Monday's quick reads: Microsoft, reputation management, and social media

1.) Where does blogging end and plugging begin? (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) -- Consumers researching a product online can find a trove of insightful reviews and revealing complaints. Or, they can get mired in a snake pit of fake blogs, paid testimonials and word-of-mouth campaigns engineered by marketers posing as consumers. At the center of it all are bloggers, who find themselves being tugged in opposite directions by big business and federal regulators — with each side claiming the other threatens the vitality and independence of the medium.

2.) Attraction to "do good" brands is escalating (Marketing Daily) -- Whether despite or because of the recession, consumers are more inclined than ever to spend their money with companies and brands that have dedicated themselves to a social purpose, according to new findings from Edelman Worldwide's "goodpurpose Consumer Study."

3.) Employees: It's easy to damage a company's reputation on social media (Social Media Business Council) -- Deloitte’s 2009 Ethics and Workplace Survey revealed that nearly three quarters of working Americans believe it is easy to damage a brand’s reputation via social media. The survey also showed that while 58% of executives agree that reputational risk and social networking should be a board room issue, only 15% say it actually is.

4.) Windows 7: Can Microsoft reboot its reputation? (Los Angeles Times) -- With more than 8 million "beta testers" using Windows 7 since January and dozens of reviews already published, virtually every aspect of Microsoft's new operating system is already public knowledge prior to this morning's "launch" -- except one. Can Windows 7 repair Microsoft's reputation and trigger enough sales to pull the technology sector out of the economic funk?