Bloggers Break Sony

Sony withdraws its controversial copy-protected CDs after bloggers took up the issue and plastered Sony all over the blogosphere. Some excerpts from the Information Week article.

"It seems crystal clear that but for the citizen journalists, Sony never would have done anything about this," says Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a cyber liberties advocacy group that has been vocal in its condemnation of Sony and may eventually file a a lawsuit against Sony, in addition to three that have already been filed. "It's plain to me that it was Sony's intent to brush the story under the rug and forget about it."

The recent IIPM issue is only an attempt to kick-start the citizen reporter's voice in India. As I see it, five years from now, every marketing man will have an ear firmly stuck to the blogosphere. Or, maybe they will develop technology that will mine blog-posts related to their products and services.

Alan Scott, chief marketing office at business information service Factiva, said, "I think that we're in an entirely new world from a marketing perspective. The rules of the game have changed dramatically. The old way of doing things by ignoring issues, or with giving the canned PR spin response within the blogosphere, it just doesn't work."

Blogs are now not looked at as aberrations. The business world, for one, has woken up and realized that blogs, with their viral spread, are far more potent than the regular PR junk that you encounter on corporate websites.
[Read the whole Sony story on Information Week]

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