of us. In her post, she described how she purchased several pairs of shoes for her ill mother. Some didn't fit, but she didn't get around to returning them. Shortly afterward, her mom passed away and LaMarr still hadn't gotten around to mailing them.

When Zappos followed up on the shoes, LaMarr wrote back and explained the situation, ending with: "I'd send the shoes as soon as I could." Not only did Zappos arrange for UPS to pick up the shoes, but the company also sent a floral arrangement with condolences.

The result of Zappos' kindness? The customer that it treated like gold also happened to be a blogger with readership. Word of this good deed is spreading around the Web faster than the speed of a T-1 line, and her post is currently in position No. 12 in Google for "Zappos," and in position No. 9 in Yahoo.

Still not a believer that blogs are powerful? One commenter to her post declared, "I am going to go buy something from them and refer them to this post as the reason for my purchase. If only more companies acted this human."

What better way to build your reputation than to get back to basics and be nice to people?

On the flip side, some companies are earning their reputation as unfeeling, corporate giants. I can't think of another industry that has more problems with that image than the airlines. Search Google for "Spirit Airlines" and the No. 3 ranked result is a blog post headline that reads, "Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines."

What started out as a complaint over a $5 fee attracted a blogstorm; not only were several other horror stories relayed in the blog post's comments, but other posts like this one about the "Spirit Airlines Story" have attracted attention outside of the blogosphere in places like The Chicago Tribune, consumer complaint groups and more.

What was so bad?

Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza reacted to a well-written customer complaint letter by saying "Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny." The customer got ahold of the comment because Baldanza hit the "Reply to All" button.

Instead of apologizing or trying to deal with the situation in a better manner, Spirit Airlines blew off its customers and people reacted. While airline execs could have done something to resolve the issue, blogs don't seem to be important to them. Company spokeswoman Alison Russell was quoted as saying, "We wouldn't respond to a blog post. She goes on to say: "This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great."

I'm sure you've heard the saying, "De Nile is a river in Egypt." How many travelers do you think are going to steer clear of Spirit Airlines after they read that damning post (in a No. 3 Google position)?

The lesson here, folks, is that the cliches you've heard about being kind to one another holds true--even (or especially) on the Internet.

Reputation monitoring and management have become hot topics and will only continue to grow. These are becoming important areas for all businesses, large and small, to focus on as more and more people turn to the Web to communicate through blogs, their own Web sites, as well as the ever-growing opportunities for online consumer reviews and ratings.

Here is a quick Reputation Management 101 rundown of five tips in each of five different areas to get you started:

Pre-emptive measures are best

The old adage of prevention being the best cure carries a lot of weight here.

• Always strive to view your site through the eyes of your visitors
• Make sure that contact information is available, easy to find, and working
• Respond to messages in a timely manner
• When issues do start to crop up, fix them before they become widespread
• Strive to achieve that level at which customers, clients and visitors are singing your praises publicly for you

Places to monitor

Start creating bookmarks of specific sites to monitor.

• Use Google and Yahoo email alerts, as well as regular manual searches, in all major engines to search for your company name, product and brand names, or mentions of your URL
• Especially if you have a local presence, look for local Web sites to monitor
• Keep an eye on the blogosphere, and set up RSS feeds for monitoring
• Don't forget general or topical forums
• Also keep an eye on sites with consumer reviews and ratings

Dos

There are many things you should do, but here are some especially important ones to keep in mind.

• Decide whether a response is warranted
• Decide whether a response or discussions are better suited for offline, one-to-one conversations
• Take time before responding to remove any chance of emotions tainting your response
• If at all possible, have someone else read your response before posting
• Use responses as a way to reach out to your audience, even if the conversation needs to be handled offline

Don'ts

Of course, no list of dos would be complete without a list of don'ts.

• Don't get defensive
• Don't attack or get personal
• Don't shirk blame or avoid responsibility
• Don't pretend to be someone else and make posts that appear to be from "satisfied customers" coming to your defense

Reminders

And to round out our list, here are some key things to keep in mind.

• Remember that what you say privately could be made public by others
• Remember that most of the people posting negative comments are looking to express their frustrations, seek acknowledgment and be valued
• View this as an opportunity to build stronger relationships, to show goodwill and to show that you care
• People have always been able to say negative things about you or your company; now it is just easier to do it publicly, but it is also easier for people to tell everyone how great you are as well
• Set and keep a schedule for monitoring, and automate as much of it as possible

For a more detailed view, including some specific sites to look at for monitoring, you may want to check out Andy Beal's resource, Free Online Reputation Management Beginner's Guide, over at Marketing Pilgrim.

At the BlogHer 2007 Conference in Chicago last weekend, I was a proud dad, on-hand to support my daughter, Chloe, who presented her "Ultimate Neopets Cheats Blog" success story to a packed audience of bloggers, online marketers, and SEO enthusiasts attending the Professional Blogging: Ways and Means session.

Check out some highlights of Chloe's presentation at the BlogHer Conference 2007...

In early 2006, when Chloe was 15, she decided to devote a blog to Neopets, a virtual pets site popular with kids the world over. After performing some keyword research through WordTracker and Google Suggest for her blog's title and section headings, she discovered that "neopets cheats" was a hugely popular search term to target for her blog. So she settled on the name: the "Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site." She then used the free WordPress.com service to start the blog. Chloe's site was able to ride on the coattails of WordPress.com's trust and authority in the eyes of Google, thus sidestepping the "Google Sandbox" and jumping to page 1 in Google for the term "neopet cheats" within two weeks of launch.

