It had to happen: Green Biz vs. Save Your Ass Biz

I was wondering when the natives would begin to turn on each other.  There has been a lot of repositioning of companies behind "green" initiatives lately.  Most of the efforts are little more than cosmetic (i.e. Bank of America's statement that their reduced paperwork is "green".  It's smart business and green is a side-effect.)  But some companies have changed fundamental pieces of their business in an attempt to be green.

As we hit a downturn, however, I wonder about the companies that have hired "green" experts or are commiting resources in the pursuit of being green.  Especially as energy prices come down, how feasible is it to sustain these expenses.

Now a blogger at SeekingAlpha has pointed out the conflict that companies must navigate in difficult times.  He focuses on Sun where some key engineers are arguing that helping the world should be a corporate goal.  It should be interesting to watch this dynamic play out.

This seems analogous to what is happening in the newspaper industry.  Newspapers were known as the "Fourth Estate" and they believed they had a moral imperative to ignore financial considerations because their efforts served a larger good.  However, in this latest cycle, one where Bush made capitalism king and societal concerns the court jester, newspapers are being decimated by financial concerns.

The Internet v. Quality of Information: Chapter 1 - SeekingAlpha.com

Michelle Leder at Footnoted.org has raised a very interesting discussion about a leading investment website, SeekingAlpha.com. She highlights a controversy surrounding the stock of the company Microvision, a microcap company that makes compact display solutions, that occurred when a hedge fund published a negative piece on SeekingAlpha. According to Michelle, Microvision's stock price fell from $3.40 to $3.00 -- so the story may have had a substantial impact on the price of the stock. If the hedge fund was short the shares, as the author indeed said they were, then they could potentially have made quite a bit of money from the position -- 13% depending upon the entry/exit prices.
But this brings up a larger issue than just the hedge fund using a public online forum to manipulate the markets, it brings into question whether or not blogs and other online investment information sources need to be regulated. As the flow information shifts from traditional equity research sources (which are highly regulated) and newspapers/magazines (which are not) to blogs and online sources such as MarketWatch.com, BigCharts.com and other forums, is there a role for ensuring that the average individual investor is protected from wrongdoings and manipulation by more sophisticated players?
Regardless of how this issue gets resolved, it once again highlights that people need to use critical thinking in evaluating the source of the information they are receiving and whether that source has any incentives for skewing the information. Usually they do. And usually they will.