• yesterday The New York Times publishes an article on Blippy in regards to the privacy concerns it raises – it shares once-confidential info on your purchases with your friends.
• today A VentureBeat reporter found the reason this might be an awful idea. They found a Google search that exposes users’ credit card numbers. (!) Oh boy. source

• Their P.R. site, strangely enough, doesn’t allow comments. Recently, local business review site Yelp, while quite popular, has faced criticism over the way it works with the local businesses it indexes, including rumors that the site purposely favors advertisers. Recently, Yelp’s blog has been on the defensive. It culminated today with a tart-tongued post which clearly hadn’t been looked over by a lawyer, because it makes allegations that might annoy those suing the company. (Lawyers want a piece of us ’cause we got some venture capital!) Here’s a sample:

• February 26: Conspiracy? “The allegations are disappointing, not only because they are false, but because they ignore empirical evidence in favor of conspiracy theories.” source
• March 1: We’re weird “We’ll be the first to admit that, by conventional standards, Yelp can seem weird. We’re different than other review sites and that can throw people off.” source
• March 4: Rawr “So it’s no surprise that today another lawyer has filed a virtually identical lawsuit making the same inaccurate claims. (Don’t worry; they’re still not true.)” source

• Everything we expected, and less. Tiger Woods’ airtight public relations machine wanted to make sure nothing fell apart in his statement, and, yeah, it didn’t. But we also learned that they’ve learned nothing from this situation and are treating it just like everything else since the scandal broke. Leave your boy airtight guys. Let’s see how much it helps his rep. Here’s a recap and analysis of what he said:

Key phrase from the statement

• I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again.
• Tiger Woods • At the end of his public statement, which was perhaps the least-riveting piece of live TV we’ve ever seen. The lack of excitement on Woods’ face was visible – and then some. After he said this, he hugged his mom, who also looked very unhappy to be there. He didn’t veer off the script one bit.

Five things we learned from the statement:

• 1st The press has been stalking his wife and kids; that’s not nice, paparazzi!
• 2nd He could return to golf as soon as this year, but maybe not. It’s up in the air.
• 3rd He doesn’t plan to bring up his many mistresses by name, based on today.
• 4th Elin Nordegren didn’t hit him, apparently, as famously thought. He flatly denied it.
• 5th Tiger is still a Buddhist, but he fell away from his religion over the last few years.

Three things to take from this statement:

• Tiger’s PR still sucks This was such a controlled event that you could tell Woods would’ve snapped like a twig if he turned the wrong way. The lack of questions from the press is complete bull. His handlers are handling him way too tightly, leaving no room at all.
• nothing’s gonna change “These are issues between a husband and a wife.” Woods isn’t going to let go of his privacy after the mea culpa, which is a huge mistake on his part, because it means these questions will continue to dog him forever.
• Mobile mea culpa We watched this statement live from our iPhone using the CNN app and it allowed us to live-tweet the story with little trouble. Our society is in a great place if we can watch a man’s life fall apart live on a mobile phone. source

• Google’s got a LOT of PR problems right now. Some of them are legitimate (see Google Buzz), others are simply a side effect of the company’s size. But the fact of the matter is, this hoax, plotted last week while we were complaining about the snow, is pretty dang funny. The car is fake. So is the rage. But the undercurrent is definitely real. source

• What Gotti understood, albeit at some primitive level, is that the news media abhor a vacuum and that if you don’t face them on your own terms, they will create the terms for you.
• Reuters columnist Charles Feldman • In a column titled “What Tiger Woods Can Learn From John Gotti,” which looks at Woods’ mishandling of the media. Feldman is making the very argument we’ve been making for the last week and a half. Which is that Woods is so concerned about his privacy that he’s doing the opposite of everything he should be doing as a public figure. Woods isn’t afraid to accept the public’s money for his success, so he shouldn’t be afraid to come clean when he’s done wrong. He’s completely allowed the press to write the terms of his failings, so now the fall from grace is even more spectacular and painful as a result. (David Letterman clearly knew this, BTW.) source

• -8.3% drop in stock value within three days of bad news that’s been played up in a press release (on average) source

• $6.4 million in 1Q ’09 to change the cycle to hardcore spin source

• Macs are pretty cool, Jack thinks, but at a $3,367 premium over five years? Now, that’s not cool!
• Roger Kay • Author of “What Price Cool?,” a white paper sponsored by Microsoft that takes to task Apple’s reputation as a maker of “cool” computers. MS seems to have a pretty good anti-Apple campaign going right now, considering the fact that we’re secretly in love with Lauren, even if just to convert her into a Mac user. Love ’em and leave ’em, that’s our style. • source