The many companies who have jumped onto the blogging bandwagon there are the good the bad and the ugly, making news at the top of their agenda but sometimes, over-eagerness takes hold and everything gets all…. messy! Like the previous events that placed Symantec in the hot seat when their people released a test file that was supposed to test the anti-virus software their clients paid for. It turned out into a marketing manager for the guy who released the update forgot to attach a valid security certificate and was deemed as malware sending their paniked customers to flood their support lines and site.
On the blogging side of the issue, the company people who had corporate blog accounts announced the release of the files that were mysteriously sanitized of any mention of the bumbled process, erasing all traces of the file’s existence off the face of the planet. Nobody would have known about the whole deal if it was not read by diligent IT staff somewhere and some IT media tabloids who jumped at the chance to exact some revenge on the security software developer.
Even Microsoft has had some runnings with a run of the blogs, such as their surprising response to the UAC issues being pushed by some bloggers, their response could be compared to a child’s words blurted without much knowledge. Blogs are a wonderful tool for all companies who have a huge followwing in terms of customers, the problem is when people tend to get taken away with the freedom of the information they are releasing does not go through the marketing or PR firm who has the ability to decide which information goes out and which should be omitted.