The story of the day is definitely about Path (a CrunchFund portfolio company). The company has been copying address book information to their servers without user knowledge.

The company was apparently already aware of the issue and was taking steps to address it prior to this post coming out. The Android app has an opt-in, and a version of the app with an opt-in is awaiting approval at Apple, says CEO Dave Morin in the comments to the original post. Morin has also flat out apologized.

What is most interesting though is that the CEO of Path, Dave Morin, issued his apology via the Path blog. The title is “We are sorry.” and it goes something like this

We made a mistake. Over the last couple of days users brought to light an issue concerning how we handle your personal information on Path, specifically the transmission and storage of your phone contacts.

As our mission is to build the world’s first personal network, a trusted place for you to journal and share life with close friends and family, we take the storage and transmission of your personal information very, very seriously.

Where else have we seen a young social network play fast and loose with the data that is their users then turn around and have to apologize? Hmmmmmmm, let me see. Wait, isn’t their one CEO that has said he is sorry so many times that anyone who is a thinking human being doesn’t believe him anymore? Oh yeah, that’s right! Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. He’s practicaly turned apologizing to his users into a cottage industry.

Back in November of 2011 as Zuckerberg took to the Interwebz to discuss the smackdown that Facebook received from the feds about their privacy faux pas. Liz Gannes of All Things Digital did what was in essence a “Zuckerberg’s Greatest Apologies” retrospective in a post in which she led with

At this point, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pattern on privacy is clear. Launch new stuff that pushes the boundaries of what people consider comfortable. Apologize and assure users that they control their information, but rarely pull back entirely, and usually reintroduce similar features at a later date when people seem more ready for it.

And followed up with

Most of all, Zuckerberg seems to take pride in offering an explicit, earnest apology, but doesn’t actually admit he was wrong, just that he’s sorry for how things were rolled out or perceived.

What followed was the determination that of the 25 posts that Zuckerberg made on the Facebook blog to that point, 10 were apologies. It’s pretty comical quite honestly.

Now we have Path’s CEO Morin. Our hope is that this is not the first of many public mea culpas that serve to soothe the nerves of those who, for the time being, are focusing on Path’s mistake. One would like to think that Path will now walk down the straight and narrow path itself with regard to how it treats its users. All things considered though, Zuckerberg has already shown the way in that you can screw up numerous times and get away with a lot of shenanigans if you just play nice and apologize in an “aw, shucks” kind of way. Considering this established pattern and the likes of Arrington pushing some buttons at Path I bet this won’t be the last time they push the boundaries of Internet courtesy and good taste.

At least it appears that Morin is willing to up the ante regarding how to apologize. He actually says that Path was wrong.

Through the feedback we’ve received from all of you, we now understand that the way we had designed our ‘Add Friends’ feature was wrong. We are deeply sorry if you were uncomfortable with how our application used your phone contacts.

Nice job, Dave but there is a problem. Now that you have established that your company is willing to walk in the footsteps of Facebook you have given all of us every reason to be suspicious of how you move forward with Path’s development as it relates to privacy and data protection. We have been burned enough by Zuck and Co. that the “Get Out of Privacy Screw-up Jail Free” cards are all used up. You are now on the clock and everyone is watching what will happen in the future.

Just be aware that if you try to test these waters again your hopes of becoming something that might challenge Facebook or at least take some of its share could be dashed to bits on the rocky waters of Internet privacy.

Was that over the top? I’m sorry.

The reality is that most people (those outside of the Internet over-saturated, Silicon Valley types whose level of disconnect from reality can be startling) don’t understand what they are doing when they post things online. And apparently, at least with Facebook, “deleting” a picture isn’t what it might seem either.

According to Ars Technica

Facebook is still working on deleting photos from its servers in a timely manner nearly three years after Ars first brought attention to the topic. The company admitted on Friday that its older systems for storing uploaded content “did not always delete images from content delivery networks in a reasonable period of time even though they were immediately removed from the site,” but said it’s currently finishing up a newer system that makes the process much quicker. In the meantime, photos that users thought they “deleted” from the social network months or even years ago remain accessible via direct link.

I suggest you read the Ars article. The devil, as always, is in the details. Even down to the attempt by Facebook to delete referenced photos after they are called to the mat on the issue yet other photos still remain. It shows that there are serious gaps and issues and Facebook knows it.

We all need to be careful what we think we are “accomplishing” when we supposedly delete things from the online world that, in actuality, live on for years and years. It’s obvious that Facebook isn’t concerned about your need to remove data from the total ecosystem that is fed by Facebook. Let’s face it. Facebook is huge in terms of the data they have. They don’t have the capability to truly serve users with regard to their personal data needs and, since they are dependent on that data for their billions of dollars, they are not compelled to be service oriented.

Add to that the general public is ignorant to how all of this stuff works then Facebook can usually get a free pass on this stuff and boy do they take advantage of it.

I know that many of our readers will not be surprised by this kind of thing. We’ll act like “Oh that’s just the way it is”. I will admit, however, that when I read that Ars article and realized that in this instance there is at least a three year lag in truly removing photos that were fed into the Facebook ecosystem, I was a bit surprised. 30 days, 90 days maybe even 6 months is a time period that might be deemed acceptable but three years?

