Modernista! vs Wikipedia. When smart-ass upstart takes on stuffy upstart

As I am increasingly tired of Wikipedian onanists purists deletionists, I was amused to hear of Modernista!'s idea of creating their own Wikipedia entry, then using it as their website. Smart, funny and oh-so-totally against Wikipedia's rules about companies editing their own entries. For good measure, the rest of Modernista!'s "site" is their newz link to Google News and their Facebook entry.

Update: the Wikipedians pulled it down.

Technorati : modernista!, rule-breaking, wikipedia
Del.icio.us : modernista, rule-breaking, wikipedia

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 12:21am in Advertising, Advertising & PR, Humor, Social Media | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (7) | TrackBack (0)

Debbie Weil. Alliconnect, astroturfing and the ethics of PR people... observations

The Debbie Weil - alliconnect - astroturfing flare-up grew a little too personal for my taste, so I am mostly happy to see the thing fade away.

And it never should have flared up at all.... Debbie Weil just didn't know any better.

See, what surprised me from the start was Weil's defense of her invitation to astroturf:

"There's nothing underhanded about the email I sent, as I posted the same request publicly on my blog. And I didn't send it to a list of "prominent PR bloggers." Just a list of folks I know. It's not that big a deal. Bloggers - corporate and otherwise - use the backchannel of email all the time to communicate with one another."

What kind of explanation is that? How she sent the invitation is, of course, irrelevant.

But in reading the posts of those who criticized her effort and those of her (few) defenders, I suddenly realized what was up. Debbie Weil doesn't know astroturfing is wrong -- she doesn't work in PR or corporate communication, and doesn't realize astroturfing is a huge breach of ethics. And, pretty much down the line, her defenders are outside the communication profession and her critics are in it.

Now, I know the general public ranks PR professionals fairly low, somewhere around lawyers and CEOs, but 99.9% of the PR professionals I've met take their ethics codes (PRSA's, for example, or IABC's) very seriously. Astroturfing is something we just don't do (and some are working actively against it), and we damned sure aren't shy about calling people on it when we catch them at it. But that works only if the other person should know better.

Debbie Weil just doesn't. Well, that's alright then! Isn't it?

Update: she should have gone to buyblogcomments.com.

Technorati : alli, astroturfing, debbie weil. alliconnect, pr ethics

Posted by Allan Jenkins at 04:35pm in Advertising & PR, Communication, Ethics, Pharmaceutical Industry, PRSA, Public Relations | Permalink | Comments Welcome! (6)