APPLE launched the latest version of their iPhone a few weeks ago. As with the iPad, they sold millions of these phones within few weeks. To be exact – close to three million phones in three weeks.

However, the bigger the launch, the bigger are the PR hassles. One small spark can quickly explode in to a negative PR that can kill a product. That nearly happened with the Apple iPhone 4. People started reporting of a problem dubbed “AntennaGate”.

It was reported that the iPhone 4, which sports a “revolutionary” antenna design–with the antenna going all around the phone's periphery–drops signals if it held in the normal way. Now, that’s a problem. You will need to hold the phone to talk, and if you hold it normally, it would drop signals. Renders the phone useless–right?

The whole thing exploded on the web and over social media websites. There were videos on YouTube describing how the signals dropped. There were reports of people receiving e-mails from Steve Jobs saying that, “do not hold it that way”, or “its just a phone”. Now this, added fuel to the conversations people were having across the world. It made the problem worse.

The whole thing was all over the internet in a matter of minutes. Subsequent to this, Apple held a press conference and admitted to some problems. But, the company shared alternative figures, too. According to their figures, only 0.55 percent of all iPhone 4 users complained of antenna-related issues. CNN’s senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs, Octavia Nasr, faced a similar problem. The CNN veteran for 20 years tweeted about the death of Hezbollah leader, and wrote, “Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah... One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot.”

The tweet got so much negative attention that she had to lose her job. All her explanations about the reasons for her tweet were buried under the news. The only thing that stood out was the fact that she praised somebody who was hated to the core by her audience.

Reports of reporters losing jobs because of what they wrote outside their newspapers, are plenty. But, the problem is that though they lost their jobs, the damage that they leave behind is permanent.

Your employees are no different from the employees of CNN. A lot of them are on Twitter. They may be leaking out confidential information. The first Indian company to take this seriously is Infosys. It was recently reported that Infosys has a full-fedged social media policy for its employees. The head of HR at Infosys was reported saying that there was an instance when two people working on a project shared information on Facebook regarding the project. It was a serious breach of security, and there was nothing that the company could do to stop it.

Not anymore. Infosys' new policy aims to define various dos and don’ts for employees who participate in discussions on the social media sites. But, this is also not a fool-proof solution. It's like a SLA without the monitoring tools to ensure that the SLA is being met.

But, it is a start none-the-less. Have you thought of having such a solution? Do let us know.

THE AUTHOR IS Executive Editor, CTO Forum

geetaj.channana@9dot9.in