Matt Foster is a journalist, broadcaster and student of corporate communications. His work for an MsC in England involves looking at how the Net influences corporate communications, a field I have been also writing about for some time.

His latest post on his blog Citizen Spin is an eye-opener about how tricky it gets when big business uses fake blogs and fake web sites to promote itself. The case he points to is a BBC game, Jamie Kane that is supported by fake web sites, including a Wikipedia entry. The latter, however, is now being reviewed for deletion by Wikipedia users, but interestingly, some have suggested keeping the original fictional entry, by marking it as ‘advertising’ and ‘fiction.’ One voter, asking to keep the entry, puts it this way:

When suitably marked as "fictional : accuracy disputed", and re-written to explain the fictional use, this (a) shows how fast, intelligently and effectively Wikipedia can respond to such silly marketing tricks and remain on higher ground, by simply exposing the truth rather than getting caught up in silly games. Also, (b) it largely destroys (or at least, can be written to counter) the viral marketing goals, if that is indeed why it was created.