It will be a collection of things like this and other realizations about just how Facebook treats user data that could ultimately be their Achilles heel. As people get smarter they may get less forgiving. I’m not there yet because I try to be cautious about what I post to begin with. In general, you can prevent these “troubles” by exercising some common sense and restraint. Most folks aren’t thinking about the big picture, though, when they post things to Facebook. They are worried about being cool and entertaining their friends. They are not wondering about their reputation. Too bad. Get ready for some rocky rides as the Internet becomes less of a mystery and people see what they are actually doing to themselves. At that point, what will being social online look like?

Your thoughts?

The first part is available right now (it’s free) and right off the bat you’ll find this little gem.

Comparing social media to high school isn’t an original concept, but I do like the way they’ve phrased it. It’s funny. It’s all true and it explains why social media is such a fickle beast.

Here’s another gem:

40% of social networkers log on
to a social site before they get
dressed in the morning.

No wonder General Mills is so set on making cereal boxes digitally interactive.

The report goes on to explain the history of social media, which is fun and fascinating. You should read it if you have a few minutes to spare, but I’m going to jump down to the next part, the forces that shape the web.

First off, we see that social media development works in a loop. Sometimes apps create behaviors and sometimes behaviors create apps. Facebookers write their location in the posts, so Facebook makes location a post option. Twitter takes microblogging to the next level, now everybody Tweets.

This two-way street is an important concept. Look at how your customers are using your tools and social pages then tweak where needed. The study talks about two large chains that have Facebook pages just for their most popular products. Doesn’t matter if you sell all types of clothing and accessories, if a large portion of your customers are coming for the shoes, make a page for the shoes.

All of this is meant to get customers to engage and have a good feeling about a brand. Now how about this fact:

60% – 65% of social networkers are more likely to buy your product if you answer their Twitter questions.

Funny how far you can get with a small amount of recognition.

Other important factors, simplicity and personalization. Social networkers want relevant content and they want to be able to act on that content in one or two steps.

Marketing Pilgrim’s Social Channel is proudly sponsored by Full Sail University, where you can earn your Masters of Science Degree in Internet Marketing in less than 2 years. Visit FullSail.edu for more information.

Think of the social web as a huge, high school lunchroom. People come in and they want to sit where they feel the most comfortable. Some will choose the cool table, others hang with the jocks and for many, the geek table is the place to be.

Which table are you? And more importantly, is that the table your customers would want to sit at? You don’t have to be the most popular, you just have to be the best fit for your crowd.

You can read the full report for free when you click this link: Untangling the Social Web Part 1

Numbers reflecting user participation on social sites were issued recently, stirring the interest of marketers and brands leveraging popular sites like Facebook and Twitter. Out of 2,000 U.S. web users asked, an astounding 85% had Facebook accounts. About three-quarters of the population use the social platform daily, and over half of those asked have at least a hundred friends. Wow, the opportunity to engage markets is there.

The Consumers Have Arrived, Where’s the Businesses?

Further research showcased what consumers do with brand-produced media. It seems consumers are more than happy to share videos, mention companies in updates, read brand-produced editorial, “like” businesses, “retweet” posts, and interact with brands in other ways. So, consumers will interact but will brave brands?

I tease the reluctance of some small businesses by using the word, “brave.” Some brands are hesitant to engage in real time platforms, which behold opportunity for consumers to state both positive and negative sentiments. However, the research shows most of those who do comment, provide positive comments and those who make negative comments, do it less often and don’t participate as much, creating reason for small brands to shed reluctance.

Social Media Influences SEO

The main title refers to a reputation’s influence on search. In most cases, each brand needs to chase highly-competitive keywords aligned to its respective industry. Social media optimization (SMO) supplements search engine optimization, and when done well, could help lessen the importance of chasing competitive, SEO-campaign, search terms, sought by many if not all vendors in most industries.

Reconsider Marketing Dollars

Marketing research reflects interesting data regarding “desired” information. A significant 80% of consumers, partaking in social media platforms, desire information related to discounts and coupons. If a high number of people use social sites, are willing to share brand information, and mostly desire info related to discounts and promotions, perhaps it’s a good idea for some companies to reconsider how marketing dollars are spent.

As mentioned, every small brand needs to chase competitive, broad keywords, investing a lot of dollars in the process. Marketing data illuminates a different avenue of opportunity for small brands, one leading to social media engagement. Would it make more sense for your brand to begin shifting its online marketing campaign’s focus, placing more emphasis on social participation and building reputation, while placing less focus and dollars into chasing hard-line, competitive search terms? For instance, shifting more resources and money away from chasing those golden terms, reserving them for social-platform-launched promotions and sales, could produce more “bang” for a small-brand-sized budget.

Conclusion

I’m not diluting the importance of obviously popular, user-leveraged search terms aligned to a brand’s respective industry, but suggesting some small brands survey the landscape of their industry and behavior of its target markets, especially regarding social site participation. While you’re pulling your hair out, trying to secure rankings for those golden terms, you could also be building your brand’s reputation, creating numerous consumer-to-brand avenues through social engagement.

