Consumer advocates and social media marketers will no doubt be interested in this story that broke over the weekend. Arlen Parsa at The Daily Background took a short break from political analysis to expose a Belkin development rep who appeared to be hiring people to write fake positive Amazon reviews. Parsa broke the story on Friday; by Sunday, Belkin’s president Mike Reynoso responded with an apology big on regaining consumer trust which the unfortunate Michael Bayard had been instrumental in undermining.

Gizmodo was one of the many tech blogs to pick up on Parsa’s scoop; Dan Nosowitz highlighted the impact this will have on the consumer:

“This kind of fakery is probably far more common than we realize, but it’s awful for the consumer. That wireless USB hub, for example, advertises Mac compatibility, but one of the real reviews suggests that this isn’t true at all. Such user feedback is important to making an informed choice as a consumer, and Bayard’s underhanded tactics screw up the entire system. For shame.”

Elsewhere on the web:

There’s just a day to go before the world’s first social media aware president is sworn in, and it looks like he means to go on as he began – Jeremiah Owyang points to news that after he’s sworn in, President-Elect Barack Obama will receive a briefing from ideas crowdsourced from the American people via Change.Force.com. Owyang thinks the Obama campaign has smoothed the way for big brands to view social media with less suspicion, saying:

“I talk to the executives of the world’s largest brands, after Obama won the election, I get a lot less push back –it’s rare I have to have discussions now about the validity of social technologies. Of course, social technologies still come with risk, but for some reason this feels really good, we’re all a bit more connected and the internet helps to bring us together.”

ReadWriteWeb has dug into the ideas and compiled a list of the top ten topics close to Americans’ hearts.

Search specialists and content providers take note: Miguel Helft reporting for the New York Times takes a look at an emerging phenomenon of internet users eschewing Google or Yahoo for YouTube as a new entry point onto the web. A quote from the story puts it into perspective: “All of us who are a certain age think of video as a medium associated with television, and not as a reference [...] It’s another method of search that we don’t fully appreciate.”

If Technorati has been getting you down of late, look no further for decent blog search than Icerocket. The Guardian’s Charles Arthur recommends it in a 22-word comparative review: “Icerocket is seriously beating Technorati for blog search at the moment. Google Blog Search might as well shut up shop – it finds nothing.“