The term “flog” (fake blog) has been coined in light of the controversy over the blog that on its face appeared to be written by an independent person, but was really created by Walmart’s PR agency. Turns out there were at least 3 different Walmart flogs.

This controversy has been in the press for a couple of weeks, and I’ve avoided mentioning it as it seemed to be getting lots of attention. The term flog is so appropriate, I just had to weigh in on this.

It reminds me of TV ads or infomercials that purport to be real people talking about a product. We all take those with a grain of salt (at least I do – but perhaps being skeptical is just part of my nature being a lawyer) – but even those sometimes have captions indicating they are actors or it is a dramatization.

Given the sheer number of blogs out there, we shouldn’t blindly accept all of them at face value – after all, reputation is earned, not born.

Nonetheless, it strikes me that if a business is going to create a blog to promote themselves, its misleading if they don’t disclose that. It doesn’t do one’s reputation much good when the world finds out what is really going on – unless you subscribe to the “any publicity is good publicity” concept.

To catch up on the facts and issues, take a look at Mathew Ingram’s post