Jeff Jarvis, just wanted to get his laptop fixed. So he started to post about ‘Dell Hell’ on his popular blog, Buzzmachine.

Andrian Melrose was angry with Land Rover for what he said were shortcomings with his £45K Discovery. After he started to ‘terrorise’ the motor company in his blog, LR decided to give him a replacement car.

A fanzine blog accuses Kingsmill Bread of insulting the memory of its hero, Elvis and urges, ‘Don’t buy Kingsmill Bread.’

Companies are just waking up to the fact that each and every customer is a potential publisher.

Blogs are wonderful from the point of view of free speech, and putting the little guy on the same level as the big corporation. This is exactly why they are feared.

A recent article in PR Week asked, ‘Do weblogs inevitably mean corporate chaos and PR disaster?’ Bloggers do say nice things about products too. Many blogs are dedicated to revewing gadgets and gizmos and hope to pick up some advertising revenue - so they can’t put their readers off ever buying any product again. In general, they try to give a fair assessment. But almost any blog can turn against you if its writer is unhappy with one of your products.

The first rule of coping with a blogger with a beef is to know that he is out there. So watch blogs. The second rule is to deal with his or her complaint swiftly and fairly. Try to win them over and turn them into advocates for your company.

And of course, you could always have your own blog. Take some crticism from the public on it, but know that it’s there and deal with it fairly. Blogs now mean that corporate justice not only has to be done, but it has to be seen to be done. Companies are going to have to learn to live with that, whether they publish their own blogs or not.