Libel threat a good reason to moderate comments

Last week I reacted to the notion that moderating blog comments is a fast path to annoying your readers. Comments to the post leaned toward moderation, but several—including some from people I respect deeply—opposed moderation on personal blogs, suggesting it’s up to the blogger to check comments frequently and weed out the spam. By allowing comments to appear instantly, commenters are happy while rapid reactive review of comments will keep the blog free of the unsavory stuff.

Among the reasons to moderate, I included the potential for a comment that libels someone else. Today, while checking the moderation queue on one of my blogs, I… Read More »

What’s more annoying, moderated comments or a ton of comment spam?

I awakened this morning to find nine comments to this blog awaiting moderation. Despite the installation of Akismet, the plugin that blocks such things, all nine comments were spam. Seven were blatant off-topic pitches for everything from personal loans to coupon sites. Two offered vague observations (e.g., “This is such an interesting experience.The point that the data stated are all first hand on actual experiences even help more”) along with a link to loan, Viagra or any number of other spammy sites.

I mention this in light of Scott Stratten‘s opening keynote address last Thursday morning at BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Las… Read More »

Cognician puts an inventive spin on repurposing blog content

This blog features a creative Commons license that lets anybody do anything they like with the content published here, as long as proper attribution is given and it’s used for non-commercial purposes. I have agreements with a couple organizations to republish posts (including Ragan Communications and Social Media Today). Basically, what all this means is that the same content appears in multiple places. This is fine for increased exposure, and I’m happy if my words help bring traffic to another site. But despite the fact that the Creative Commons license allows anyone to slice, dice, mix and mash my posts however they like, I still… Read More »

WOMMA to issue guide to social media marketing disclosure

UPDATE: WOMMA has issued its press release on its new guidelines for social media disclosure.

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) is set to issue a guide to disclosure in social media marketing sometime tomorrow, February 17. The guide was prompted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s new guidelines for disclosure of relationships between companies and people discussing them and their products or services in social media venues.

The document is designed to enhance rather than replace the rules that may already exist in your organization. And it’s WOMMA’s intention to continually update the guide given the ongoing… Read More »

Forrester’s blogging policy misses the IP point

Warning: Long post follows.

Readers of this blog and listeners to my podcast, “For Immediate Release,” know thast I focus primarily on the impact of online media on organizational communications. As a blogger and a podcaster with an audience, companies routinely reach out to me with their news and information in the hopes that I’ll find their content interesting enough to share. It’s only about 9:30 a.m. here in the Bay Area and I’ve already received about a dozen such pitches today via email.

Forrester Research is one of the organizations that engages in such outreach—and, candidly, it’s one of the few organizations whose content… Read More »

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #524: February 8, 2010

Content summary: MediaFunnel FIR interview is up; Help A PR Pro Out; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: what Vodafone did when an employee tweeted obscenely, wide and mostly negative reaction to Forrester Research plans to stop analysts from blogging personally; listener comments discussion and FIR Friendfeed Room round-up; news about Thursday’s show; music from Antiqcool; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (26.2Mb, 65:26)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications,… Read More »

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