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Jamba sells ringtones in a number of European countries. Their German company got some criticism in a weblog and the message started to spread.

In some kind of naive PR attempt anonymous Jamba employees began attacking the author in blog comments. It's unclear if this was a coordinated damage control attempt, but you can figure out the rest. They got caught and traditional media got interested.

The developments of this story has been flooding the German blogs I read for the last couple of days. Martin Roell has a good summary of the story [In German] [In Google's English translation].

The Jamba Director of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs is interviewed by Klaus Eck [http://klauseck.typepad.com/prblogger/2004/12/4_nachgebloggt_.html] [In Google's English translation].

It seems they haven't learned much. He draws the conclusion that their employees shouldn't have commented at all. And he asks himself if a press spokesman should react to blogs... at all.

The obvious alternative - to openly dive into the discussion with serious intents and serious curiosity - doesn't seem to be an option.

Fredrik Wacka is the author and founder of the popular CorporateBlogging.Info blog which is a guide to business and corporate blogging. Visit Fredrik Wacka's blog: CorporateBlogging.Info.