22 August 2006 | Author: Finlay Clark

Social search spam: another PR nighmare for AOL?

For those of you who thought AOL's PR department could do with some respite following the data release scandal of earlier this month, you could be forgiven for thinking that every AOL employee might be on red alert to avoid any further negative exposure at all costs. Alas, it seems August isn't AOL's month as more discontent surfaces in social web communities about suspected efforts to manipulate stories in the growing collaborative news site Digg.com for commercial gain.

They accuse Weblogs Inc (part of AOL) of posting their own stories on Digg.com and then allegedly recruiting dozens of other employees to 'Digg' them to make them artificially popular.

The growth of Digg and the hardcore audience it attracts means that any story which makes it to the front page of Digg (on the back of being pushed forward by numerous votes) can expect to get an abundant spike of traffic from its pole position on the site. In Weblogs' defence, the actual evidence for any such gaming activity is, so far, less than watertight.

But this particular story has made even more headlines because of AOL's recently released Netscape - a Digg rival - having issued a hardline policy on banning sites for a 14 day period if they are seen to be participating in this type of gaming activity. The mere accusation that AOL is participating in this identical lobby behaviour with its biggest rival (particularly while trying to eat into its marketshare) has got the hardcore Digg following up in arms. Digg users are worried that if the site begins to get exploited by companies cheating the system with sock-puppet accounts and affiliated voting groups then the value of the site will be tarnished as it turns into an advertising test-bed, possibly endangering its long term commercial future.

So do they have a legitimate cause for concern? Well, yes and no is the safe answer to this evolving question.

Consider: should seasoned 'Diggers' digg their own blogs, are they manipulating the results? After all, a politician can vote for themselves in an election (which obviously makes sense). But were someone to set up many fake accounts and 'Digg' their own stories then most would judge that as definitely being someone setting out to cheat the system and measures should indeed be taken to crack down on it.

However, what if groups of people who are all valued members of the Digg community begin to collectively vote for their own stories? Surely if you can persuade a group of friends (fans?) to Digg your own personal stories then that is little different to what Weblogs Inc stands accused of?

So where do we draw the line? The fact is that it's a grey area right now and the fact that corporations are beginning to wade in has alerted everyone to this type of activity. The bigmouthmedia viewpoint is that it comes down to a question of scale: if a entity on the scale of AOL did this en-masse, then they will obviously skew community sites in favour of an artificial bias.

In contrast, it's equally acceptable for a savvy web user or online marketer to drum up a bit of initial buzz about an interesting story that they have an association with - this is, after all, just an online incarnation of the tried and tested skills of public relations.

It seems that PR departments and online marketers across the globe should take note of the difference or expect further 'Digg backlashes' to follow suit.

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