New Technorati Tool “Lets Brands Monitor and Remove Objectionable Content” From the Noosphere

Citizen journalists are the people of the year. Vigilante consumers and professional public-interest journalists are objectionable vermin to be exterminated. Go figure.

Technorati and Ogilvy Partner to Harness CGM for Brands (ClickZ)

Technorati has evolved from blog search tool to blogosphere consultant, and now the company is pairing up with Ogilvy North America as a marketing software provider. In an extension of its work with Paramount Pictures, Technorati will work with the agency in an effort to promote its Conversational Marketing System to Ogilvy’s advertiser clients.

Ogilvy represents election magician and ur-market machinist Diebold, among many other clients.

That should make for some interesting conversation right up front.

Ah, but here’s the real nut of this story, hidden in a concessive clause in the final paragraph:

… the tool lets brands monitor and remove objectionable content

Actually, I think, in order to remove “objectionable” content — and who, by the way, is objecting? — you are going to need both the Technorati tool and a high-powered lawyer.

And a judge sympathetic to declaring a permanent state of exception to the First Amendment.

Aren’t you?

It was Ogilvy PR, by the way, that offered to hire unemployed journalists to help the Dept. of Homeland Security war-game catastrophic attacks on the homeland.

As the red-team, one gathers — the one simulating the opposition to its efforts to dominate the information environment.

DHS spokesman Marc Short said the department’s job posting is “nothing like” the earlier controversies. Instead of acting as advocates, the reporters would be prohibited from relaying the results of the exercise outside of the “virtual news network” that is part of the training exercise. … “You must NOT be currently employed by a real news organization and will be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement barring you from writing about this in the future,” the job posting stated.Short said the department wanted to hire reporters to help department officials better understand how the media would respond to a weapon-of-mass-destruction attack. … “We want them to act like reporters and to push the story forward,” Short said. The exercise would help public-relations officials better respond to any real terrorist attack, he said.

I believe Judy Miller signed such a disclosure agreement with the Pentagon at one point. Am I right?

See also Pentagon to Increase Use of PR Surrogates.

To the Technorati-Ogilvy quote-a-flack story from ClickZ:

Technorati has evolved from blog search tool to blogosphere consultant, and now the company is pairing up with Ogilvy North America as a marketing software provider. In an extension of its work with Paramount Pictures, Technorati will work with the agency in an effort to promote its Conversational Marketing System to Ogilvy’s advertiser clients.

I wonder if the CMS is related to that software the Pentagon will reportedly use to monitor global — but not domestic — public perceptions of the United States?

The system will allow Ogilvy’s clients to gather snippets from blog posts, video clips, podcasts and other CGM, in order to place it on their own brand sites. The goal is not only for advertisers to have a sense of what people are saying about their brands, but to create a central hub for those conversations.

Not from this blog they won’t.

“It’s real-time feedback,” said Technorati VP of Marketing Derek Gordon. “It’s almost like a constant never-ending focus group.”

See Stephen Bury’s Interface for a pre-9/11 sci-fi take on this notion of “a constant never-ending focus group.”

The company has been dabbling in the consulting arena for awhile now, first aligning with Paramount to aggregate blog posts about its films and related subjects for display on sites affiliated with particular films. Since May, the firm’s technology has harnessed and helped fuel discussions on documentary films “An Inconvenient Truth,” Al Gore’s global warming warning, and [sic] Dixie Chicks flick, “Shut Up and Sing.”

That almost reads like “Al Gore’s global warming warning and Dixie Chicks flick, “Shut Up and Sing.” As though it were an infotainment twofer.

Those were test cases, said Gordon, adding the Conversational Marketing System is a full-fledged product offering. Essentially, Ogilvy is acting as a broker, to connect Technorati with interested advertisers, and counsel the technology company on how best to serve advertisers through its products. The agency’s creative directors on both the traditional and digital sides have worked with Technorati to fine tune the product, and Ogilvy client Kodak has expressed interest in developing a destination site using it. Technorati expects to offer the ASP software through other agencies in the future, Gordon said.

How about first eschewing the art of disingenuousness in its conversation with its users and potential customers? The rest might follow naturally.

The Technorati-Ogilvy product will “compete” with an Edelman offering:

PR firm Edelman joined with RSS feed platform provider NewsGator Technologies in December to offer Edelman clients a similar offering. Deemed “Hosted Conversations,” the product serves blurbs from online discussions on specific topics into advertiser-branded ad units.

Did you really think we had forgotten that Edelman basically bailed out Technorati?

Oh, wait: Not any more, according to a recent report. I guess Sifry has found himself a new sugar daddy, then. So now Ogilvy inherits Technorati’s pipeline to the Associated Press.

Nice.

Ogilvy has developed blogs for clients including Cisco, IBM and SAP. The agency’s creative directors on both the traditional and digital sides have worked with Technorati to fine tune the offering, said Carla Hendra, co-CEO of Ogilvy North America. Technology, Financial Services and even Consumer Packaged Goods advertisers are showing an interest in reaching out to people through online conversations, she told ClickZ News.

Flooding the forums with shills? Is that what we mean? Say more.

However by including content only directly affiliated with a particular brand, advertisers could miss out on the full potential of the offering. “There is an interesting conversation that is not square on your brand, but immediately adjacent to your brand,” said Gordon.

Conversations trashing your competition, for example?

Brand clients also want to ensure “they are protecting their brands in this uncontrolled atmosphere,” Hendra added.

Dominate the information environment.

While the tool lets brands monitor and remove objectionable content, Gordon hopes they don’t use filters to exclude all negative criticism. “We counsel brands to make choices that are braver than that,” he said. In agreement, Hendra said brands that apply fewer controls to conversations “gain in credibility.”

Bingo. There’s your lede graf.

New Technorati software can help you SLAPP everybody that complains … say, oh, hmmm, to take a random example, about Telefônica here in São Paulo.

On the other hand, I suppose you might legitimately use it to detect and deter opposition astroturf campaigns designed to hack your brand value.

But whatever: In any event, the noise pollution index rises in the digital town square.

Whatever happened to putting all your effort into building a demonstrably superior mousetrap?

Then sending out your PR warriors to demonstrate its superiority, armed with good, real numbers and snazzy real-life product demos?

To hope that guerrilla marketing departments will not use the tool for evil is like giving a deeply suicidally despondent person a .45 pistol for their birthday and “hoping” they won’t blow their brains out.