Flog you! No, as good it feels saying it, flog is not a verb but a noun meaning “fake blog” (as in a sales or marketing gimmick site masquerading as a fan site or genuine consumer blog, and authored by a PR or marketing hack).

Perhaps the most famous flog is the disastrous Walmarting Across America hack job, written by two Walmart “fans” who drove across America in an RV blogging about the Walmarts they visited. While two people did in fact leap from Walmart to Walmart, they were paid very well to do so (and this was not disclosed in the blog). It was a PR stunt allegedly cooked-up by Walmart’s PR firm Edelman PR (see Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story in Business Week).

I personally would have chosen the Trailer Park Boys and been upfront in paying them. You can’t RV across America without some quality trailer park time and some good old Jerry Springer-inspired fun (I know they’re Canadian, but all Canadians love driving across the U.S. because we don’t have Jack-In-The-Box nor Carl’s Jr.).

Live by the sword; die by the sword. It’s an all too familiar quote, and lesson, that many of us have learned by experience. Politicians and writers know this lesson well.

Blogging is a powerful new sword that exacts and enables great freedoms and celebrity, but it also can violently swing back at its wielder with greater viciousness. Debbie Weil knows this well and has been slashed by the darker underside of the blade that is not always seen when it is exacting great things. The well known blogger and afficianado, popularly known as the “Mona Lisa of blogging”, has developed (by all accounts) a very successful business from blogging and consulting about blogging.

Recently Weil was hit very hard by critics who were quick to show her the blade when she promoted a client’s blog, GlaxoSmithKline’s alliConnect blog (a blog for GlaxoSmithKline’s new weight loss drug, alli). Her critics were quick to pounce and were harsh and ruthless, as I revealed in my writings of August 7 (see Flogging). Weil was further upset by my writings relating the exchanges of her critics and called me directly to express her unease. Weil was polite and cordial, but notably upset with me and my piece.

A Colgate colleague, he of the Intermedia blog, led me to netvibes a long time ago. I love it, it's an easy way to collect everything you might want to peruse on the web on one webpage.

You control the page, organize it, and manage it. I love how customizable it is, you move these neat little boxes around as you see fit and organize content into tabs. I have all my Colgate- related searches and feeds on one tab, web 2.0 news and higher ed blog feeds on another tab, general news and gossip feeds on another tab, and of course, all things Rangers, Mets, Jets on another.

I have e-mail and weather feeds, as well.

Why am I writing now? Well, netvibes just rolled out a Facebook widget.