One of the things that have kept people honest on sites like eBay has been a serious take on reputation. Doing business through that portal has required that the chatter about you as a buyer or a seller be good, something like a credit rating. Too many “negs” on your record and you can be branded a bad risk. But what happens when that reputation-intensive mindset escapes the controlled, hot-house environs of eBay and lands on the mean streets of Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines? Consider this example:
You are the Stan of Stan’s Pizza and Goulash, an up-and-coming pizza and goulash place in a hip downtown area. Being the tech-savvy child of the ‘90s that you are, you have a great website with all sorts of bells and whistles like online ordering, e-mail reservations and even live chat to help work out any special problems. You have spent time and effort getting to the top of the search engines and now, whenever someone types in “pizza and goulas... [Read Full Article]