Sources: AYTM and SEJ.

The views and opinions expressed in this post are not necessarily those of Marketing Pilgrim.

Todd Bailey is Vice President of Digital Strategy at WebiMax, a leading SEO company with 500+ clients and 150+ employees as well as Lead Contributor at SEOservices.com

As online marketers, we celebrate the application of SEO. Quality, search engine optimization tactics help align a brand’s Web pages with particular keywords and phrases. However, the steady process takes time to solidify. A brand may benefit, perhaps reaching some goals more quickly, by engaging in other areas of online marketing. SEO unites user queries with a brand; a diligent brand executive can do the same. Consider the following ways to accelerateyour brand and online reputation.

Blog

We know focused, on-topic blogging helps search engine optimization efforts but it also enhances exposure and reputation. Many clients celebrate SEO for its organic origins, which impact consumer perception; if a brand is on the first page of the SERPs, it’s likely to positively influence consumer views about the brand. Blogging about your industry expresses devotion and also influences perception. It may require putting in extra hours per week, but the positive reputation of a passionate, knowledgeable blogger nicely supplements, and in some cases precedes, SEO results.

More Blogging

Consider devoting your time to other, industry-related blogs. Consumers go to multiple sources for information. Who knows your industry better than you? Are you sharing your knowledge? Relay information toconsumers from as many reputable industry platforms as possible. Doing so increases exposure and reflects the passion of the writer. Additionally, with the recent buzz related to Google+ and author stats, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more brand executives becoming regular authors in the near future.

Conferences

The search engine optimization industry presents many speaking opportunities. What is the landscape like in your respective industry? Have you thought about guest speaking at an upcoming conference? Speaking at conferences solidifies good reputation, affecting the views of industry cohorts and consumers. In addition, speakers have the ability to ride the marketing coattails of their respective conferences. Don’t be surprised to find your speaking segment securing a lot more exposure and opportunities for your brand.

Interviewer/ee

In addition to textual information, many consumers leverage audio and video files for education. Have you considered interviewing an industry source or being interviewed yourself? Blogs and media sources constantly seek professional input. Be proactive. Request the insight of others, seeking external interview sources. Also, make it know you are available for comparable interviews.

Conclusion

Search engine optimization means more than traditional SEO practices within today’s online world. A bevy of online tools and opportunities await savvy, aware individuals, looking to offer their personality and insight to online consumers. In many cases, executives rely on external marketing to produce results; yet, many don’t realize the in-house marketing tools they already possess – the potential to use in-house insight to fuel personal and brand reputation.

Todd Bailey is Vice President of Digital Strategy at WebiMax, a leading SEO company with 500+ clients and 150+ employees as well as Lead Contributor at SEOservices.com

Here are the Top 10

1. Amazon.com
2. L.L.Bean
3. Zappos
4. Overstock.com
5. QVC
6. Kohl’s Department Stores
7. Lands’ End
8. JCPenney
9. Newegg
10. Nordstrom

This is a pretty interesting list in that many of the largest online players appear to be doing a god job of making sure their lifeblood, the customer, is being served well. I know personally that while I have not done business with all of these businesses if they are anywhere near as good as Amazon is with their customer service then they are doing something special.

This video from the NRFF is an interesting watch.

The question you have to ask is how would Zappos position in this survey change based on recent events? Did they handle it well enough to keep tier 3rd place position? Were any of those 9,300 participants in the voting part of the 24 million accounts that Zappos asked people to change their passwords for?

Online reputation is a delicate thing for sure. It can be solid one day and completely tarnished the next. The speed at which brands get hurt badly based on customer experience is accelerated to a pace that most businesses are not ready for. Are you ready?

That may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but let’s run with it for a moment.

The statement comes from a new Weber Shandwick report called “The Company behind the Brand: In Reputation We Trust.” The report is focused on big companies with multiple brands, but the information is just as relevant for the small business owner.

The overall concept is that folks are getting pickier about where they spend their money. A great product won’t woo them, if the company behind the product can’t be trusted.

Trust means different things on different levels. For big corporations, it might mean a company that is concerned about the environment, cares about its customers and makes good when a product goes bad.

On a smaller scale, it might mean a small business who gives back to the community by investing in a local school. It might be an online company with an easy and liberal return policy. Or a business that puts quality over quantity.

Can We Talk

How does a business get a good reputation? It’s all word of mouth. 88% say that’s how they form an opinion about a company. 83% said they were influenced by online reviews and 81% said by online search results (not sure about that one.)

When asked what they talk about in regard to companies, 69% say the conversation begins at product level.

As you can see from this chart, they also discuss environmental issues, community involvement and customer service. Let me emphasis that last one. CUSTOMER SERVICE.

This is my number one reason for mentioning a company on social media, poor or exceptionally good customer service. And I bet you can guess which one of those two I post more often.

