Last week saw the first major blogstorm of the New Year. This one involved Robert Scoble, Facebook, Plaxo and the blogosphere at large. The short version is that Robert used a script provided to him by the Social Network Plaxo to extract his prodigious contact list from Facebook. This is against Facebook’s Terms of Service and for a short time he paid for his transgression by having his account banned.

Juicy stuff, right? I didn’t think so.

A Play In Four Acts

In the likely case that the event itself doesn’t raise the hairs on the back of your neck, there is still something valuable that almost anyone can draw from this — the power of personal branding.

Whether this wonder of stagecraft was orchestrated by Robert and Plaxo is irrelevant. What he did, purposefully or not, was produce a large amount of attention from a seemingly benign set of initial conditions. How did he do it?

He attacked an entrenched standard.

Facebook and their desire to keep their data in house is the defacto standard. When Facebook apps are shut down for breaking these terms, we shrug our collective shoulders because, “that’s just the way it works.” By knowingly attacking a standard, Robert created news.

People love to read stories about the “little guy” lashing out against big, corporate interests. It’s in our blood.

He rode on the shoulders of giants.

The blogosphere swoons over stories about Facebook. By tacking his brand to Facebook’s, Robert made certain that people would talk about it. He also picked a time when stories about Facebook were in short supply. Bloggers hungry to talk about their Social Network de jour were keen to hop on the coat-tails of this interesting bit of news.

It’s not what you do, it’s who you do it to.

He raised general and specific questions.

Was he right to free his information? Should Facebook change their terms of service? Was this all a publicity stunt? Is Robert just taking revenge on Facebook? Is this a vie to get closer to Plaxo? How much freedom should any of us have with the data we place on Social Networks?

By raising questions that could be answered either in specifically (Facebook-centric) or more generally (data privacy issues) it made it very easy for a wide range of bloggers to comment on this event. Also, because Robert has a history of questionable stunts, blogs like Valleywag and 1938 Media rode his latest antics like Bull Dogs in heat.

He polarized.

No matter what your opinions on Robert and sometimes because of your personal opinions on the man, this story cries out for ink. Fans of Robert will write posts to defend him against his enemies. Robert’s enemies will write posts to defend their negative opinions about the man. It’s fertile ground for links and the type of brand exposure that money can’t buy.

Love it or hate it, you’ll still talk about it. That is the real secret of a stunt like this.

Web 2.0 Roundup

Whether or not Robert knew what he was buying into when he accepted Plaxo’s proposal, I really hope that he recognizes the how and why of this stunt’s success. While I never suggest taking the James Dean approach to Terms of Service, for anyone in the branding business these are some of the most important tools in your arsenal and often they are the difference between a mediocre campaign and successful one.

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