What is social media - answers here

Anthony Mayfield writing in Digital Bulletin gives a very good description of social media.

The article was adapted from the e-Book "What is social media?" from Spannerworks Social Media division, which can be downloaded free at spannerworks.com/ebooks.

Just to give you a flavour, here is part of his post.

Social media is best understood as a group of new kinds of online media, which share most or all of the following characteristics:

- Participation: social media encourages contributions and feedback from everyone who is interested. It blurs the line between the concept of media and audience.

- Openness: most social media services are open to feedback and participation. They encourage voting, feedback, comments and sharing of information. There are rarely any barriers to accessing and making use of content - password protected content is frowned on.

- Conversation: whereas traditional media is about "broadcast", content transmitted or distributed to an audience, social media is better seen as conversational, two-way.

- Community: social media allows communities to form quickly and communicate effectively around common interests - be that a love of photography, a political issue or a favourite TV show.

- Connectedness: Most kinds of social media thrive on their connectedness, via links and combining different kinds of media in one place.

At this time, there are basically five main types of social media. Note though that innovation and change are rife in social media -- definitions and categories don't stand still for long.

The most common kinds of social media are blogs, social networks, content communities (sometimes called folksonomies), wikis and podcasts. You may have heard of many of these, and we'll go into a little more depth on these later, but here are some one line descriptions to be going on with:

- Blogs: perhaps, the best known form of social media, blogs are online journals, with entries appearing with the most recent first.

- Social networks: these websites allow people to build personal websites and then connect with friends to share content and communication. The best known example of a social network is MySpace, which has over 100m members.

- Content communities (aka folksonomies): communities that organise and share particular kinds of content. The most popular kinds of content communities tend to be around photos (Flickr), bookmarked links (del.icio.us) and videos (YouTube).

- Wikis: these websites allow people to add content to or edit the information on them, acting as a communal document or database. The best-known wiki is the online encyclopedia, which has over 1.25 million articles published in English alone.

- Podcasts: audio and video files that are available by subscription through services like Apple iTunes.

What sort of image do you project from space

Two Google Earth users got an extra surprise when they explored the Dutch city of the Hague and spotted topless sunbathers we learn from Metro.

It made me think of the impression our organisations give from space.

It may be worth a look to monitor what you look like from Mars or No 10 Easington Avenue, Leicester.

This is a Bubble - yes it is

Yes it is.

The mad mad mad venture capitalists and hype merchants are at it and it will take a big tumble soon.

This comment in Mad made me make this post:

The sense that the internet has been running ahead of itself was strongly reinforced last week when Yahoo! chief executive Terry Semel warned that the growth in online advertising was weakening. Advertising has been the backbone of almost all internet companies, so the warning from one of the biggest online media players that two of the most important advertising sectors - automotive and finance - were weakening sent shockwaves through the online world.

But lets put this into perspective. Last time (the dot com bubble) saw the web go out of fashion. Millions were lost. It was said that the web was finished and acquaintances smirked when you talked about your online business.

The PR industry turned its back on the web and now has to regret the lost opportunity.

Last year 11 million bananas were purchased online in the UK. The web is now ubiquitous.

The social media and 'web 2.0' stuff will crash. Possibly as early as this winter.

But, for the reasons made clear here, social media will thrive.

The marketing chiefs will, of course, shun these media because they will no longer be cool.

They will be wrong, but that never stopped them in the past. They will find another way to scream at punters. And, because Advertising has to change, and they will not understand, the PR opportunity will grow. That is not to say that PR does not have to change. It does.

Public Relations has to stay calm and focused and believe in itself. We build relationships and here are 14 reasons why we can be confident. Relationships out-last downturns and will even save reputations. We will achieve this by standing by our beliefs.

In the meantime, we have a great opportunity.

Think not of advertising. Its day is done. Think more of how you can introduce a willing partner in conversation to buy because your recommendation and that of other users is worth it.

Mobile is the new newspaper

The pressure on the media to understand the news consumption habits in the real world is now pressing.

It is an argument one also has to put to the PR industry. Here are three simple questions:

'How many times was your story read on a mobile?'

'Was it more times that in print?'

'Do you really know?'

Well it is getting important.


I learn from M:Metrics that 14% of Brits Browsed News and Information on their Mobile in the three months to July, up 3% over the previous quarter (so expect that to double by next summer).

U.K. Mobile Subscriber Monthly Consumption of Content and Applications M:Metrics Benchmark Survey: July 2006
Activity	Subscribers (1000s)	Pct	Pct Change
Sent Text Message	36,240	84.3%	(0.5%)
Used Photo Messaging	12,877	29.9%	1.0%
Browsed News and Information	6,229	14.5%	(3.2%)
Used Personal E-Mail	2,721	6.3%	(4.4%)
Purchased Ringtone	2,343	5.4%	(4.2%)
Downloaded Mobile Game	1,737	4.0%	(6.8%)
Used Mobile Instant Messenger	1,585	3.7%	(9.0%)
Used Work E-Mail	1,298	3.0%	(5.6%)
Purchased Wallpaper or Screensaver	945	2.2%	(2.1%)

There is a further issue for PR. Are we pitching to the print editor or to the mobile editor?

There is something missing in Social Media

A splendid article in the Scotsman looks into social media and its significance including this snippet:

Recent research suggests that social networking sites are not going away and the behaviour that drives them is among the strongest of current social trends. Monthly figures from industry watchers M:Metrics suggest that 10 per cent of online users in the UK have used social networking sites and that 15 per cent thought they were likely to post photos or videos on the web in the coming 12 months.

