Quote of the day

From the Forbes cover story on blogs: "Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality," says Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a Cincinnati firm that sifts through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients, including Procter & Gamble and Ford. "The potential for brand damage is really high,"says Frank Shaw, executive vice president at Microsoft's main public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom. "There is bad information out there in the blog space, and you have only hours to get ahead of it and cut it off, especially if it's juicy."

But Forbes offers some questionable advice about how to deal with "lowlife bloggers":

"BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him."

I couldn't agree more with Business Week's Stephen Baker on this one: it could blow up in your face. If it leaks out that a company is "digging up dirt" on critics, the ensuing brand damage would be far more extensive than anything a rogue blogger could muster.

//Billy McCormac