The long and short of it is this: it’s not enough to have a good product. You have to have a good reputation in order to sell that product. Whether you’re selling physical goods, virtual goods, a service or a meal, how the public perceives your company can make or break you.

What are people saying about your company? Run a Google search, check review sites and social media. It’s scary, I know but it’s better to find out now then wonder what happened when you come up short at the end of the year.

Click here to read the full “The Company behind the Brand: In Reputation We Trust” report.

Earlier we talked about the security breach at Zappos that exposed millions of Zappos customers account information (supposedly not credit card info but time will tell). As Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh put it

“We’ve spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers,” Mr. Hsieh said. “It’s painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident.”

All of the goodwill, all of the relationships, all of the sales and essentially, all of the hard work of Zappos has been put at risk (I am not saying it has been lost by any stretch so please relax) and why? Not becasue of a rogue employee’s tweet. Not because of some social media miscue but rather to one of the most fundamental yet arguably most overlooked threat to business in the Internet era: good old fashioned online security.

This is nothing new. Heck, business espionage and sabotage has existed long before the Internet came along. It just never got the attention it does now because it now has the potential to impact business function like never before. All that said and we still focus on social this and social that. Interesting and extremely risky.

It looks like 2012 is off to a rollicking start in terms of security news. How about this one from the SFGate.com about the City College of San Francisco that has been leaking vital information from poorly designed and maintained systems since, gulp, 1999. That is not a typo folks.

Personal banking information and other data from perhaps tens of thousands of students, faculty and administrators at City College of San Francisco have been stolen in what is being called “an infestation” of computer viruses with origins in criminal networks in Russia, China and other countries, The Chronicle has learned.

At work for more than a decade, the viruses were detected a few days after Thanksgiving, when the college’s data security monitoring service detected an unusual pattern of computer traffic, flagging trouble.

Really? REALLY?!

Now comes the good news that a hacker is set to release the full code of Norton Antivirus tomorrow! According to Reuters

A hacker who goes by the name of ‘Yama Tough’ threatened Saturday to release next week the full source code for Symantec Corp’s flagship Norton Antivirus software.

“This coming Tuesday behold the full Norton Antivirus 1,7Gb src, the rest will follow,” Yama Tough posted via Twitter.

In the past week Yama Tough has released fragments of source code from Symantec products along with a cache of emails. The hacker says all the data was taken from Indian government servers.

So what’s the point here to marketers and businesses in general? Lock the freakin’ doors before you decide to get all social on everyone! It seems inconceivable that this far into the Internet game that large players are still as vulnerable as anyone else to being hacked and all of that data that is being collected for business reasons can be taken for reasons that are for business but not on the right side of the law.

Just imagine if this Zappos “problem” takes a turn for the worse and it is revealed that something bigger happened that included financial information etc etc. I AM NOT SAYING THAT IT HAS! Just imagine that if it goes that way what would be the impact on one of the most highly respected online brands on the planet? It could be devastating.

So my question is to all the other businesses that are not Zappos but still like to have their customers’ trust, are you doing what you need to in order to protect the data that you so badly want to acquire?

How about this for a thought. Want to ruin the largest IPO in a while? Just find a way to get to all the data that Mark Zuckerberg has on all of us. Would people put money in a company wants all the world’s data but can’t protect it?

Don’t think online security is sexy enough for your attention? Think again.

Well, as is usually the case in business and in life, it looks easy when everything is flying along just fine but when something goes terribly wrong that is the real measure of a company or organization. Today it is Zappos turn to be tested. The company’s systems were compromised over the weekend and according to TechCrunch

It appears that Zappos was the victim of a cyber attack today from a hacker who gained access to the company’s internal network through the company’s servers in Kentucky. While specifics of the attack were not revealed, Zappos says that credit card and payments data were not accessed or affected by the criminal.

So now the online world sits back and watches to see just how this model organization handles this incident that can certainly dent the supposed ironclad fortress that is Zappos. Of course, if you are held up as an example that is also likely to paint a rather large bullseye on your operation for someone who simply likes to tear people down so maybe that’s all this is. Or is it? Whatever the reason or the implications moving forward Zappos has put itself into gear to put Humpty Dumpty together again.

CEO Tony Hsieh writes to employees, The most important focus for us right now is the safety and security of our customers’ information. Within the next hour, we will begin the process of notifying the 24+ million customer accounts in our database about the incident and help step them through the process of choosing a new password for their accounts. (We’ve already reset and expired their existing passwords.)

So far so good. Informing employees (on a holiday weekend no less) and telling them exactly what the mission is in this instance: protect the customer.

Zappos has made an “all hands” call and has worked to get information to their customers. The post continues

Affected Zappos users simply need to reset their passwords and create a new password, Hsieh explains. In Zappos’ signature quality customer service style, the company has already created a detailed page for any affected users to find out more information. And Hsieh says that in order to service as many customer inquiries as possible, all employees at Zappos’ headquarters, regardless of department, will be asked to help with assisting customers who have questions about the attack.

From the email sent to affected users: We are writing to let you know that there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com, including one or more of the following: your name, e-mail address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of your credit card number (the standard information you find on receipts), and/or your cryptographically scrambled password (but not your actual password).