It also quotes Dr Cynthia McVey, lecturer in psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University, who says:

"There are going to be some things missing from electronic interaction such as the use of body language and expression. You can say something in words and it can be funny, ironic, sad or malicious depending on your facial expression or your hand movements."

There is much more in the article.

Perhaps this is why so many people who have on-line acquaintances are so happy to meet at conferences to get a deeper sense of who they are interacting with. Is this what PR can add to social media? The opportunity to meet face to face.... Absolutely.

What is PR?

Today, I was asked (again), what is PR?

In social science:

"Concerning that complex whole which creates cultural acceptance for an organisation including knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society to contribute values through the creation of effective relationships"

(from “Sir Edward B. Tylor 1871: "culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society".)

In management:

"That practice which facilitates the nexus of relationship to define an organisation."

In practice

The capability which facilitates relationships to affect an organisation and its constituency to their mutual advantage.


Thus... its all about relationships.

See also:

A previous answer

PR practices

The scope of PR

PR serving industry

What is an organisation

O Table - a communication platform?

Welcome to the latest eye boggling invention in audiovisual (AV) technology. It is a 50in table, with an LCD screen, which looks a bit like an upturned TV.

VNUNet has some other ideas too.

Users can download images from a mobile phone onto the computer below. They can be networked with all the other ‘terminals’ in the seminar area, shared with everyone else on the network or projected onto large screens.

Handy AV has recently installed a 100in screen, illuminated by a 6,500 lumin projector, in London’s Park Lane. It has recently been working on a similarly scaled project at Brompton Road, opposite Harrods.


These platforms for communication can be used for advertising but that would be a terrible waste.

Much better to used them to engage in relationship building, making them relevant and appealing in conversations.

Can I use my phone to send a Happy Christmas message to all my friends using the Screen outside Harrods, video it and send it to everyone all from my cell phone - technically yes.

I bet the screens will be used to show Santa Clause holding up aftershave - yuk!

Can I take my client into Second Life gazing into the conference room table - yup! Hooray!!!!

Smart Cards and mobiles open doors and communication

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has published a guidance for enterprises setting out how they must deal with individuals' data when it becomes linked to RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags - whether they're found attached to goods in a supermarket or on smartcards such as the Oyster card (from Silicon.com).

Everton Football club uses this technology to replace tickets and it may yet speed up airport check in.

RFID is now to be included in cell phones (Manchester City Football Club is trialing it now) which mean that it is becoming an important part of the communication mix.

It means that there is an interactive interface between the phone, location, device and message.

It means that a range of devices from turnstiles to electronic posters can be made to do things (open, present a message etc) as people walk by.

Right message, right person, right time, right location - what more do you need to begin to create a conversation and interactive relationship.

At present scream marketing is trying to use these technologies but as a Social media, interactive and relationship building idea it has much better applications.

This is no longer future technology, it is ready for use in campaigns now.


A backgrounder is here.

The Grocer is on his way

Tesco.com is coming up with new uses for the handheld devices that help its drivers to deliver home shopping orders without getting lost.

The retailer rolled out the devices - combining the delivery scheduling system and a satellite navigation package - to 50 drivers operating from its South London dot-com store in March this year. The store delivers to a big chunk of South London so the drivers are often in areas they aren't familiar with.

The company is also reviewing other areas where the devices could be useful - for example whether the devices can be used to give customers better information on when their groceries will arrive such as alerting them via text message when the van has left the store.

This is communication and therefore part of PR thinking.

Imagine the opportunities for interactive relationships with customers when they know that the driver will arrive and can combine human and technology communication.

There will also be a need for PR issues and crisis management round such technologies.

Foxed - and groveling

FoxNews has admitted that it used 'poor judgement' when it demanded that YouTube remove its interview with Bill Clinton.

The interview, originally broadcast on the FoxNews channel, showed former President Clinton becoming antagonised by what he perceived as a biased line of questioning from FoxNews journalist Chris Wallace.

FoxNews drew heavy criticism after raising its hackles requiring that it get back its belongings in its manger with all the other dusty toys under its bushy tail.


Journalism.c.uk tells the story.

I wonder if Rupert Murdoch really understands that if he hides content such as news. He shuts down the opportunity for it to be sought, seen and useable online when it is fish and chip wrapping or etherware in traditional outlets.

Same goes for press clippings. They are useless to anyone except the PR exec pasting them up and the client. But as brand messenger, they are ace. Enter the NLA the biggest blunderbuss Murdoch has aimes at his feet for years.

But we know that Fox and the Times have some way to go before they understand social media (MySpace) and the long tail (Time archive).

More podcasting thoughts and examples

David Meerman Scott offers:

For content that is best delivered via audio or for buyers who prefer to listen to audio content, podcasting is obviously essential. For example, many politicians and churches podcast so that supporters can keep up with speeches and sermons when they can’t hear them live.

While the podcasting of music is perhaps an obvious choice given the medium's similarity to radio, all marketers can learn from what the music business and bands like Uncle Seth have been doing with podcasts. After all, who would believe that a business like that of student loans providers would benefit from a podcast?

He offers more examples here.

Peter Shankman gets all the good jobs

Like him... despite my best efforts not to, I find myself actually LIKING the video. Damn it.

Social video metrics

From TechCrunch comes news of a for of evaluation for on-line video.

