So someone writes something nasty about you on a blog no one reads.  What do you do?

a) Ignore it 

b) Write a post on your own blog explaining why the other post is libelous

c) Do some personal SEO work so that you can bury the post on Google under a list of your own links

d) File a lawsuit so that the post goes super public across the blogosphere, letting everyone in the world link to the post that says the nasty things about you, and making it the number one link that shows up when people Google you for the next 20 years?

If you answered A, B or C, then we can have a reasonable conversation.  If you said, D, then you are model Liskula Cohen and are not familiar with how the world of Social Media works.  According to this Mediapost article, “Cohen alleges that she was defamed by the blog Skanks in NYC. The entire blog consists of five posts, all dated Aug. 21 that jab at Cohen.”  Note that the posts came out in August 2008, and if anyone cared about it then, they certainly don’t care now.  But, Cohen has managed to grab the remains of that flame, fan it, dump gasoline on it, and insert half a forest into the campfire.  Well done.

On a side but not totally irrelevant note, this is an important lesson in why you need to spend the $50 a year to own the url’s of your name, to register yourname.everyblog.com, to have basic profiles on Ning, LinkedIn, Naymz, Biznik, etc….and lock down [email protected].  Because, you just never know when you may be named to a blog like Skanks of NYC and need to bury the link when people Google you.