blogs Archive

Over the past week, AirBnB has had its hands full with quite a PR crisis. The service, which allows private parties to list short-term accommodations for travelers and vacationers, saw one of its most-feared scenarios come to life: a host’s rented home was torn apart by the “guest,” who stole jewelry, credit cards, electronics and personal documents. Because the online community is populated largely by avid travelers, it is no surprise that EJ, the host, also authors a blog. Thus, the crisis.

It should be mentioned that EJ’s blog post did not unjustly decry AirBnB, and even describes its empathy and support in setting things right. However, the personal nature of the account and the raw tragedy it illustrates has elicited harsh criticism of the service.

Full disclosure: I recently used AirBnB to find a room in Bordeaux. With no more effort than it takes to book a hotel room, I wound up being hosted by a French librarian who provided us with fresh fruit and homemade yogurt every morning, not to mention a stack of tour guides and a view overlooking the city center. I became aware of the issue after receiving a sincere and compassionate email from AirBnB CEO Brian Chesky apologizing for the event and introducing new policies to protect hosts.

In terms of PR, the crisis has been relatively well-handled, and doesn’t insist on much analysis. What draws my attention are claims that AirBnB suffers from a flawed business model, and is doomed to undergo many similar crises in the future. The argument goes like this: as AirBnB attracts investors and goes mainstream, it will fall prey to criminals and con artists looking to take advantage of friendly travelers. This argument follows a simple set of logic, but doesn’t seem to take into account evidence to the contrary.

I currently live with a roommate I met on craigslist, and have been transacting with eBay sellers for years without issue. Of course, both these services see their fair share of problems (craigslist to be sure), but I doubt anyone can compellingly argue that they suffer from bad business models. For every bad apple, there are hundreds of trustworthy users to make these communities thrive. Wikipedia is another hugely successful project that flies in the face of behavioral expectations. AirBnB operates on the philosophy that “people are good, and we’re in this together.” After opening my bedroom window to a sunrise over the Porte Cailhau, I’ll take that bait — hook, line and sinker.

Public relations pros often come into contact with sensitive information, be it a draft press release on a public acquisition, the launch plans for the season’s hottest tech gadget, or the contents of an internal blog. How can PR companies keep this information private in Web 2.0?

As the Wall Street Journal recently explored, this can be especially vexing for layoff announcements in a world of blogs, citing a Yahoo case where “its instructions to managers conducting layoffs — ’15 minutes maximum,’ ‘don’t engage in small talk’ — were published by the blog Valleywag.com.”

Sites like Overheard in the Office offer an anonymous outlet for harmless (usually) office gossip, but how should companies prepare for the eventuality of a leak that could lead to legal action?

It can be somewhat of a paradox. Building trust with employees and fostering open lines of communication are strong tools for developing a relationship where those with access to sensitive information will honor its sensitivity. Some employees just won’t have that capacity – particularly those who are on their way out or know they will be soon.

So, another approach might be to limit employee access to private information to reduce the possibility of leaks a priori. However, this disintigrates trust, and can lead to cumbersome bureaucracy, censorship, and spying.

Some advocate for companies to act completely openly, as if there is no filter between their email screen and the front page of Gawker. From the PR perspective, this translates as “there is no such thing as off-the-record.”

To complicate matters – in PR, sometimes we walk a fine line of “leaking” information by soft-sounding reporters. It can be appropriate to build a reporter’s interest in a story by sharing some enticing details of a story without providing client identifiers.

And sometimes PR pros purposely and openly “leak” information in the form of an embargoed press release. But as we’ve seen recently, the practice of ignoring embargoes has been catching on, as TechCrunch recently announced they will ignore embargoes and WSJ partially adopted a no embargoes policy.

Have you ever leaked sensitive information?

Maybe don’t answer that on this blog.

A Deal.com Tech Confidential video interview with Silicon Alley Insider CEO, Henry Blodget below. Scroll to 2:00 or so to get to his take on the future of business blogging.

The gist is that pajama bloggers and traditional media are converging. As hobby blogs become more professional, traditional media are learning how to use the Internet to overcome the obsolescence of their delivery mechanism with NYT and WSJ as shining examples (although with the Wall Street Journal‘s online redesign isn’t so "shining").

He also criticizes TV as being one-way, which is rough for business viewers, who prefer to interact (like on Mad Money?). Although, with CNN’s increasing use of Twitter, that might be changing.

What’s your favorite example of MSM gone digital?

My colleague Yan’s recent post on blog commenters got me to thinking about Lithuanian politics, corruption, and corporate blogging.

Allow me to explain…

Comments, to me, are like mini letters to the editor. They empower readers and can often be more beneficial than the content on which they reflect. They drive blogging, provide it with power, and foster online conversation. They’re democracy in action!

That was my impression, at least until I worked on a political campaign in Lithuania. Tracking news about my candidates on the popular Delfi news portal, stories often received thousands of comments. I quickly learned that those comments usually come from hired goons who lambaste their targets within seconds of a story’s posting.

This was frustrating (to say the least) for high-powered politicians who tracked stories about themselves. What would you do if your competition was out there destroying your image via an unbiased news source? Would you lock yourself in your office for the rest of the day trying vainly to respond to every vile word (like a politician I knew did)?

This is not a healthy or effective solution. There are several "-bilities" to consider when responding (or not) to trolls and cases of flaming online:

• Credibility – There are websites out there that allow voting/rating on comments to varying degrees, among them, NYT, YouTube, and Digg. Until this is a widespread means of filtering out irrelevant comments, remember that comments can come from anywhere.
• Ignorability – Is bad publicity is better than no publicity? Evaluate whether responding to an incendiary attack will really quell any disputes. Sometimes ignoring can be the best policy.
• Meet up (ability) – Other times, ignoring an issue will make it worse. Consider engaging legitimate commenters, as Andrew Revkin, author of NYT blog Dot Earth recently did.
• Googleability – Fight fire with content by increasing the amount of Googleable news about yourself. From a PR perspective, this is what you should be doing anyway.

Surely, there are many more avenues to consider.

What do you do when your CEO wants to pull a Rahodeb?