London-based, Unruly Media recently launched Viral Video Chart “the first chart to independently monitor the popularity of videos” from the world’s most influential video-sharing sites i.e YouTube, MySpace and Google Video. They tried looking for references to videos on Yahoo AOL MSN for a while, but nothing ever made the top 25 so they stopped!? This is surprising given that according to Hitwise, the top 5 sites in the US for online video are YouTube (43% market share), MySpace (25%), Yahoo! (10%), MSN (9%) and Google (6%) (Hitwise,24 May 2006)

So if you want to know the number one video that people are talking about today, you can find it on www.viralvideochart.com. Equally there is also a weekly and monthly chart available, plus an archive of previous number ones

Tag - a word to play with

Ian Delaney has an introduction to social tagging. I mentioned tagging on For Immediate Release on Tuesday and this is a less culinary approach.

Tags and tagging are a big part of social media. Instead of sorting items into folders, you describe them with a series of words. The words you use, the ‘tags’, are up to you. Some people refer to this as ‘folksonomy’ in the sense that tags are home-grown and created by users, as opposed to putting things into folders in a tree structure decided by other people, ‘taxonomy’.ote>

This can be useful for lots of reasons and Ian shows some of them.

This is getting crowded - another MySpace look alike

Microsoft spin-off Wallop launched its social networking service at the DEMOfall technology conference Tuesday, saying its unique business model is what sets itself apart from competing services like Facebook and MySpace reports BetaNews.

"After taking a long, hard look at social computing, it became clear that it is not simply about the technology, which has been limited and plagued with problems to date," said Karl Jacob, CEO and founder of Wallop.

"It's about the trend of self-expression moving online, creating enormous demand for easy and limitless customization and an enlightened social experience where the user is in control," he continued.

In addition, users will be able to share music, pictures and commentary across the site. Wallop says all the digital rights management functionality would be controlled by the site. This would include the mods to site pages, where the company asks for a 30 percent cut.

Do I really have to try yet another one?

Well, what did catch my eye is that it sets out to offer a market:

Want to become a Modder?

Create cool Flash and sell it on Wallop. Check out the
Wallop Modder Network.

If people can also make money here, they may be tempted.

BBC peek into the dark side

Well, here is a story.

The BBC and Microsoft have signed a memorandum of understanding to look at areas of common interest as they develop the next generation of digital broadcasting.

"We are currently witnessing unprecedented rates of change in technology and audience expectations," said Mark Thompson, BBC director-general.

"To ensure that the BBC is able to embrace the creative challenges of the digital future, we need to forge strategic partnerships with technology companies and distributors for the benefit of licence payers."

Citzen Journalism - a backgrouder

Mark Glaser, has a nice little backgrounder to citizen journalism, which he says: is that people without professional journalism training can use the tools of modern technology and the global distribution of the Internet to create, augment or fact-check media on their own or in collaboration with others.

It goes back to some of the early examples and is a light introduction and will offer some insight for those practitioners who want to interact in this space.

Diversity in Social Media

'The Business of Diversity - how PR performance can be improved by embracing diversity'. is to be debated by the CIPR on 18 October, the conference will see leading speakers address the issues posed by Britain's increasingly diverse society. At the heart of the conference is the proposition that it is in the best interests of businesses to diversify their workforce.The report will review the diversity of the PR profession today in terms of ethnicity, gender, disability, age and sexuality.

One notes that diversity has not being extended to people without the ability, education or technical skills to be a blogger of Colin Farrington's stature. I have a young dyspraxic friend who is a wizzard Instant Messaging. Perhaps he can attend and explain the problems of using and being accepted as a blogger and with other social media.

Knee jerk

Currys has announced plans to launch a low-cost online DVD and CD store aimed at undercutting major offline and online retailers.

The electrical goods firm said it would offer around 180,000 CDs and 40,000 DVDs for purchase online, with free delivery and chart and new releases priced from £8.99 and £12.99 respectively.

This just does not make sense. If online download to to MP3 player. If not, go to store.

Or did I miss something?

If Currys had offered a 'free to play' instore wifi I could believe it. Then they could make a profit selling coffee.

I don't know who their CMO is but its bout they got a new one.

The web magazines with content 95% suppliers by 'users'.

My out takes from the Journalism.co.uk interview with Jeremy Tapp of online publisher Magicalia.

What we learn from this is yet another market that now exists for good copy from the Public relations industry.

"It doesn't take a genius to look at the ABCs this year to know things are changing.


"Frankly, I think a large part of what is happening is because of the web, it has finally started to grow commercial teeth, its bite is becoming as bad as its bark," said Jeremy Tapp.

Tapp and his business partner Adam Laird co-founded Magicalia seven years ago. It is home to 40 specialist website communities.

However, last month Magicalia bought Encanta Media for £2.72 million to get its hands on its woodworking, modelling, patchwork and gardening magazines and initiate its move from solely digital into duel publishing.

"A lot of people say web is important to their magazines but what they really mean is that it is a defensive action, essentially 'how do we deal with this thing that we would rather not deal with,' by which they mean the ingress of something that changes their world.

"We recognise that magazines are fabulous and have a deep connection with readers, a permanent connection with readers and advertisers, and we want to do that too.

"The fully evolved cross-media company in a couple or three years time will be seamless and will have skills in both those worlds."

Many of Magicalia's sites have up to 95 per cent of their content supplied by the users.