Wanting to capitalize on her success, Chloe attempted to place Google ads on her WordPress.com blog, only to find that she was unable to monetize her blog due to WordPress.com's restrictive Terms of Service. So Chloe migrated the blog over from neopetcheats.wordpress.com to her own domain, neopetsfanatic.com, powered by the WordPress software. She then went about building links through places like Blogger Stories.

By spending just a few hours per month, Chloe earns through Google AdSense between $20 and $30 per day--and it's sometimes even as much $40. If you do the math, that's somewhere around $700 to $900 a month for very little work. If Chloe wanted to earn a similar amount of money through a part-time job--at her age, this typically means flipping burgers, babysitting or operating a paper route--she'd have to work somewhere around 25 to 30 hours per week (assuming minimum wage). And best of all, because Chloe has an income generating asset (versus working dollars-for-hours for "The Man"), Chloe can take a paid vacation whenever she wants and still earn the same amount of money.

Currently, Chloe is planning what she will do next with her blogging. By branching out into new topic areas with other blogs and adding a forum to her Neopets blog, she will expand her reach in the blogosphere. A sister project of WordPress called bbPress is Chloe's platform of choice for her upcoming discussion forums; it will be a more suitable venue to host the plethora of comments that have been posted to Chloe's blog (some of the pages on Chloe's blog have thousands of comments). Her link building efforts have also evolved to include face-to-face networking at conferences in order to build links and create invaluable contacts. Thanks to her blog's strong rankings for Neopets related terms (including a page 1 ranking for "neopets"!), Chloe watches over an ever-growing college fund.

Hopefully Chloe's story will inspire other teens to seize the opportunity to build assets, whether online or offline. Her story also teaches us that SEO is not inaccessible; in fact, it's so easy, that a child can do it!

It's been quite a day. Over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington says I'm not part of the "club" that is the blogosphere because, among other things, I simply "represent everything that we bloggers are trying to kill."

When I read that line, Groucho Marx's brilliant bon mot about clubs and their discontents immediately came to mind. But enough of that. Anyway, I think I've said all that I can about the Federated Media affair.

News.com Poll

Church and state
Should bloggers adhere to a strict line between advertising and editorial?

Yes, it's vital
No, it's a spurious distinction
The gray area is where the action is

View results

For those who (blissfully) may have been away at the beach the last few days, there's been quite a ruckus since the disclosure that several online publishers and venture capitalists lent their voices in seeming support of Microsoft's "People-Ready" advertising slogan. But after being on the receiving end of Arrington's last salvo, I left a post on his message board. Here's the repost:

Dear Mike,

Pardon me for the delayed response as I've been tied up with a few things for most of the day. Just got through reading your post. I guess you're not yet fully "people ready" (only kidding), but let me try and address a few of the comments made by you and some of the talkback posters here.

You write that I'm on "a personal crusade to sully the reputation of the blogging community in general."

Couldn't be further from the truth. Here's my Monday post on the matter that raised Arrington's ire; I'll let folks here judge for themselves. But if the links or quotes back to what you wrote are not accurate, please let me know.

Seems that the new marketing buzz here is to be a part of a greater conversation. And does that conversation ignore a granite wall to keep corporate influence out of the finished product? I've carefully read your posts but I still believe the FM situation crossed a line. Obviously, you disagree. I don't suppose I'm going to convince you about that. Maybe one day over a beer.

You're competitive and dream of supplanting CNET one day. Fine. That's competition and I'm totally down with free competition. We basically share the same job, and that's to get stories and put them in front of readers. But do I truly represent "everything that we bloggers are trying to kill"? That's a pretty ugly declaration. Truth be told, I don't think I'm a bad guy. But I am willing to stand up and challenge the comfortable assumptions when I think they're wrong. If that's sufficient casus belli, then let the rockets fire away."

I really do believe that CNET and TechCrunch are far more alike than different. Arrington obviously has big ambitions. That's fine, but saying you're a member of the blogosphere doesn't accord special dispensation that wipes away the basic stain left by participation in a flawed marketing campaign.

One last note. Over at Scripting.com, Dave Winer took several swipes at CNET in the wake of Arrington's post that left me speechless. To wit:

"The tech blogosphere was invented because of the sloppy church-state line at CNET and other professional pubs. They're the last people who get to preach this particular gospel. Inside the tech industry, we all know what's going on there. In private, no one is confused. They always take the side of big companies over small ones, even when it's ridiculous to do so. The reason--big companies advertise, they pay their salaries."

Dave, I'll send you a private note about this, but you and I really need to sit down over a cup of coffee and hash things out.

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Matt Mullenweg is officially the CEO of Automattic. Please note the double "t"--as in "Matt." But he's really the guy who brought WordPress to the world and oxygen to the blogosphere.

You can see the first half of this Webware interview here. Matt explains why WordPress is open source but his antispam kismet isn't. He discloses the catalytic role his mother played in his software development. And he talks about blogging in places where the government is out to get you. The second part of the interview will be available online soon.