7 Steps To Orchestrating Your Own Web Revolt

User revolts really were the "it" thing in May. There's just something about a company trying to maintain its financial and legal stability that doesn't mesh with the unpredictable nature of user-generated content. We saw this first with Digg, and then Flickr, and now it looks like LiveJournal will get the honor of closing out the month with its recent profile deletion frenzy.

After sitting through three high profile examples (and I'm sure more are on the way), I can pretty much set my watch to these things--which is why I'm going to save everyone some time and provide the 7 Steps To Orchestrating Your Own Web Revolt:

1. Setup, run and maintain a marginally successful social networking site (this is the hardest part)

2. Identify and locate a trend in the user-generated content that poses a potential legal risk.

2a. Call the lawyers just to make sure.

3. Quietly devise a plan to quarantine this content involving suspension, or out-right deletion of questionable content.

4. Execute said plan with little or no warning.

5. Allow the user base to vocalize its displeasure and incite the scrutiny of the blogosphere

6. Reverse all motions to quarantine content save for the most flagrant offenders

7. Exercise radical transparency through cathartic apologies on the company blog including lines like, "Whew, what a week guys. Sorry again!"

My favorite followup to the 7 Steps? Rinse. Interview with Jason Calacanis. Repeat.

Photo: Phonono