When your reputation is online...

Anyone running a business here must come to terms with the growing power of online social networks to enhance — or ruin — their real-world livelihood.

On the positive side, Charlie Ayers, the former chef at Google, opened a restaurant called Calafia in Palo Alto this month. He earned a rave review from local doctor Enoch Choi, who also happens to be a prolific blogger with a wide local following. When I mentioned Choi's pro-Calafia posts to Ayers, he told me he'd already met a bunch of people who'd come to eat at the restaurant thanks to Choi.

That's how things work in the Valley — the best kind of buzz is electronic, and it gets amplified in unconventional ways. It can be hard to know who's a real influencer, though, so it's wise to assume that anyone you serve could bring you a lot of business.
They could also bring you down, however. Business owners worry about the growing influence of review websites such as yelp.com. A bad review at yelp can hit your bottom line, as San Francisco chiropractor Steven Biegel found when a former patient complained about his billing practices. Biegel sued the reviewer, Christopher Norberg, for libel and things got nasty until the two settled.

But who wants a reputation for suing their customers, or for being the customer from hell? So how to let people share their customer experiences, good and bad, while also protecting businesses from malicious or erroneous reviews? We're still working it out. And we are likely to see more suits as people grapple with what some call "online reputation management".

* A nice chunk of the massive US stimulus package looks set to come to California, at least some of it supporting green investment. Plus the Environmental Protection Agency is due to revisit, and probably approve, the state's tough car emission standards. Stanford University just announced a new energy institute that will focus on sustainable-energy research, the state grew 10,000 "green-collar jobs" last year. All good news for the many investing in "green tech".

* Plenty of Valley heavy-hitters are at the World Economic Forum in Davos, though a good number have opted out. But everyone who's been invited is flying down to TED (stands for Technology Education Design) in Long Beach next week. Here, an invitation to TED is a sign you've really made it.