Publishing online and having a sturdy technological base has allowed Magicalia to launch titles that would not otherwise survive in print and attract several small audience groups that when combined offer a powerful advertising bait.

"Without the cost of distribution, without the cost of paper, we can reach into a smaller niche."

"Getting money out of readers for content when there is high quality content available for free on the website next door is always going to be difficult.

"You have to create an environment that is really high quality if you are going to do that, the reason that we have not done it yet is for precisely that difficulty. It's a new world and people are still scrambling for market share."

Cultural Organisations - can they now be free?

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, He notes on his blog:

The British Council and Counterpoint has a new publication, “Unbounded Freedom: A Guide to Creative Commons Thinking for Cultural Organizations,” written by Rosemary Bechler. The book will be launched Friday. There’s a discussion page on the author’s blog, which begins with a useful post addressing the question: “So why did I choose to licence my work in this way?”

What is free - and how

The Free Software Foundation has launched a public discussion on proposed changes to the Free Document License, a license designed “can be used for any textual work” but which, in the world enriched by Wikipedia, now attempts to license all creative work.

This is a discussion worth following. It is, after all, about every press release issued and article published. It is about blog posts and video and it is about social media.

It is about mixing 'free' content such as audio and video and where you copyright extends (like the licence for this work).

Can On-line PR keep up with the growth in Social Media

In a research note quoted by Reuters, RBC Capital analyst Jordan Rohan said he had come out of a meeting with Fox Interactive enthused about the site’s experienced management, "massive" global appeal and potential to become "an intellectual property distribution powerhouse".

While admitting his claim sounds “audacious”, he thinks "media investors may not fully appreciate what has already been done with MySpace or what may lie ahead."

He added: "$15bnan> in a few years? It is possible.” Remember that Fox only paid $580 m for MySpace.

>Now, lets put this alongside the Social Media activities and projections of, say WPP, Edelman or (OK they are the 'eyes and ears of the industry) CIPR. Is the PR industry, the natural profession to engage in conversation and relationship building, going to share in this value. Will PR be bigger than the scream marketing types that want to raid the MySpace users mind?

Um.....

Well, we jolly well should be thinking in these terms.

Colin Farrington - what do you want to say to the DG of CIPR?

David Brain met Colin Farrington.

Colin asked :

"...what exactly did I and we (you bloggers out there I guess) want the CIPR to do help the industry come up to speed on the issue? Fair enough. Let’s think constructively as a group on this one and see what we can suggest. Answers on a postcard to…"

Sixty Second View

professionals seen to understand strategic, tactical and operational use

Simon Wakeman makes a lot of sense in his post about the CIPR and its role in helping develop social media for the industry.

In particular this comment is valuable:

CIPR needs to take an aggressively positive stance on social media. There are many professions vying for credibility in this space, and as a respected body the institute can articulate the valid credentials for our profession.

It’s easy for anyone to get into social media, but the professionals who are seen to understand the strategic, tactical and operational use of these new channels will be those who can benefit most commercially from them.

That’s not to say a debate isn’t healthy - but a corporate stance is needed from the CIPR on social media to give a firm indication of its position - otherwise the messages on behalf of the UK PR community will continue to be mixed.

The changing nature of organisations

An article by Wyatt Kash, in GCN cought my attention.

Despite his use of 'web 2.0' it is interesting because of some of the comments he has brought together.

For example:

"If the Web 2.0 is in its infancy, then Enterprise 2.0 is a total newborn," and "

"...the days when the technologists could impose technology standards, inflicting structure on, and inside an organization" as they have over the past 10 years may be waning."


"...the outcome doesn't have to be chaos. It can be more like an ant colony."

PR speak - just rubbish

Andy Lark has this great post about the absence of thought and PR speak.

Lee Gomes on the use of the word Breakthrough in press releases. There are plenty of other common phrases. Like "leading" - if everyone is leading then who isn't? A simple and imperfect Google search on 'press release leading' resulted in 92,700,999 results...

Our laziness in crafting news releases isn't just tiresome, to Lee's point, it perverts the very language we depend on for our trade.

His full post adds more.
It is a real turn off. Why do PR people keep using these obviously nonsense words.

The PR consultancy social media portfolio

What sort of thing can your PR consultancy do beside write press releases and organise events? Can I suggest looking at how football clubs are showing you the way with the portfolio you need.

EVERTON Football Club has reappointed new media company Rippleffect as its online partner in a five-year deal worth a six-figure sum, reports Cheshire Online .

The Premier League club has long been associated with online innovation, and recently became the first UK football club to produce its own dedicated podcast.

Here we see a broad based application of new media. A plan that can be adopted for a range of PR applications.

Check out Everton Mobile, Everton RSS feeds, Everton blogs, Everton TV and lots of other applications.

The new website offers Everton's global fan base massive amounts of exclusive downloadable and interactive content - in addition to the now-established news feeds and Everton TV - and a subscription based-video on demand TV service that has seen a 250% increase in subscriptions since launch.

Comedy, Podcast and good PR idea

Comics Marek Larwood, Russell Howard and Steve Hall have recorded an exclusive Sun Podcast to mark the start of their new Edinburgh & Beyond Tour, in association with Paramount Comedy and Avalon.

This is a great way of using podcasts. The promoter, paper and participants all get good exposure and not far away, I guess, is the special Sun Christmas offer of an iPod or other MP3 player.

A good PR case study.

Newspapers leave young people cold

New York Times (NYT) recently appointed 'futurist-in-residence' has claimed that young readers do not have an 'emotional attachment to paper'.

