Wow, I'd say "intriguing" describes that best. Seedy world.

(FYI, your dropbox link had an 'i' appended; the working link is https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6or... )

I think the interesting question is how will Brand.com get this negative story about themselves scrubbed/buried in the indexes.

(This smells oddly recursive, especially if they wrote a white paper about how successful they were ;)

"And luckily no one will remember what our employees were posting in public forums about the issue, nor our sock puppets that modded them up"

http://yro.slashdot.org/commen...

I'll let you know in a minute or two.

Going way out on the limb here...I wonder if at some point Google will consider breaking itself apart proactively.

Mainly to avoid the age-old cycle of:
1) Start up with big name VC backing
2) Work towards establishing (effective) monopoly in your segment
3) If big/important enough, users start to grumble and press increasingly covers the ramifications of too much influence in segment
4) Congress gets involved at the behest of competitor's lobbyists
5) Judicial branch gets involved
6) Spend lots of money on legal defending your market position, lose focus and become fat and lazy
7) Grow into a lumbering behemoth which loses their market position to more nimble/creative startups

Few have tried jumping from step 3 directly to creating separate companies that would most likely all still be in the growth phase (obviously a big plus for shareholders). Mainly because companies in that position are few and far between. But it's certainly possible for GOOG to become the first trillion dollar mkt cap company if investors think it's worth much more as separate entities than a single unit facing the specter of steps 4-7.

Or this is all meaningless drivel because the business units are too intertwined (core databases, no way to establish Chinese walls, etc.). Just a thought anyway.

Heh. And for folks who have a Microsoft store nearby, stop in and ask if they have any used MBAs for sale ;)

+1 Insightbait

My local McClatchy-owned news site recently went to strictly Facebook login posting. Which whittled out the obvious trolls but as a byproduct, resulted in the same set of commenters on every article.

But what's interesting is that even with their full names, pictures and even employer names showing alongside the posts, they still submit inflamatory and trollish stuff. Especially politics and religion. Like one adjuster for Allstate recently went on a rampage about an unmarried female congressional candidate. Lots of religious invective and called her son illegitimate, etc. Not a joejob either, I actually know this person tangentially and it jives with her meatspace persona.

So I suspect you're right that comments will eventually have to die to maintain revenue generating subscribers. Because no matter how they try to reign in the trolls, there's always a constant flow of average joes who really haven't figured out the implications of exposing yourself through social media. And most likely never will until it hits home (i.e. getting fired).