Annotated+Bibliography


 * Article Title:** Learning From Kenneth Cole's Social Media Mistake
 * Article Source:** HubSpot Blog, http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/9286/Learning-From-Kenneth-Cole-s-Social-Media-Mistake.aspx
 * Article Author(s):** Brian Whalley
 * Reviewed by:** Andrew Perucho

The article brings to light the recent PR mishap involving the "Kenneth Cole" brand on Twitter. On the first Thursday on February, @KennethCole with a following of 12,000 on Twitter sent out a tweet in regards to their brand new spring collection being recently launched and made available online. Perfectly fine as this has become quite the norm in this day of age for companies to rely on social media network sites to aid their advertising online, however literally just seconds after the tweet was sent out the painful backlash hit @KennethCole squarely in the face. The tweet that accompanied the announcement of their new line read "Millions are in uproar in #Cairo. Rumor is they heard our new spring collection is now available online at (link of site) - KC". The tweet brought up recent political events in Gaza and people on Twitter were immediately in outrage and shock. How can @KennethCole use such an event that killed thousands, as the punchline for a joke to promote their spring line? In a matter of minutes, word spread about this mishap and the @KennethCole brand reputation was forever tarnished.

Brian Whalley makes a good point on damage control when it comes to situations like these. There was absolutely no way @KennethCole could retract their tweet in the midst of the public onslaught because as they say, once you put something on the Internet it's like a stain you can try to remove but fail to. Brian says Kenneth Cole could've done quite a bit to weather the storm like apologizing immediately, and using their Twitter to promote awareness by posting links to donor sites and charities. Acknowledging angry tweets directed at @KennethCole and coming off as sincere and apologetic would've helped as well.

The Kenneth Cole incident is a perfect example of learning to be responsible when dealing with social media, as backlash can be headed your way in a millisecond if you're not careful and years of careful brand reputation building could all come at a colossal tumble at the hands of one careless 'tweet'.


 * Tags:** Social Media, Twitter, Brand Image, Kenneth Cole, Fail Whale, Online Advertising


 * Article Title:** Founders of New Browser RockMelt on Privacy, Advertising
 * Article Source:** The Wall Street Journal Blogs, http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/11/08/founders-of-new-browser-rockmelt-on-privacy-advertising/
 * Article Author(s):** Jennifer Valentino-DeVries
 * Reviewed by:** Andrew Perucho

The article explores the newly hyped Internet browser "RockMelt" released in November last year. RockMelt was in much abuzz because it was the first browser to combine a user's social media network (Facebook, IM), search engines, and news of the user's interests - in short, it was the first user customizable browser. When asked about how the innovative browser will make money, the co-founder stated "it's still to early to say how the browser will make money but that an ad network is not part of their plan." Their main goal is to improve user experience, and RockMelt developers believe that "you cant have a good user experience if somebody is taking your data and using it to sell ads" - taking an indirect shot at Google and their AdSense concept. As Internet privacy has become an increasing concern over the years with the rise of Google and Facebook, Rockmelt insists that while the browser combines these two giants together they will in no way jeopardize the privacy of the user. "The settings are encrypted before being tramsitted to Rockmelt, and the company doesn't store information on things like search and brewing history." While the concept itself sounds great, only time will tell if Rockmelt can live up to their promise but one thing is for certain… they have their work cut out for them competing with Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome.


 * Tags:** RockMelt, Online Advertising, Privacy, Surveillance, User History