This is not just a US trend. It is true too in the UK. The impact on media relations is obvious and needs to be part of campaign plan development.

Last week the NYT announced the appointment of Michael Rogers as futurist-in-residence - to keep the organisation abreast of how technological developments will affect the newspaper industry notes Journalism.co.uk.

Rogers, a former new-media executive with the Washington Post who writes the Practical Futurist column for MSNBC, told I Want Media that despite great technological advancements newspapers would not disappear, to be replaced by mobile and internet editions, for some time.

For a long time the emotional relationship between print and its readers has been well understood and is based on the research of Guy Consterdine.

At present, it is holding up the circulation of consumer magazines. I see this being in danger as mobile starts to replace such magazines. The emotional attachment to the mobile device is an area of development that needs more research but is already apparent.

Are Publishers really 'idiots'

FoxNews has made YouTube remove an interview with Bill Clinton - drawing condemnation from media blogger Jeff Jarvis, reports Journalism.co.uk.



Instead of housing the interview the YouTube now carries the message:

"This video has been removed at the request of copyright owner Fox News Network, LLC because its content was used without permission."

Media commentator Jeff Jarvis was quick to condemn the act, in a posting to Buzzmachine titled 'Idiots', he wrote:

"FoxNews takes the Bill Clinton interview down from YouTube. Fools. They would be getting a whole new audience. They'd be even more part of the conversation.

Jeff is of course just talking sense. The news from publishing over the last month is one of just pure lack of understanding.

Blog PR for Charity

A GROUP of friends who banded together to help a businessman raise cash for Isabel Hospice are charting their progress with the help of the Welwyn and Hatfield Times website.

As reported in last week's WHT, Sam Ahmed, manager at The Pavillion Indian restaurant in WGC, decided he wanted to do something for the community as a thank you for them supporting his business.

He has organised a three-course meal with wine, followed by grand charity auction at his restaurant on Thursday, October 26.

This week his team of helpers set up their own blog through the WHT website.

It will chart their progress as the event draws near.

This is a great way to use social media the link up between a blog, a restaurant and a local newspaper is a nice model.

Telegraph takes readers into darkest corners

The Telegraph has launched a political blog, Commons Confidential, to provide daily updates of goings-on at Westminster, reports Journalism UK.

The blog promises to takes readers 'into parliament's darkest corners - and reveal what the politicians don't want you to hear

Are blog comments really a measure of popularity?

Nick Farrell writing at The Enquirer reports on an Australian blogger who discovered that spam is the best way to make friends and influence people.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Wardle forgot to switch on a comment verification system and has had his feedback section flooded with spam. Most of his recent posts have had about 1200 and 1600 comments each. Most of them were nonsensical spam messages.

On the bonus side, because BigBlog calculates popularity of a bog on the amount of comments it gets, Wardle is considered extremely popular.

The 8 Year Google experience

When I wrote the first edition of 'Online Public Relations' in 2000, Google was one of a handful of search engines that I mentions. This week Google is eight years old and a phenomenon.

Well done Google.

Now there are issues, largely because of its success.

Our approach to content at the Google Blog explains how it works with content owners and its desire to respect their rights.

The case is well put by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch. He says:

In terms of copyright, Google stresses that it generally sticks to what's known as fair use, though the post doesn't use those words. The idea is that it shows very short summaries of stories, pages, thumbnails of images but doesn't reprint this material, requiring people to clickthrough to the actual material from places like Google News.

Of course, in the case of cached pages, many including myself would argue that Google goes beyond fair use. Cached pages are an example where content can be viewed without clicking through to the original site, and the opt-out approach for that doesn't feel appropriate at all.

Google also notes there are cases when it wants to go beyond fair use, to make broader use of content where permission would be required. The deal with the Associated Press is cited as one of several examples here.

To me, this is also a way for Google to help defuse the idea that some publications have, such as the Belgian newspapers recently, that Google can be bought off to avoid lawsuits. To me, this is Google stressing that it will do content deals in some cases, but that these content deals aren't necessarily being done to avoid lawsuits, especially when it feels it is acting within fair use guidelines. That's my speculation and take on this, of course. Google didn't comment when I asked if this was the reason for raising the AP deals.

Moving past Google saying it respects copyright, it then stresses that it allows people to opt-out, even if it feels it has fair use rights. In general, I agree with this method, which Google along with the other major search engines generally follow. Trying to get permission from each web site to index it would be an impossible task, and one that's not necessarily even legally required. Opt-out through things like robots.txt is an effective way to protect rights holders plus benefit the public as a whole. I do hope they'll change cached pages to opt-in, however.

I have commented before that blocking a search engine is a way of excluding people from finding your organisation. It reduces the digital footprint of the organisation for most people and, with the exception of the enthusiast, denies the organisation benefits available from its online asset.

Of course, whether Google caches a page or not does not mean it is not cached. It is and can be found. The Internet has a collective memory that means all content can be recovered anyway.

The 8 years Google experience has brought great benefits to us all. If some organisations want to throw it away, they will regret it.

Free online monitoring for lucky few

My friend Bill Comcowich at CyberAlert, the online media monitoring company, today announced that, for the fourth consecutive year, the company will award a minimum of 10 public relations grants to not-for-profit organisations. Each grant consists of one full year of free news monitoring / press clipping services, ranging in value from $2,700 to $3,900. The aggregate value of the grants is expected to total at least $25,000.

