Seth Godin changes Squidoo ‘Brands In Public’ after criticism

Seth Godin is a much-respected blogger, social networking guru, author, and entrepreneur. However, his latest effort, ‘Brands In Public’ on Squidoo didn’t go down too well with a large part of the Internet. Mainly due to fears of brandjacking and a mild form of extortion. Thankfully, the criticism affected a change and Godin has now backed down on his plans.

It’s taken a while but companies of all sizes are now realizing the importance of branding on the Internet. The offline implications of protecting and nurturing a good brand have long been understood, but it’s even more important to do the same online in this day and age. But it isn’t easy due to the sheer number of places on the Web that a brand has to be maintained.

From Google News to the full range of social networks, and with all those disparate and unconnected forums and blogs in-between, it’s a tough job for even the largest PR department to keep track and manage online branding.

Godin thought he had the answer in a mutually beneficial venture called ‘Brands In Public’ on Squidoo. Squidoo is Godin’s Web service which, like Mahalo, Helium, and HubPages, allows users to set up topical Web pages. These Web pages are called “lenses” and can be about any subject you can think of. Revenue comes by way of advertising on each of the different lenses.

However, ‘Brands In Public’ is a way for Squidoo to make money in a more direct way. Squidoo will set up and manage a lens for a company for the princely sum of $400 a month. The company’s lens will aggregate content from around the Web, highlighting the good and playing down the bad. Which isn’t that bad of an idea although I’m sure most companies would rather do something similar on their own.

The criticism came due Godin’s decision to actively set up 200 of these ‘Brands In Public’ lenses before launch without the consent of the companies involved. The companies would be locked out of the lenses until they decided to sign up and pay up for the almost $5,000 a year service. At which time the lens would be unlocked. Some would call it brandjacking, others may call it good old-fashioned extortion, with online branding effectively taken hostage with a price on its head for release.

Thankfully, a couple of days after announcing his plans for ‘Brands In Public’, Godin took the widespread criticism on board and made the service opt-in rather than opt-out. Which is, let’s face it, what it should have been all along. Common sense has prevailed.

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