Mena Trott jus gave an opening speech at the second day of the Les Blogs conference in Paris that ignited a heated discussion. She mentioned a case where famous blogger (and Yahoo! employee) Jeremy Zawodny wrote a post on a PR firm, Krause Taylor Associates. He accusses them of spamming him, but deep down in the comments he sort of admits being wrong about that. The problem for Krause Taylor Associates is not over however. If you Google them, hit number 2 is about the 'spam-incident'. The result is they're tainted because Google says this is the second most relevant piece of information publicly available on the web about Krause Taylor Associates. Most people Googling the firm will not read all the way down to Jeremy's 'apology' however.
Most present at Les Blogs agree this is a problem. But how do we solve this? Try to influence blogger behavior? Not likely to work well, but most speakers seem to be looking for a 'cultural' solution. But wouldn't it be great if there was a solution (facilitated by technology) that allows us, as a collective, to decrease the relevance of something that is wrong, assuming the wrong is undisputed by the ones who should/could know? Some sort of reputation management system may be? Should/could search engines present search results differently?
Yme - interesting idea, but the obvious question is: what is truth? If most people believe something about you, does that make it true? I'm not saying such a system couldn't work, but this is the same problem that Wikipedia is facing - should you always believe the majority opinion?
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