For a number of years I offered the CyberAlert service in the UK market which was fun but long before the PR industry realised that there are 8000 online publications publications on line that need to be monitored. Even to this day, most UK PR firms are limited to the range of publications they monitor on-line.

Time warp or moderne, the state of legal PR.

Legal Week has an article by Ronel Lehman which deals with a range of ways law firms can promote their services.

It is limited in scope and suggests that the legal profession is stuck in a 1970's promotional time warp.

This is not the case. Outlaw Radio, a weekly 10 minute podcast is an example of the use of new media and a fresher look at how the legal profession can engage with communities both local and global.

Almost all Social Media can be effectively deployed by law firms to good effect and the competitive advantage is available to the early adopters.

Retail narrowcast TV is a hit

There is a phenomena in UK stores that offers a channel for PR communication that is becoming really popular.

Narrowcast television has a proven record.

In this report, there are data to help understand what can be achieved in terms of exposure showing 85 per cent of visitors to stores equipped with Tesco TV see a screen during their visit, and that on average they see eight screens in total. The average recorded viewing time per exposure to a screen was three seconds. The group calculates viewing figures on the basis that stores have an average of fifty screens, of which 20 will be passed by any given shopper per visit.

JC Decaux group marketing director David McEvoy says. "These results prove beyond doubt that not only do consumers see the screens, but they also have a high frequency of exposure. The research provides us with real audience measurement for the very first time."

The alternatives such as the internet and electronic point of sale displays helps to remove uncertainty from communications in an era of fragmented media, according to a report into the consumer psychology aspects of digital media.

Digital Signage Networks: Theory, Psychology and Strategy has been produced by the Centre for Experimental Consumer Psychology, and by content creation group Pixel Inspiration.

In addition there is the Samsung Screen Survey (see article in Clickpress) now in its fifth edition, which offers detailed analysis of the state of the market.

The application of the communication channel to engage the consumer using relationship building content (PR) in place of just screen exposure, offers new opportunities.

This should be a PR channel and practitioners may like to explore this emerging capability.

Call Centres wreck relationships

A YouGov survey reveals just how bad the call centre experience really is. Commissioned by Callmedia and published in Net4Now, the UK’s leading developer of contact centre software reveals that only four per cent of people in the UK have had a favourable experience when dealing with a customer call centre, with 44 per cent complaining that their biggest gripe is contacting a call centre based overseas.

Commenting on this survey, Rufus Grig, managing director, Callmedia said:
“This research clearly indicates what customers do and don’t like.
Companies need to make quality customer service a priority and take steps to provide good, consistent and timely service in a bid to increase loyalty and reduce churn. The surprising find from this research is quite the strength of feeling felt by UK consumers against the outsourcing of contact centres overseas.”

The survey has revealed a number of other interesting facts:

* When a consumer wants to complain about a product or a service, 42 per cent of respondents prefer to use the phone to ensure that their point is heard

* However, 78 per cent of respondents prefer to buy products online rather than by telephone, email or post

* Respondents’ second biggest gripe is being passed from department to department until someone who can answer the specific query is found

Newspapers on paper are on the way out.

MICHAEL KINSLEY of Time asks the question and comes up with some pretty drab news.

How can the newspaper industry survive the Internet? On the one hand, newspapers are expected to supply their content free on the Web. On the other hand, their most profitable advertising--classifieds--is being lost to sites like Craigslist. And display advertising is close behind. Meanwhile, there is the blog terror: people are getting their understanding of the world from random lunatics riffing in their underwear, rather than professional journalists with standards and passports.

The full article has implications for the Public Relations industry. If newspapers are on their way out, what are the pratitioner options. Michael offers some hope.

New Media courses are part of PR degree courses

In a straight rebutal of the PR Week story Derek Hodge makes these points:

Under the headline PR Colleges ill-prepared for new-media explosion the current issue of the UK trade magazine PR Week (22 September, 2006) reports what looks like a shockingly sloppy piece of “research by tech agency Lewis PR” and tells us that “Just seven out of the 27 CIPR approved higher-education PR and comms courses in the UK offer modules dedicated to new media”.

There’s a list of “Colleges offering new-media modules” at the top of the article which fails to mention the University of Stirling where we have a Public Relations and Technology option for students taking our full-time MSc Public Relations course and also the University of Central Lancashire where I used to teach a module on Strategic Communication Technology to students on their MSc in Strategic Communications. That’s two courses I know of that are missing from the list and I wonder if there’s any others that they’ve omitted.

No lecturer teaching on our PR courses here at Stirling was consulted during this “research” and information regarding this module has been on our website since March.

The PR Week article states “Just seven of the 27 CIPR-approved higher-education PR and Comms courses in the UK offer modules dedicated to new media”, while the CIPR website lists over forty such courses and provides full contact details for most course leaders.

Oh dear.

I did rather admire the brass neck of Patrick Barrow, Director General of the PRCA, who seems to think that a major reason why those of us teaching public relations in the university sector should add modules covering new media to our courses is to reduce the cost of doing business for his members.

Is this poor journalism or great blogging?
Well, which do you think is the authentic voice?

A new approach to online conferencing

A first hand description of socil media conferening by Chris Rourke on e-consultancy.

He says:

The highly accessible and usable conference website (developed in Drupal) set the scene and allowed attendees (the cast) to start deciding the themes for discussion, uploading their profiles, blogging, and meeting each other online. As with most social conferences, the agenda was set through the pre-conference online discussion, providing a groundwork for further engagement at the actual conference.

