Whether it’s a “drop dead, scumbag” blog entry from an ex or a negative rating on eBay, everyone has had somebody say something nasty about them on the web. Thor Muller of Satisfaction Unlimited argues that redress isn’t just about sue, sue, sue.
Case in point: yesterday’s now-notorious keynote discussion with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, where half the Internet seemed to lay into moderator/interviewer Sarah Lacy for how she handled the event. Muller argued that she could have salvaged her end of things by one of a hundred methods (one of the best he found was a New York-based film maker who turned hate screeds on the talkbacks on his blog into a jaunty song.) Instead, she blamed the crowd, and that rarely works.
And by the way. Thor Muller? Unless there’s a Quetzalcoatl running a panel somewhere, that may be the best name of the whole conference.
This article appears in March 7 • 2008.
