There’s an interesting social media crisis unfolding as I write for those interested in such things. A little known, regional food publication from New England is finding out the hard way the speed at which social media can move.

In the past 10 minutes alone I’ve counted hundreds of (negative) comments posted to the magazine’s Facebook page (a page that only has 387 fans!). So what, I hear you ask, has Cooks Source Magazine done to warrant such attention?

It all boils down to the magazine publishing a writer’s article without her consent. “Big deal” I suppose some might say, “It happens all the time right?”. Perhaps, but what makes it worse is the response from the magazine’s editor. The writer contacted the magazine to find out how they had got hold of her article and ask for an apology/compensation. The editor’s response beggars belief:

“Yes Monica, I have been doing this for 3 decades, having been an editor at The Voice, Housitonic Home and Connecticut Woman Magazine. I do know about copyright laws. It was “my bad” indeed, and, as the magazine is put together in long sessions, tired eyes and minds somethings forget to do these things.
But honestly Monica, the web is considered “public domain” and you should be happy we just didn’t “lift” your whole article and put someone else’s name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me… ALWAYS for free!”

Yes you did read that correctly, the editor said the writer should PAY the magazine for editing the article! The writer has blogged about her experience on Live Journal. The story has since made it on to the front page of Reddit and as a result the Cooks Source Magazine is facing a bit of a social media storm.

Check out the magazine’s Facebook page if you don’t believe me… Be interesting to see how or if the magazine responds… Watch this space.

My advice would be to have the editor make an unreserved apology to the writer via the Facebook page and the comments section of the writer’s blog post. This needs to be nipped in the bud now before it spirals out of control.

Note: This author has handed thecopyright of this blog post over to his employer…

Tags: Cooks Source Magazine, crisis communications, Facebook, Kaizo, PR, social media

News spread on Tuesday that a bug similar to Y2K sunk its teeth into Sony’s older ‘fat’ (or if we’re being PC, ‘horizontally challenged’) Playstation 3. As owners prepared themselves for the prospect of losing their saved games and being unable to play online, I couldn’t help but snigger.

Many couldn’t even play in offline mode, leaving frustrated gamers wondering what was causing the baffling ‘8001050F’ error.

The bug, dubbed the ApocolyPS3, occurred when the PS3’s internal clock switched to February 29, evidently causing the system much confusion as that date doesn’t exist this year.

The latest fiasco will have left the powers that be at Sony with faces redder than the gamers who couldn’t get their fix and whose hours of hard work (OK, play) might have gone to waste.

In a statement, Sony said: “If you have a model other than the new slim PS3, we advise that you do not use your PS3 system, as doing so may result in errors in some functionality, such as recording obtained trophies, and not being able to restore certain data.”

Frustrated by the whole affair, gamers turned to social media to vent their anger. One comment on CVG said: “I cannot play any games, cannot log on to PSN. Your silence is doing nothing to help the situation. Looks like there is going to be millions of dead PS3′s all over the world with no fix in sight. Sony, you have just screwed up big time.” A video on YouTube called ‘How to fix PS3 error 8001050F’ showed an owner simply unplugging his PS3 and transferring the cables to an Xbox 360, whilst members of Facebook groups such as ‘I’m a victim of the PS3 Y2K bug’ offered more sensible advice.

Gamers were later left wondering why Sony failed to explain how they resolved the issue during an apology. It was later revealed that it fixed itself without any intervention from Sony. This sounds to me like a company that hasn’t got full control over and knowledge of its own hardware.

As the PS3 community flocked to forums for guidance in the wake of the crisis, it became apparent that saved games and ‘Trophies’ (an achievement tracking system) could be restored – no doubt accompanied by many sighs of relief.

Of course, the cynic in me wonders whether the whole episode was just an attempt by Sony to get everyone to upgrade to the newer, slimmer version of the PS3.

Tags: Facebook, Kaizo, Playstation 3, PR, PS3, Sony, Y2K, YouTube