David Milliband Interview on his Wiki ideas

From e-consultancy we are getting insights into David Miliband (Secretary of state for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) and his ideas and reaction to this summer when he launched the government's first experiment with wikis, only for the move to be scrapped after the “accidental or malicious editing or removal of material” by pranksters.

The wiki is back up.

Good work and an interesting interview.

Wireless in the Office and home

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are more tuned into the benefits of wireless than they were two years ago, with a 20 per cent surge in adoption, according to research published today.

More than three quarters (77 per cent) of this community are actively embracing this type of technology compared to just 57 per cent in 2004, claims the survey of 500 SMEs conducted by the Institute of Directors (IoD) and computer giant Dell.

Perhaps this is because so many SME owners have wireless at home.

China Blog

The number of blog sites in China reached 34 million last month, a 30-fold increase from four years ago.

ITPro

Public Relations Evaluation - online

We are really getting there now.

Heather Hopkins at Hitwise is offering some serious metrics that can help in evaluation of on-line PR programmes.

She says:

This week I focussed on the issue of using online usage data (search term volume and content and site visits) to improve the measurability of offline advertising and brand awareness. This week, we published a research report with Yahoo! Search Marketing and i-level (a digital agency in the UK) on this very topic. The research uses three case studies (Orange Shop, Sky and The AA to compare ad spend, creatives and online activity with online behaviour using Hitwise data on search terms, clickstream and visits.

Business Wire get PRWeb

David McInnis of PRWeb dropped Lee Odden a quick note about a new strategic partnership between PRWeb parent, Vocus Communications and Business Wire that includes the licensing of a private label version of PRWeb for use by Business Wire clients.

Lee Oden says:

This will give Business Wire a leg up over other wire services looking into the optimized press release space. It will also give Business Wire clients the opportunity to take advantage of the new media press release features offered by PRWeb.

Now it is time for Business wire to stipulate data feed using XPRL so the data can be used across a wide range of PR tools and services.

Its spin if you don't validating sources and offer representative graphics.

Jim Horton stumbled on two lessons in ethics and accuracy that would be good for PR practitioners to imitate -- sourcing numbers for readers and production of accurate and ethical graphics. The first came from a critique of newspaper columnists who cite statistics but fail to let readers know where they come from. The second is the code of ethics for the Society of News Design. Both strike a chord because twisting numbers to make a point is a common failure and using jiggered graphics for the same reason is pervasive in PR.

New Media Release

The Press Release is getting a major makeover.
Phil Gomes, is working on it as well. It will be nice when we can welcome him to the XPRL initiative as well.

In the meantime, it is my belief that the traditional Press Release has a very limited life.

Mobile Co's have another idea

Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages.

Another PR communication channel is on its way.

Facebook - a communications channel - is changing

US social networking website Facebook is to compete more directly with bigger rival MySpace by lifting registration restrictions in a move it hopes will attract millions of new users reveals the Guardian.

Until now Facebook, the second-largest social networking website in America after MySpace, has operated a relatively closed community, open only to members of schools, colleges and workplace networks.

Reading

Richard Bailey has an important post for PR people.

What are you reading? My question to all PR practitioners

Too many blank stares.

Seven in 10 arts professionals – many of whom have a role in marketing – said they believed their organisation could make more use of digital media.

One stumbling block is clearly the amount of money available, as budgets for digital marketing remain low; two-thirds of organisations currently allocate less than £10,000 per annum to digital technologies. While 98 per cent of organisations now have websites, 76 per cent say their website fails to meet all of the needs of their audiences. Many said they believed their organisation’s whole site needed redevelopment to function effectively.

So says Bob Worcester of Mori in Profile this week.

Looks like there is another campaign that CIPR should get stuck into - Social Media work is not cheap!

Keep off my brand

Profile reports, Nike paid up, Hackney, isn't hackneyed.

PR is just not channel savvy

It comes as blow to learn that PR people just don't use the communications channels available to them.
From PRW (behind Michael Heseltine's skirts and other firewalls), we learn

SUBtv, the company that runs a network of screens in student unions and bars, has called on more PR ­execu­tives to use the channel ­to reach the UK's growing student population.

Measuring a Blog's popularity

There are many ways to evaluate the popularity of your blog.

I offer this snippet. The full post from Smart Mobs is here.

We've used the most popular feeds mined from bloglines subscribers with public profiles to do various kinds of analyses. We've also played with other influence models for the blogosphere. One thing that the Bloginfluence formula doesn't capture is that the importance of links from other blogs and their posts should be weighted by their importance.

Astroturf to get an early bath

Well would you believe it another astroturfer got fired.. When will they ever learn. Kevin Dugan reports.

A top aide to U.S. Rep. Charles Bass resigned Tuesday after disclosures that he posed as a supporter of the Republican's opponent in blog messages intended to convince people that the race was not competitive.

We don't want press releases.

This is something everyone in PR is going to have to understand and not just for this site.

(1) Read the site. (2) Understand what the hell we talk about (3) Maybe participate on the site in comments (4) Explain to us why whatever your pitching is really interesting to our audience, rather than just claiming its "exciting." Oh yeah, if you claim that the company you're representing is "the leading" company in whatever tiny market you've made up just so you can claim to be leading it... don't even bother.

The old folk aint old anymore

"Complete rejection of the status quo."
"Make it new. Make it different. Make it mine."
"65 isn’t old anymore."
"We don’t want to become old and just do nothing."

