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The Mobosphere, Web 2.0s Ugly Side and Top 10 Personas
Web 2.0 is fantastic, but clearly it has an ugly side. The same blogs and social sites thatgive life to the constructive conversations that serve as the ingredients to what we valuefrom Web 2.0, also give life to those who use blogs as vehicles to attack others.Its quite easy for nearly anyone to setup a blog these days and there is nearly no oversightout there to monitor, control and remove defamtory content. Blog owners themselves arethe oversight and so companies and individuals are left to the devices of each blogger.Responsible bloggers are careful to check, review and edit their statements before postingto ensure the integrity of the material they post. However, there is a percentage out therethat not only lack responsibility but also prey on companies and people that may be of use in extending their traffic, reach and popularity. When you combine that with the viralcapabilities of the web, you get the mobosphere element.A recent example was when someone posted thatSteve Jobs had a heart attack . It wasclearly false but the rumor spread, snow-balled and went viral to a point where Apple Inctook a 10% stock plunge that day. In fact there was no heart attack, yet the social andviral aspect of web 2.0 coupled with the fact that there was no oversight allowed for thisrumor to have very real and substantial impacts on the business of topic. Plenty of siteswanted to benefit from the traffic potential of such a juicy piece of “news” and as moreand more folks wrote, the more reason there was not to check the facts.This is an emerging problem with quite a bit of rumors, lawsuits,suicidesanddeath threatsall eminating from this lack of oversight. John Dozier of Dozier Internet Law, a leading law firm grappling with this emerging problem, has a published the top 10 personas belonging to those that make up and contribute to the mobosphere.
 
Top 10 Mobosphere Personas That Give Good Bloggers a Bad Name.
Visit Dozier Internet Law here.
Pickpocket
This is the guy who used to wait on street corners for elderly ladies to pass. He enjoysattacking defenseless people and stealing covertly using deception. This type of blogger will steal your copyright protected content, have the search engines push your  prospective clients to his site, and then run ads and otherwise direct the traffic to your competitors. He could be an affiliate marketer for a competitor getting a share of therevenue, or he could simply be running Google or Yahoo ads on his site. Pickpockets alsotake great pleasure in stealing your trademarks…surreptitiously using your mark inhidden tags, meta tags, hidden redirect pages, or through a myriad of search engineoptimization techniques, all in the hopes of re-directing your prospects to a competitor and taking money from you.
Wacko
We usually identify a wacko situation quickly. There are distinctive characteristics of hiscommunications. The wacko is usually a “follower”, someone looking to gain attentionand recognition, but escalates what may have started as fair criticism into more and moreoutrageous claims. Most sophisticated business people immediately view the poster as a“nut case”, particularly when an excessive amount of time or energy disproportionate tothe merits of the subject is expended. But it is not easy for the typical browser on the webto see the pattern, usually spread over multiple web properties.
Druggie
Or, maybe “liquid courage” would be more appropriate. This guy is exactly what comesto mind. During the day this blogger is a normal guy, but at night he returns to thesanctity of his home, gets drunk or high, and goes out on the web looking for “hook-ups”and blogging on his “hang-ups”. This guy is hard to detect as a fraudster, and sometimeswon’t recall what he said online the next day while under the influence. He postsaggressive, false and arbitrary attacks on whatever issue of the day (or night) catches hisfancy.
 
Alien
 No, not from another world. But from overseas. In a far, far away place, without anytreaty with the US, in a country without an effective legal system and no notion of  business or personal property ownership rights. Many of these types operate out of certain Russian provinces, but the blogs, postings and communications appear to be fromthe customer down the street. This individual usually has an ulterior motive, oftenworking with the criminal discussed below. He has no fear, until he takes a vacation toTurkey and US federal agents grab him for extradition, which is exactly what happenedon a case in the not so recent past.
Nerd
This is the guy who is scared to talk with a girl, but behind the keyboard, all alone,morphs into a Casanova. This empowerment of anonymity creates an omnipotent persona, and for the first time the nerd feels the effect of power and control, gets anadrenaline buzz when he exercises it, and he exercises it often, usually creating or  perpetuating a volatile situation in which he feels he can outsmart the “opposition”. Thereis no principle involved. His blog postings are all about the adrenaline. It is hard to knowif you are dealing with this type online…his posts are intelligent and on their facecredible. But, once you identify the nerd blogger, he cowers and goes away, usuallyforever.
Rookie
Enjoy debating a thirteen year old? They are out on the net acting like adults, postingstatements and play-acting like a grown-up. The challenge, of course, is that most peoplereading the posts have no idea these are coming from a kid. The tip off can be the utter immaturity of the posts, but most often the kids can sound credible criticizing, for instance, a CPA’s method of calculating RIO on REIT holdings, because they can mimicearlier posts. There is no insidious motive here; just kids having fun as the hormones kick in. But the readers of the blog posting don’t know that.
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