The New York Times points out an interesting twist in all of this.

Mr. Hsieh said the company made the “hard decision” to temporarily shut off its phones, directing customers to correspond by e-mail because the phone systems “simply aren’t capable” of handling the expected volume of inquiries.

“We’ve spent over 12 years building our reputation, brand, and trust with our customers,” Mr. Hsieh said. “It’s painful to see us take so many steps back due to a single incident.”

Painful indeed. This move to shut down the phones makes technological sense (I guess since I am no expert in that stuff) but it certainly will look bad to many if they cannot simply get a human being on the phone and talk about what they need to do. This seems to be a bit of a weak spot in what appears to be a rather strong handling of a messy situation.

But let’s not be too quick to hand out the reputation accolades. I went to their web site and found no obvious mention of the problem. They are probably just as interested in not scaring off new customers as they are in helping existing ones. There is no blog post but there is a highlighted “Create a New Password” area in the main navigation. not exactly helpful.

And when you call the customer support line which they make look like it is live under the help section of the site you get a recorded message apologizing for no phone support but please e-mail the company. It’s kind of approach that says “We have a problem but let’s not get too crazy about saying exactly what it is”.

There are no simple solutions in reputation threatening situations like this one. How do you think Zappos is doing so far?

The long and short of the story is that a Papa John’s employee in NYC was stupid enough to use a racial slur to describe a customer. It’s not like they just said something either. Rather this employee (who has since been fired) decided to immortalize their ignorance by adding the customer description to a field that appears on the customer receipt. Boy, if there wasn’t morons out there like this we may not have anything to write about, would we?!

Here is the receipt from a CNN story about Papa John’s apology.

So how do you compound a dumb thing? Do it to someone like Minhee Cho who is a communications manager at nonprofit investigative journalism group ProPublica. Yikes! The plot thickens.

Then throw in a little more salt on the Papa John’s reputation wound in that this happens during a time when the chain is doing a huge advertising push as the official pizza of the Super Bowl and you have a reputation and general business perfect storm.

Now here is where I have to start to ask questions like is it really the fault of Papa John’s, the company, that this happened? I get that it was their employee but can you screen for racism when hiring? Can you really screen for poor taste, stupidity and just plain dumb? In the sense of can a person add or subtract you certainly can but when it comes to issues like this it gets very difficult to find out about a person in these areas in the hiring process. Imagine the questions companies would have to ask and the lawsuits that would be the result of trying to know the truth about your next hire?

The trouble with the viral nature of the Internet and most people’s unwillingness to look beyond a headline is that while Papa John’s has done what it can here (apologized to Ms. Cho and apparently fired the employee) people will paint the company as being insensitive when it was really an individual who happened to be employed by Papa John’s at the time who is at fault. Right now, Domino’s, McDonald’s, Burger King and more are counting their blessings that this person didn’t try to get a job with them. Why? Because they would have likely hired them just like Papa John’s did!

The world is filled with pathological liars and subversives who can do what they need to to get what they want, even if it is just get a job at Papa John’s. The online reputation landmine that exists for all companies is that it is usually far too late in the process when you learn someone’s true colors and the level of their depravity. Honestly, though, I can’t fault the company unless there is a culture of this kind of thinking which is hard to imagine in this day and age. It’s more of a societal issue but that’s for another post on another day.

As for avoiding this? I don’t think you can. Until people are conscientious enough to look past the headline nature of a reputation issue the best a company can do is to make sure it has stern and very intense policies about breaches of good taste and conduct in their employees. Even if you have employees sign some kind of paper saying they won’t do certain things that will not stop those things from happening. What it may do is lessen the impact after the stupid human trick was performed but to prevent things like this from happening at all? Ain’t gonna happen.

So what is your company doing to lessen the impact of what seems to be the inevitable in the social media world? Do you really believe that all of your current employees are incapable of doing something as crass and idiotic as this? I sure hope not because that means that the fantasy land you live in is so far removed from reality that you don’t stand a chance.

So in the end was Papa John’s REALLY at fault here? Could they REALLY have done ANYTHING to prevent this? Let’s hear your take? I bet there are more than a few opinions about this one!

Forbes has just released their list of brands they expect to make a comeback in 2012. Let’s take a look and see if you agree.

The Muppets

This one is a no-brainer, since they’re already on the upswing. Back in November, The Muppets released a new movie which, ironically, was all about them making a comeback. Since then, Kermit and friends have been popping up everywhere, reigniting original fans and bringing in a new, teen audience.

Why have The Muppets endured? Because they’re the embodiment of hope and happiness and who doesn’t love a pig in highheels. I expect we’ll see more of them in 2012.

Fiat

The European car company made a huge comeback when they hitched their cute, Italian, compact wagon to a star — Jennifer Lopez. The TV ads are a little strange. They feature a smug and satisfied JLo driving her sporty car through a depressed but peppy, urban area. While the ad gives off a “happy to return to my roots” vibe, it really comes off like Jenny from the block showing the world how she’s left this grungy world behind.

