Laura and Jim’s identities were revealed as well: Laura St. Claire is a freelance writer and Jim Thresher is a staff photographer for The Washington Post. The end of the travel blog hasn’t been the end of notoriety for the couple: blogs have been buzzing with a pro-Costco review St. Claire recently published, as well as the ethical debate brought up by Thresher working for another publication.

All that’s left of the blog now are two “goodbye” posts.

I think the biggest problem about this blog was the lack of transparency by the authors and the group backing it. From what I’ve seen, one of the quickest ways to open yourself up for attacks in the blogosphere is to lie about your purpose, and even bigger, lie about who you are. I’m not the only one who feels this way.

At first, many in the blogosphere are surprised at this “goof” by Edelman, especially Shel Holtz, who is even more surprised at the lack of a response from the company.

Those smart PR folks working for Edelman are among the members of the PR community who advocate participation in the conversation. Some of them have been brutal when, to their way of thinking, somebody else fails to understand what it means to be engage in the conversation. So where is Edelman in this particular conversation? Missing in action. As dismaying as this latest misstep is, it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk.

Richard Edelman himself finally responded to the issue on his 6 a.m. blog yesterday.

I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset. This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client's.

I’m glad to see Richard address the debate finally and note that his colleagues are working toward maintaining the ethics they helped create for not only WOMMA but their own practices, and to respond to the dozens of comments that have come in on his post.