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Thursday was a good PR day for the social buying site Blippy . They were featured in two New York Times articles . But Friday wasn't so great, as the major technology blogs reported that credit card information from its users were found on Google. An hour later, Blippy responded with a post on its blog, explaining that the leak was months old and affected only four beta users, not current Blippy users. Later, they amended the blog post to include an apology. News of more credit card leaks continued on Saturday. Of course, Blippy is by no means the only startups to suffer from potential public relations disasters, and it remains to be seen what, if any, impact this has on the site. Blippy's response, including the need to re-edit its official announcement, demonstrates the importance in responding quickly and correctly to a crisis. Sponsor As Jacob Morgan writes in a post on "The Social CRM Process," it's important to have both a macro and a micro response to this sort of situation, addressing both the individuals involved and the public-at-large. "Remember the whole Southwest Airlines and Kevin Smith debacle, where they kicked him off the flight for being too fat? Southwest Airlines took both a micro and a macro response. They interacted with Kevin Smith directly via Twitter, email, and telephone; a micro response. In addition Southwest Airlines also wrote a public post on their blog which addressed their community as a whole, a macro response." Some advice: Make a public announcement as soon as possible. Offer full disclosure. Be clear and concise. Say you're sorry. Of course, sometimes companies opt to do nothing, and hope that the bad press is quickly forgotten. Others hope that it's true that all publicity is good publicity. Nevertheless it's best to try to cultivate some good publicity, as trust and credibility are vital for a startup's success. Transparency and openness are important, even if it means riding out a difficult news cycle. Discuss
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What to Do When a PR Disaster Strikes Your Startup
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As ReadWriteWeb reported earlier , Palm has retained Goldman Sachs for a possible sale of the company. It looks like they're now hoping stock enticements will keep any other executives from joining Michael Abbot in leaving. According to an April 12 SEC filing , Abbott, Vice President of Software and Services for the company, will be boxing his knick-knacks on the 23rd. Sponsor "Palm is implementing a retention program for certain key employees, including executive officers," the company wrote the SEC. "The program includes equity awards and cash bonuses to be earned over a two year period provided that the individuals remain as employees of the Company. As part of this program, Jeffrey P. Devine, Palm's Senior Vice President of Global Operations, and Douglas C. Jeffries, Palm's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, each received a grant of restricted stock units pursuant to Palm's 2009 Stock Plan and a cash bonus of $250,000." Similar packages are common in a sale situation. They help to maintain continuity during a change-over. They also avoid the flight that may give potential buyers, media and customers the appearance of a wholesale flight by major decision-makers who might be "in the know." Discuss
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Palm to Executives: Who Wants Money?
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What applications are the earliest testers of the Apple iPad trying out? Even though the "official" launch day for the new slate touchscreen computer isn't until tomorrow, April 3rd, several journalists and even some celebrities have already got their hands on one. And what are the top applications for folks like this? There are the usual suspects, of course: The Wall St. Journal, iBooks, Netflix (yes, it was true !), USA Today, ABC Player, NYT Editors' Choice, NPR and others. But all these apps are free, big-name brands and precisely the sorts of things the iPad was designed for. What's more interesting is a glance at the paid applications list for the iPad. Sponsor iPad's Top Apps the Day Before Launch Yesterday, iPad applications became available in the iTunes App Store. They appeared in searches for terms like "XL" and "HD" - the new acronyms developers are using to denote which of their mobile apps have been reconfigured for the slate's larger screen. And although very few people actually have their iPad yet, a number of iPad apps have been downloaded, either by the early testers themselves or by those who are preparing their collection for tomorrow's first-time sync. In the free applications list, there are few surprises. From one to ten, the top free apps are: iBooks, Netflix, ABC Player, USA Today, The Wall St. Journal, NYT Editors' Choice, NPR for iPad, Twitterific for iPad, eBay for iPad and Shazam for iPad. Early Trend: iPad is Used for More than Media Consumption However, the paid applications list hints at two early trends that may bode well for the device's future and one that may not. First, the good news. The iPad, despite its consumer appeal, is already making headway as a productivity application.
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