Forbes says Fiat “lucked” in a boost when JLo hit the news with her divorce and the return of American Idol won’t hurt either.

The Three Stooges

Here’s another brand that has never really gone away but is poised for a resurgence. Larry, Moe and Curly are returning to the big screen this spring in the form of Sean Hayes, Chris Diamantopoulos and Will Sasso. This isn’t a bio pic. It’s more like The Blues Brothers and even if it tanks, it will bring a lot of eyeballs back to the original shorts. Forbes expects to see licensing deals pop up around the movie. As one of the rare, female, Three Stooges fans, I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Netflix

It seems odd to be talking comeback in regard to a brand that is less than fifteen years old. After a disastrous 2011, the online service only has two choices, reinvent or shut down. Will customers forgive them their past transgressions in order to keep the supply of movies coming? Probably, since despite Blockbuster’s attempts, Netflix still has no real competition in the space.

The company is also branching out this year with their own original programing. It begins with Kevin Spacey’s House of Cards and Steven Van Zandt’s Lillyhammer. Netflix will also pick up unaired episodes of Arrested Development. This idea really excites me. Netflix is the perfect place for all those TV shows that never got to finish their run on TV. The episodes are in the can, so why not air them.

Yes, I think Netflix will not only survive, they’ll thrive in 2012.

And More. . .

Others on the Forbes comeback list include Madonna, Polaroid and Rosie O’Donnell. I have one to add. The Munsters. Bryan Fuller, who gave us Pushing Daisies, is currently working on a reboot for NBC. The series, about a family of monsters who live like average Americans has been revived a number of times and is always a Halloween favorite. Even people who have never seen the original series, recognize the iconic look of the lead characters. It’s a franchise that could make a huge comeback if Fuller can find that balance between pleasing the original fans, while drawing in the new.

Balance is key, when it comes to revitalizing a popular brand. Consumers need to see the elements they loved in the first go round, but with a fresh spin. Not an easy task but it’s big money to anyone who can make it work.

What brand do you think will make the biggest comeback in 2012?

It all began when GoDaddy announced that they were supporting the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA. The act calls for a block on any domain that allows the posting of materials protected by copyright. Sounds reasonable, until you realize that Facebook could be blocked if someone posts a celebrity photo that is owned by one of the big licensers like Getty.

GoDaddy initially said they were behind SOPA and instantly, thousands began pulling their domains away from the company. Some went so far as to put up a boycott GoDaddy site and declare December 29, “Leave GoDaddy Day.”

On December 23, GoDaddy backpedaled some, saying they weren’t “for” SOPA (but they didn’t say they were against it) and the exodus continued. The estimate count for today? Over 70,000 domains have been pulled from the registrar.

Now, competitor NameCheap is accusing GoDaddy of intentionally blocking the transfer of domain names. Yeah, it’s getting ugly.

There have even been reports of GoDaddy reps calling domain holders, asking them to reconsider. Doesn’t sound like that tactic is working either.

So what now? Should GoDaddy continue to try and talk its way out of this mess? That didn’t work too well for Netflix. Should they just sit back and wait for it to blow over? Or is it time to bring out the big guns – aka MONEY. How many boycotters would happily rethink their priorities if GoDaddy offered them a big discount on their services?

The odd thing to me, is how many of these cases we’ve seen just this year. It seems like every brand is at the mercy of a single misstep and that’s scary. Companies are run by people, people make mistakes. Thanks to the internet, those mistakes are broadcast all over the world within seconds and an organized opposition can pop up within the hour.

Do these boycotts even help? Did Netflix customers get what they want? Did BestBuy customers get their TVs for Christmas? No.

So how do you suppose this boycott will turn out?

Well, it turns out that the FedEx video–which now has over 2.6 million views–is legit.

In fact, FedEx has apologized and apparently resolved the issue. Though, unless you went digging around, you wouldn’t know that.

You see aside from these few tweets…

…FedEx doesn’t appear to have taken the issue seriously enough to warrant much of an official apology.

No Facebook update.

No YouTube video response.

No press release.

Not even a blog post. Update: There’s now a blog post.

Now, you could argue that the incident is minor and doesn’t warrant a concerted response. However, considering the story has gone global AND viral, you have to question why FedEx is not working harder to protect its reputation.

Did your jaw drop? Mine did! You can read the back story here.

The question I have for you is, how should FedEx respond to this reputation damaging incident? I’ve listed a few ideas below, but leave a comment with your thoughts.

• Fly the poor guy out to FedEx headquarters–on a FedEx plane–to receive a personal apology from the CEO and receive a new LCD TV.
• An apology from the FedEx worker responsible, perhaps with an offer to come and personally set up the new monitor.
• Bonus Idea: UPS should jump on this and send the guy a new LCD monitor, together with the message, “When It Absolutely, Positively Has to Get There….In One Piece.”

OK, over to you. What advice do you have for FedEx?

UPDATE: For those questioning, no, it’s not a hoax. Tweets from FedEx…

UPDATE 2: It appears FedEx doesn’t want to spend much effort on apologizing.

