Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Press Release - You are on the wane


Starting in August, Logitech will include a link within its Webcam software that will enable people to record video directly to the Internet, according to sources close to the deal.

One of my favourite web sites is run by The Royal Marsden Hospital. It is an online cartoon for children facing Chemotherapy. Then there is the peek into the future and Epic. Not many in PR have taken virtual communities very far and few will have seen how good they are.

For professor Edward Castronova in his Business Week interview, games are quite real. There are other academics even better known like Howard Reingold, with such ideas.

But I have some more prosaic examples.

Imagine creating an auction house online. There is a fantasy for you. Could you imagine bringing together hundreds of academics into a modern Library of Alexandria with whole nations visiting this temple every day. What about a classroom only inches across? Were these ideas born out of a PR communicators brain?

There have been some attempts by PR people such a putting an email address in a news story.

Already there are a host of environments waiting for an imaginative PR person to use.

But, Convergent applications have a long way to go. There have been some attempts such a putting an email address in a news story. So why not a 100 contractors in Second Life on television as part of an integrated Olympic PR programme?

Who has yet to put podcasts on Internet kiosks at the railway station. Have passers by been invited to blog in Oxford Street about their brand experience with comments projected onto an electronic billboard above Eros? Nice thought.

Highly targeted, engaged publics are at the heart of what I am saying. A massive population of people who want to spread your messages for 'free'.

As soon as we break the bonds of the last 40 years, there is so much that can be done. Imagine asking the question, instead of a press release what will engage our publics?

A cold winter has set in and the press release wanes.


Picture: Luxorian


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