Forget Hackers, Worry About People Who Think You Suck
from the well,-yes,-but... dept
While there is something to be said for paying attention to people who feel you've somehow wronged them, it seems fairly odd to classify "sucks" sites as a threat alongside hackers. In fact, mi2g says "sucks" sites may be a bigger threat -- which may raise some eyebrows, considering mi2g has a reputation of coming up with ridiculously high estimates of damages whenever a new virus hits. The company might also be a bit extra upset at sites that don't like them -- as they were the ones who threatened to sue the well-respected Vmyths site for pointing out some problems with what mi2g had said publicly. While it is true that companies would be well served to keep track of what people are saying about them online (hey, Sony, listen up), the language of this announcement by mi2g seems to be taking the wrong approach. It refers to all of these sites as "hate sites" rather than (more accurately) complaint sites. People don't start sites against companies for no reason. It's usually because they feel they've been wronged. Sometimes their complaints aren't valid, but plenty of times they are. Lumping them all into the category of "hate" sites, already gets things started off on the wrong foot. Look at them as... opinionated feedback sites, and move on from there.
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Quote from the article
There's nothing wrong with opinionated feedback sites, but the corporate world often finds it difficult to accept the truth that the Internet is not like a traditional publishing/broadcast media... on the internet, your target demographic can shoot back.
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Firms should focus on engineering, not lawyers, to
As the quality of products improves, companies who fail to listen to valid complaints lose business and fail.
The customer rewards the company giving the best product i.e. best in ease of use, reliability and total cost of ownership.
The Web helps people buy wisely by providing good information quickly.
As web users are savvy and helpful, they will, and do, correct complaints when the product is fine
and the user is in error.
In one example I have seen, a user complained about a printer driver. Other users defended the product's reputation and, and wrote that the printer and the software driver were fine. The company did not have to do anything.
The internet is amazing in that it provides reliable electronic communication between computers.
In a similar way, blogs allow minor information errors to be fixed.
The analogy between the web and neural nets should not be missed.
Both function correctly in spite of minor errors.
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More on mi2g and its history
Here's an article that also includes a few links to Vmyths and other sites that have looked at this company over the years.
mi2g: Welcome to the FUD Factory
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