• caused homes to be trashed
• trashed their competition
• allowed customer information to be hacked
• threatened non-profits
• run distasteful Super Bowl ads

All of these warranted an apology of EPIC proportions, yet Johnson & Johnson may end up with the best public apology of the year for simply deciding to no longer produce its popular o.b. tampons line.

As the LA Times explains…

Shelves were emptied and the tampons were reportedly selling on eBay for more than $100 (a recent search found a 40-count box of Ultras on a Buy It Now for $79. Ouch). As for the reason for the disappearance, that still remains unclear; the company said it had a supply interruption but some wondered whether there might be quality control or manufacturing issues.

After such an uproar, the tampons are not only back, but J&J has come up with one of the most elaborate apologies, well, ever. The “Triple Sorry” apology comes in the form of a music video personalized to the viewer. Simply enter your name at the beginning and you’ll be treated to a whimsical, entertaining, and heartfelt, apology.

It’s worth watching, even if you are a dude.

A recent report from eMarketer tells of some research conducted that suggests that listening should only be the first step in this strategy as consumers are looking for response to their online pleas although the level of expectation of any response at all varies greatly based on age. Look at these findings from a study conducted by Maritz Research and evolve24 regarding Twitter complaints and the expectations of those who lodge them.

There are two ways to take this data and neither are very nice. First, it looks like the old adage that the older you get the whinier you get holds true. Also, people who are older probably think that people are not listening to them in general so the online space is one place where they hope they might get some attention paid to them. High expectations, however, could lead to serious disappointment.

The other side of tis is that the younger, tech savvy crowd has a cynicism or skepticism that results in thinking they just won’t be responded to. Those reasons could be many including the fact that they have low expectations in today’s business world of being treated personally (which is really sad) or they have just decided that expecting a response isn’t worth their effort either. No matter how you shake it, the expectations of response from a complaint on Twitter is not very high and that says something about the medium.

Now pay attention all of you Twitter business folks. This next bit of info should be enough to help you make sure that you are at least acknowledging these issues.

This basically says that even if you can only somewhat satisfy someone it will benefit you more than ignoring them completely. Another sorry statement about the general expectations of consumers and brands on Twitter but it could be worse.

Of the companies that are trying to be responsive to complaints and concerns voiced through social media there are certain things that are believed to be achieved through this active engagement. A study from Forrester that was commissioned by Dell shows these elements

It appears that there is a considerable amount of work to be done in this area. What might be some of the reasons for companies not fully engaging people who complain in social media? The most common ones are summed up in FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt).Many still fear social media because they are uncertain about its benefits and doubt that it isn’t more than a fad. I have heard that from actual businesses myself. I have to check to see if my ears aren’t clogged up since it seems like that wouldn’t be a very smart response in this day and age.

Looks like there is plenty of work to do then in the reputation space. What are your thoughts on this one?

It all begins with the smartphone. Ownership is up 7% over last quarter, 37% year-over-year. And since every other commercial on TV is about the iPhone, you probably think they’re leading the way for impressions, but they’re not.

Android still takes the top spot with 56% of all smartphone impressions. The MobileMix says this is due to largely to the fact that Android technology is being used by a variety of manufacturers, and more importantly, being offered at a wider variety of price points.

But Apple isn’t shedding any tears over the number two spot for impressions. They’re up 60% year-over-year and when you add in the iPad, they’re number one for connected devices.

46.7 million iPads will be sold in 2011 and that’s given them a 456% rise in impressions year-over-year.

When it comes to apps, Android is battling back with 20% growth over last quarter, giving them 49% of the market. Apple is right behind them with 41%. Gaming applications are the most popular choice accounting for 34% of all app impressions. Entertainment and mocial round out the top three. Weather apps dropped a notch in popularity, and productivity tools made the top 10 for the first time. That’s probably due to the rise in tablet use.

Where will we be at year end? Will Apple rise about Android in apps? Will iPads blow every other tablet out of the water? Will anyone still be using their phones just to call people? Stay tuned and find out.

It’s an interesting phenomenon because it had nothing to do with the death of Steve Jobs. The company just didn’t sell as many iPhones and iPads as it thought it would. What is also interesting is Apples’ long history of given ridiculously low guidance to stock analysts then turning around and crushing their numbers. Not sure what happened here though. Did Apple finally try to give accurate guidance to the Street then missed it or did they have a REALLY bad quarter in missing their already likely to be too low earnings estimates? Or did they get “done-in” by an over active and often inaccurate rumor mill?

Whatever the reasons or circumstance some are probably concerned about what lies ahead for the industry. After all, if Apple is having trouble then the rest of the world must be in the crapper. Well that’s the easy answer for sure but it’s likely not a real problem.

What? How can that be? They missed for the first time in forever etc etc. well, the most likely reason is that they are simply a victim of their own success. There is so much buzz and rumor activity around everything that the company does that it actually creates some indecision and waiting in the fan boy set. As a result they may not buy something because the buzz is that in a few short months the next “big thing” is anticipated.

