Jack Trout and Al Ries - the record set straight
April 3rd, 2007I emailed Jack Trout to let him know about the wikipedia entry on Positioning which showed the names of Gary Sinclair and Mart Reilly as the authors of his (and Al Ries’) legendary marketing book. Between my email and my blog post on the subject, someone has changed it back to “Jacques Trout” (Jacques??) and Al Ries. Looks like it was just a bit of vandalism.
So in some ways Wikipedia works; it is self-correcting, as supporters would say.
On the other hand, how many people have seen the entry in the meantime? How long had it been like that before someone picked it up?
Is it significant? I think so. People are turning to Wikipedia in droves and use it as an Encyclopedia; for them it is the final word on a particular issue.
Here are the website traffic stats for wikipedia.org versus Encyclopedia Brittanica over three years:
Quoting the wrong author in your marketing essay is probably just embarrassing, but what if there is an entry on you, your firm or your product that fundamentally changes someone’s perception?
Will they check back once in a while to see if it has changed? I don’t think so. It’s a very tricky problem.
April 4th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
What a great cacth…and what a great question!
How long can a company wait for self-correction on one of the web’s most popular sites?
I always learn something…thanks!
Keep creating,
Mike
April 11th, 2007 at 1:49 am
Wikioops…
Good catch by David Koopmans at the “Business of Marketing and Branding” blog. For a while recently, apparently, Wikipedia listed the wrong two guys as the authors of the marketing concept of positioning…….