An interesting exchange took place late last week that pinned computer maker Dell against The Consumerist, a popular blog backed by the communities of various sites such as Digg and Slashdot. The Consumerist posted a piece entitled “22 Confessions Of A Former Sales Manager” written by a ex-sales manager.  The article described a few tricks on how to get the best deals and support from Dell.  It received almost 300 000 hits in less than three days.

Dell made the mistake of asking The Consumerist to take down the post as they called the information contained in it “confidential and proprietary.”  Instead of taking down the post The Consumerist posted Dell’s demand which was subsequently seen by 130 000 people and Dugg 3500 times on the popular site Digg.com.  In a face saving decision, Dell posted a retraction of their demand along with their own confessions list admitting to their mistake of trying to control information.

A few interesting things to note about this episode.  1) The speed at which this all took place.  From Thursday to Sunday hundreds of thousands of people were involved in this discussion. 2) It shows the interconnectedness of blogs and social bookmarking sites which quickly cross pollinate each other’s stories. 3)  The way a large company takes into account the wishes of these online communities.  It clearly underlines their growing importance and influence.