The Online Critique Bug

If you haven't know it, online communication in blogs, forums and other community websites has got news more wide-spread than the usual traditional media vehicles.

Companies cannot afford to make a single mistake or else it will be publicised on some customer's blog or forums for public bashing. Common things are like poor service, poor products and etc.

People seldom remember the good stuff and praise that company or individual, whereas online bashing is often very easy and sometimes one might get too "overboard". Freedom of speech comes with a price and if you have said something that is untrue that have resulted in annihilating a company's reputation and threatening to their company profits, prepare to receive a lawyer's letter!

One incident that I can recall is that last year, there was a fight between a boss and a customer. It was a personal dispute over some stuff. The man was losing out and had called the police and the tabloid press. So it was written as "4 man attacking one man ..blah blah blah" While hearing only one side of the story (and not only a complete one side), the idiots in the forum started bashing the company, and had asked everyone to boycott the shop. But in actual fact, they didn't know that it was the customer that had started the clash. He threw the printer on the floor and cursed the company that it will close down.

Did anyone know that? No! But things happens this way, bad news always travels fast from one to another just like monkey see monkey do. And the press had the guts to sensationalize the news and make it so spicy that the online idiots were contemplating to visit the shop.

So next time, before you decide to criticize someone or some company without hearing both sides of the story, think twice.