I have to admit, at first I was one of those people that reacted less than favourably to this – you’re effectively charging a brand for the right to reply, aren’t you? Then, after I thought it through I actually think it could be a good thing for the PR industry. This essentially offers a snap shot of the type of conversations taking place around a brand, ultimately allowing us to better do our job. 

We already have monitoring tools like Radian6 that help us identify the conversations we want to influence and they can also alert us to potential issues before they develop. Squidoo could actually become both a reason and a proof point for Digital PR. For example, it’s one thing aggregating conversations using third party tools, but if it’s right there in one place on the web for a brand to see, the decision to act becomes a bit of a no-brainer. So, what does PR do? We  help brands engage with these conversations in order to shape the Squidoo page – not pay to control it. So, if PR is doing it’s job, that Squidoo page should look pretty good. For more on this, TechCrunch posted a pretty good overview that you can find here