Listened to whole thing (do I get a prize?), and had a couple of comments– look forward to seeing you folks Nov 2 in Boston!

RE: blog credibility– what I thought was missing from this part of the talk was the concept of audience responsibility. It is my belief that there is no such thing as absolute objectivity in any medium — and the audience has a responsibility to themselves to be critical consumers and “consider the source.” If you read a blogger long enough, you will know his or her tendencies, opinions, and tendencies enough to know how to interpret praise for or slamming of a company.

RE: Swag, gifts, and giving/lending product: I was left with the impression that in part we are re-learning lessons that were learned ages ago with the “old” media: swag gets old because the journalists see through it, giving–or lending- out products are necessary to get reviewed, and has become SOP in the old media world– why would it be different with bloggers? (There are probably a bunch of reasons why, but let’s not ignore lessons already learned).

RE: Conflict resolution in private: I would think many bloggers would have a real problem with that, as the idea runs counter to the idea of every conversation in social media being out in the open. That’s not completely true now, of course, and I am sure there were a lot of substantive private communications in the Edelman/Wal-Mart case before the belated official statement. I would, however, expect resistance to a formalized structure from some quarters.