When I said I hate you, I really meant pay attention to me

Jaffe pointed to a post by brandchannel.com that appears to be well thought-out and worth a read. Reading through it, it's apparent that the post is trying to maintain balance between the point-of-views of the blogger, the brand, and the people who work for the brand. This comes as a refreshing change of pace, as bloggers sometimes write-off companies who don't actively or very poorly engage in online conversation, refusing to even try and understand the company's side of the battle and assuming the worst (i.e. they're assholes who don't care about my emo rants about them). This tags back to a recent debate with Scoble's latest rant. Many brands do want to be active in the blogosphere, but there are numerous corporate obstacles in the way that can only be remedied with time and a lot of hand-holding from ad agencies or bloggers.

Lately, at ad:tech conferences, brands have seemed more-than-willing to dive into the whole "tech" world of RSS, wikis, and podcats. However, when the subject of blogging comes up, many seem intimidated, if not threatened, by the blogosphere. While fake blogs should continue to be slammed due simply to deception (and stupidity), all the negativity around free-stuff being given to bloggers should realize that despite it not being perfect yet, unless the brand specifically says you can't criticize them, that they are actively trying to reach out to you and value the blogosphere for what it is. Like the squirrel you hit on the way back from grandma's reaching out for life, give it a chance before running it over again to put it out of its misery.