In a critical post about a new search engine awkwardly-named Cuil, the folks at popular blog TechCrunch posted a screen grab of a Cuil search for "TechCrunch" and said: "And I have no idea who that person is next to the results for our 'About' section." Why it is none other than Shanghai's biggest R.E.M. fan, Sam Flemming, head honcho of Internet Word of Mouth research and consulting firm CIC. So, that answers the "who" portion of this question ... but what about the "why"? The only thing we can think of: Cuil rightfully finds Sam a more attractive alternative to TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. more ›

Sam Flemming, founder of the Internet word-of-mouth research firm CIC Data observes in his latest blog entry that while some of the brands that had used the stars involved in the Edison Chen sex photo scandal as spokespeople were scrambling for help (by calling up his company of course) when the scandal broke out, some netizens were “more interested in the brands in the background of the photos than the people themselves". more ›