A minor blogosphere tussle has turned ugly. That’s nothing new; what’s surprising about this particular fight is that one of the participants, Shel Israel, is a well known author and consultant who makes a living advising others on how to avoid the very trap that he fell into himself. In the process Israel has done considerable damage to his personal brand.

Israel is a long time PR and strategy consultant, and co-authored the book Naked Conversations with blogger Robert Scoble. The book advises companies to embrace new media conversations with customers and potential customers.

Israel recently teamed with Scoble on a new project - video interviews for FastCompanyTV. On March 19 Israel uploaded the