Blogs and Libel - or Damn, NKK!

• The dotcom mentality is back. How this company got money is beyond me, but does say that VC funding follows a me-too pattern.
  
  Here's the pitch that they must have used: It's like LinkedIn and SoFlow - or Friendster for business - with a little bit of Epinions thrown in, for cash for contacts.
  
  I will give the PR firm its credit - it's getting press for this future dotcom tombstone.

• You can't keep a good woman down. Leslee Dart returns with The Dart Group - good name - after unceremoniously dumped at PMK.

• What happened to Wired? For years, technology buffs (and, well, PR people) could look to Wired Magazine as a cutting-edge source of breaking tech news. I don't know if it was the acquisition by Conde Nast that took away their edge, or just the dot-com implosion, but now they seem to be 3 months behind.
  
  Case in point: Blogs may be a wealth hazard. A story on people who have lost their jobs because of their blogs, and the implications. Their analysis: get better employee blog guidelines, which may just be an extension of existing employee guidelines.
  
  My feeling - corporations are in their rights to fire bloggers for leaking sensitive information, and this will become a greater nightmare for companies.

• Why it's never a good idea to personalize a corporation. As we are entering another dotcom era, it's important to look back at the last era and learn from PRs many, many mistakes.
  
  One such mistake was doing personality PR instead of product PR. Why do PR people play the personality PR game? Well, many CEOs and founders of companies like to see themselves in print - it's an ego thing. Plus, personality PR (if it's a dynamic personality) is easier to do than corporate PR.
  
  But, the problem is well highlighted by the former CEO and founder of Fresh Direct suing ... Fresh Direct.
  
  Here's a little lesson from dotcom history: it's never good to do personality PR in a start-up because those personalities tend to disappear. Then, you're left with a face for a company that is no longer there - and who could, potentially, start badmouthing the old company. It's harder to do product and corporate PR, but there's a much better ROI for it.