The article linked below tries to identify the top ten trends online that are going to become bigger over the next year. An angry ex-employee or stupid mistake can ruin the reputation of a company quite quickly. This is why Internet reputation management made the top ten list so easily.

Last year, Domino’s Pizza landed itself into trouble when two employees posted a video of themselves handling food unhygienically on the internet. Cotton On experienced backlash on Facebook when it continued to sell baby clothes with slogans such as “They Shake Me”.

Griffin says businesses can avoid such catastrophes by carefully monitoring who is talking about their brand, and being ready to address any situation as quickly as it appeared.

With examples like this becoming increasingly commonplace, Internet reputation management will only gain popularity in the coming years.

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/internet/20100202-online-trends/2.html

A bad reputation is easy to earn on the Internet, as many people know. It can be earned for legitimate reasons–bad service or fault products. But it can also be earned for ridiculous reasons to–an angry former employee wants to express his frustration, an unreasonable customer wants to vent, etc. Google, the leading search engine by far, is changing the formula by which it collects reviews.

“Google Maps is now using the new capability of sentiment analysis to better understand content and add ‘reviews’ from non traditional sources like newspaper articles and single blog entries that appear across the internet,” he says. “This new capability will dramatically increase the reach of hyperlocal blogs, change how businesses manage the review process and could, over the long haul, change how and where reviews are generated and aggregated.”

More on the newest developments below. These changes could have serious repercussions for the reputations of companies who depend upon the Internet for new customers (like–all of them). There may be a rising need for corporate reputation management.

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2010/01/18/google-makes-it-harder-to-hide-from-a-bad-reputation

The story linked below cites some excellent, and massive, numbers about online reputation management as it regards Tiger Woods’ little accident. His current predicament has completely ruined whatever good reputation he had. Of course, with mistresses numbering in the double digits, and new ones revealing themselves each day, it should come as no surprise. Each day the tv and newspapers are filled with new, and old, stories about Tiger Woods that are, how should I say it, less than flattering.

So the question on Tiger’s agent’s mind, I bet, is–can this be fixed through PR? Well, the short answer is that most of the damage has already been done. But further damage can be stopped by getting some positive publicity, putting an end to the new stories coming out each day, and engaging in an extensive brand reputation management campaign.

http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/091216-194758

Imagine a place where you can insult or verbally assault anyone and suffer no repercussions. Imagine a land where you can spread lies about people or companies, just because, and get away with it. Imagine what would happen to the competitiveness of the free market in a place lacking such basic integrity.

Do you have a picture of that place? It’s called the Internet, and we all use it daily. It is a wonderful resource for communicating, learning, networking, and even business—but it has it’s problems with integrity, that much is obvious. The anonymity of the Internet guarantees that under-handed competitors or disgruntled employees can spread lies and misinformation about companies and never have to suffer the consequences—they won’t even have to accept responsibility.

Luckily, there are a number of companies that are offering a defense against this verbal aggression. The leading company is called ReputationHawk.com. It has been featured on The Early Show, in TIME magazine, and in the Chicago Tribune. They are well-known for producing results in a money-saving, and timely, manner. This is the key to success with a problem like this, where thousands of potential clients per day might be scared off by the negative search results.

ReputationHAWK excels by replacing negative content with positive publicity. They are able to do this because they know how to manipulate search engines and positively publicize their clients. It is only fair that individuals and companies should be able to publicize themselves in the fact of slanderous articles and blog comments from anonymous malcontents.

One thing I like about this article is that it emphasizes the overly negative atmosphere that the Internet can sometimes have. If a product were capable of healing everyone with throat cancer–you’d get some loony on a forum complaining that it couldn’t heal a sinus infection too. All it takes to ruin a company’s online reputation is one malcontent at a computer.
http://www.visibilitymagazine.com/location3-media/tarla-cummings/online-reputation-management

This article raises the question–how do we know that international reputation companies will use their skills? The answer is that we don’t. Some companies will, some companies won’t. Like in every other industry, and like every other PR firm, the companies will differ in their outlooks of what clients deserve protection from public opinion, and which don’t.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/109612/page/1

Apparently AT&T has been getting a lot of flack in the blogosphere today because of a leaked memo. This will have profound effects on their online reputation. The memo suggested to employees that they should oppose net neutrality, and many bloggers are essentially accusing AT&T of astroturfing on the subject of net neutrality. They’ll need to figure out how to concentrate on un defamation for the next couple of weeks–because otherwise permanent harm will be done to their online reputation.
http://consumerist.com/5385791/att-asks-employees-to-oppose-net-neutrality

My favorite part of the article linked below is where the writer says that Google is not a search engine, it is a web reputation management system. There is certainly a great deal of truth to that statement, though Google is both. Oftentimes Google is used, by detractors, to ruin the reputation of a person, company, or product.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.04/wired40_ceo.html

The United Kingdom is undergoing some soul-searching on the subject of internet defamation. Their laws regarding libel on the Internet date back to the 1840s, and are a tad outdated at this point. However, there is another defense against internet defamation other than the legal system–online reputation management.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5gD3i3isIsXO6_QuNoSUSWDpHpZsg

This press release says a few important things about reputation management, but it missed a very important point. While the press release hits a few points concerning communication and marketing–it ignores search engine reputation management. This is an important part of reputation management, increasingly so as the Internet becomes a more powerful tool.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/09/prweb2954904.htm