• by Sarah Mahoney , January 3, 2007

Depending on your definition of an Internet uproar (is it five angry posts? Or 500?), there are some pretty upset consumers out there in the blogosphere.

Some are mad that Microsoft gave some bloggers fancy laptops, preloaded with its new Vista software, potentially persuading them to review Vista more positively. And some are mad that companies keep dreaming up flogs (fake blogs), deceiving innocent shoppers.

If you doubt the level of vitriol, consider that the award for the "Floggies," a contest recently organized by www.consumerist.com, is a statue of golden feces. (At last count, Sony is winning by a landslide for its faux-hip-hop "All I Want for Christmas is a PSP" debacle, followed by Wal-Mart, with McDonald's a distant third. Vote here.)

While it seems like the smart money would avoid marketing efforts that heap such scorn, loathing and derision on the mothership, there may be something to be said for such ultra-aggressive blog efforts.

Compete, a predictive analytics company based in Boston, estimates that for every negative message people encounter about Wal-Mart in the blogosphere (on such sites as wakeupwalmart.com), they are likely to encounter 4.5 "sunshine" ones, thanks to walmartfacts.com.

"Credit is due to Wal-Mart for identifying that the Internet is a powerful conversation agent, and that the conversation certainly isn't happening at Wal-Mart.com," says T.J. Mahony, managing director of Compete's Consumer Services. "By directing people to the Wal-Mart facts site, they're making lemonade out of lemons. Walmartfacts.com is very biased, but at least people are seeing Wal-Mart's side of the story."

But with blogging still in its (relative) infancy, figuring out how to get in on the bloggers' conversation isn't easy. In launching an aggressive holiday online shopping initiative, Sears hired grassroots-marketing agency M80, owned by WPP Group, to get the bloggerati talking, offering bloggers a $30 gift card to review the Sears shopping site and upgraded shopping cart.

"Sears is being very proactive in the emerging media space," said Jeff Semones, M80's president. Reaching out to shopping influentials who blog about their retail experiences, online and otherwise, just makes sense. "Bloggers are journalists and should be treated as such," he said, some with a much bigger audience than many newspapers. "And we encourage recipients to transparently display the message that we've given them the gift card so that they can use it as part of their review."

To some, that's no different than a book publisher, for example, mailing out free review copies -- standard practice at virtually every media outlet.

But some argue that bloggers are inherently different than journalists, who presumably follow clear rules about what gifts they may or may not accept in the course of pursuing a story.

"People go to bloggers because they believe they are honest," says Mahony. "They think they are average people, having the average shopping experience, not insiders. And while people understand that journalists have access to free samples, they don't expect that from bloggers." If people were really aware that a blogger had received a $30 gift card to Sears, for example, "they would shut off their eyes and ears. If people think a blogger has an ulterior motive, the conversation stops immediately."