The worst fear of a restaurateur used to be opening the newspaper to find a critical review of his or her food. Same for performances or new products and gadgets. This anxiety could keep business owners up at night—but at least they knew when to expect a review to hit the streets.

In today’s online gusher of consumer opinion and dialogue, reviews and rumors come in little spurts and splashes on a variety of different websites, blogs and even comments to those blogs. There’s Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Citysearch and a vast sea of other websites to monitor and manage. The web is the modern day comment card—the only difference being that it’s publicly visible to millions.