Of course, that can have its drawbacks as well as we saw with the iPhone 5 no-show and the ensuing “disappointment” from many. Most Apple fanatics are probably going to wait for the iPhone 5 to appear next now that the rumor mil has churned out that Steve Jobs’ last great act for the company was making sure that his fingerprints were all over the iPhone 5.

What is most interesting though about the earnings hiccup of yesterday is how Apple has set the table with expectations of this current quarter being in the neighborhood of $40 billion in revenue which would be a new record. The iPhone 4GS has had a record breaking start as many from the iPhone 3 set are upgrading and the buzz around the Siri assistant voice recognition software has been strong.

All of this is to say that it may get more and more difficult for companies like Apple to perform in an “as expected” manner for the future. Why? Because so much hype and rumor are impacting what is really happening that the line between what is real and what is rumored has blurred beyond the point of recognition. Apple actually blamed their performance on the excessive rumor mongering. That’s saying something when they are blowing the whistle on what are many of their infamous fan boys who spread the latest and great “maybe it’s trues” about Apple.

Blogs and bloggers are trying to make their names through who can create then substantiate the biggest rumors. The trouble is that there are many more swing and misses than hits. Take the Boy Genius Report saying that Sprint would have an exclusive on the iPhone 5 when it was released. Oooops. Not only was their no exclusive but there was no iPhone 5. Two strikes in one swing but that may have kept people on the sidelines which is pathetic. The trouble is that people believe this junk and it influences purchasing decisions in an unhealthy way.

One can only hope that this rumor spreading for building one’s own brand’s sake comes to a halt as people simply stop giving these idiots their attention. The trouble is that we are at a point in the evolution of the Internet has us squarely in the middle of the Oversharing Period. People feel that they can say anything to anyone about anything it is simply true. I hope people aren’t that gullible but apparently they are. Heck, I can be so why can’t anyone else?

So this whole earnings “issue” with Apple appears to be more about the current information environment on the Internet which is a place where reputations, sales and just about anything else can be twisted and turned but reality and truth are not a requirement.

Honestly, folks, we need to be very careful about how much further we allow this to go. I say we because we are all to blame for giving these little sparks of rumors enough oxygen to turn into the flames of speculation, conjecture, lies and more. It’s not a good place to be. It’s impacting an already fragile economy to the point where the likes of Apple, who set the earnings bar so low that most Wall Streeters ignore their guidance, are missing the mark.

Let’s stop feeding it, please.

Can you believe that I now have to get permission from Frank to tell you about Trackur news. Something about integrity and transparency….

Well, after promising to disclose that I am the CEO of Trackur (as well as the publisher of Marketing Pilgrim), he agreed to let me tell you about Trackur’s big news. 

Google+ monitoring has now been added to all paid plans. Yeah, you heard that right. All paid plans! That means you can get Google+ monitoring for just $18 a month!

Like you, we have our fingers crossed that Google+ has a longer shelf-life than Google Buzz did, because it takes some work to add a new source each time.

BTW, don’t forget that you can get a year of Trackur Plus for just $1056 and get a FREE PubCon Vegas pass–worth $1699! That’s a better deal than you can get at the PubCon.com site!

Happy tracking!

Very few companies are given this kind of status. No company wants it. Ones that currently come to mind are Yahoo and Aol. You almost feel bad for pointing out their screw-ups because it feels like dog piling to a degree. You can’t seem to turn around without tripping over more bad news for both of these former heavyweights.

Now there is another member of the “WTF Could Happen Next?!” Club. That newest member would be Research in Motion of Blackberry fame. Here is a company that already was getting trashed by the tech press for not staying current and losing market share like very few one time high fliers have in history. The market for smartphones is whizzing right by them and it feels like all they can do is watch (or put out their Playbook tablet which is an argument for watching being a better move).

Then you have the London riots over this past summer and the indirect role the company played in helping those spread.

Being the texting platform of choice amongst the disenfranchised in London may have paid a few bills but it also gave some of the worst press a struggling company could have asked for which was then followed by RIM working with the authorities to catch some of the organizers of the riots. I bet that sent the riot starting crowd on a frenzied search for a new texting provider they could trust during times of severe agitation and disruption.

Next comes the news over the past few days about Blackberry’s outages that have impacted service in Europe, the Middle East, India, Africa and the US. It’s as if the company was on the ropes covering up but then they left one last opening for a final haymaker which may end up knocking them out.

Now their CEO has produced this video to try to get things back to normal, which hasn’t really been that good lately but it sure beats where they are today.

So the question begs “Is BlackBerry officially on the road to extinction?” Has this latest problem finally pushed BlackBerry fanboys to the edge to make the move to the iPhone or an Android device? Or has the company just become fodder for jokes like the one from one commenter over at Mashable?

Reputations in this day and age can’t hold up like they used to because the reaction to company shortcomings can be so swift and so intense through the online world. BlackBerry may end up being one of the early case studies in just how far and how fast a once high flier can fall if they even allow the slightest room for negativity and then stumble over their responses.

Is there anything BlackBerry can do to get itself out of this reputation mess? let us know in the comments.