"It’s all about me."
"Because I've earned it."
"I want it all."
"I’m moving forward, not backward."

Thank you David Meerman

Looks like a light bulb went on somewhere.

BT get a new Chief

JP Rangaswami, who bloggers will know as 'Confused of Calcutter' and an innovative thinker is to move from Dresdner Kleinwort to become CIO, Global Services, BT .

This is a serrious development and signals a new direction in social media for the UK's biggest telecoms giant.

IBM bundles Social Media Tools

IBM announced new product and service “bundles” for small businesses. The initial bundles focus on hardware, software and related support services. Interestingley the services are in the areas of voice/data communications networking, digital surveillance and collaboration.

Sounds like social media tools.

Compatible mobile

The problem of compatibility between wireless devices is being addressed at an international conference this week reports the BBC.

Scientists will be discussing what has been dubbed "Tower of Babel" technology - software that can converge different wireless gadgets into a single device.

This means that very soon it will be easier to re-purpose information for different cammunications platforms which will cut both production and distribution costs of new media programmes.

The Internet never forgets

What you do online will always be visible and it is getting ever more accessible.

A tool that makes it easier to gather and store digital archives has been developed by the National Library of New Zealand and the British Library reports the BBC.

As more and more information goes online the race is on to create meaningful digital archives.

The web curator tool automates the process of collecting and storing information.

It will become a key part of the British Library's existing digital preservation programme.

Social Media drives retail visits in the USA

Google is top U.S. search engine responsible for 14.93 percent of U.S. upstream visits to the Shopping and Classifieds category, Yahoo! Search was the second and MySpace.com accounted for 2.53 percent according to Hitwise.

Social Media is beginning to drive traffic and at these levels, a lot of traffic.

"Search is a proven method of acquiring traffic and Google is the leader in driving online retail site traffic," said Bill Tancer, General Manager of Global Research at Hitwise. "With the growth of MySpace and others, online retailers should expand their focus beyond search to consider social networking sites as a source of additional traffic."

Social Media is figuring strongly as a candidate for inclusion in media programmes.

Tips on being creative from CIPR

From the CIPR 'Active Events' blog:

Top tips for injecting creativity into your PR

1. Create 'idea banks'. Why reinvent the wheel? Be comfortable in re-using used material and ideas that are not fully developed, or adapt them slightly to create a new dimension. Be masters of 'creative recycling'.

2. Make you and your team creatively accountable - don't just expect creativity to hang about in the ether around you and somehow happen. Inspect what you expect by demonstrating to your team you are alert to new opportunities, new ways of doing, or challenging the established or routine.

3. Know the ultimate creativity question: Are you asking the right questions? Challenge your assumptions and explore new dimensions by stretching your questions or breaking them down into multiple questions.

4. Harness your 'incubation' - as long as it is not an excuse for procrastination. Sleeping on a problem usually brings results. Even a walk to the photocopier and back is a mini incubation break.

Drapers gets a blog

EMAP - is getting further into new media.

Madgex, the specialists in B2B magazine websites and job board software solutions, have completed the design and development of a new blog website for Drapers.

Drapers is the leading weekly publication for the UK fashion industry and covers all fashion sectors from womenswear, menswear and childrenswear through to footwear and accessories.

For more see onrec.com.

Bloggers to help Charity SEO

Kent Air Ambulance has announced an innovative partnership with Spanish based niche company Hogtronix Ltd in order to climb the Search Engine ladder and be the organisation of choice for worldwide audiences seeking information on Emergency Helicopters. Reports Rotohub.

The charity is calling upon local Kent businesses and blogger’s to link to their website for the mutual benefit of all involved.

Local Governement adopts Mobile

The latest findings fromndl-metascybe's annual UK Council e-government survey, examining the different stages of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) implementation within local authorities across the UK are published today.

Benefits of the programme, the hurdles currently being faced and the specifics of chosen technologies formed the basis of the survey, which revealed some significant changes in findings from previous years. These included a new emphasis on the integration of emerging and mobile technologies, considered as part of the strategy for the delivery of improved citizen service.

Iain Pickering, Product Director, ndl-metascybe said, “The use of mobile devices plays a significant role in many council road maps, with over 68% planning to implement solutions utilising smart 'phones, PDAs, tablets or a combination. Urban councils in particular seem to be incorporating these technologies as part of their improved citizen service delivery.”

This would suggest that Wifi and Wimax applications for towns and cities may offer considerable economic advantages for municipal authorities.

More by Mobile reports Wray

Mobile companies have been watching the rapid growth of networking and video-sharing websites such as MySpace and YouTube. They have realised that content created by users themselves might be just what they need to persuade their customers to do more with their phones than make calls and send text messages.

Early experiments certainly suggest there is a nascent market to be tapped. In August, Orange's "Buff or Rough" service, which allows people to vote on whether or not they think a particular victim willing to post a photo is worth a second look, notched up 1m votes in a week, double the previous month. So says Richard Wray Comminications Editor at the Guardian.

On line public relations more important in Manchester

Electronic public relations - is becoming an increasingly important part of the mix at agencies which have, until recently, relied exclusively on more traditional methods of getting their clients' messages across. Manchester's traditional public relations agencies are matering blogs, message boards, viral marketing and digital press releases are some of the new tools available to public relations agencies says Simon Donohue of the Manchester Evening News.

Publishers get a good gun - then aim it at their feet

The Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP) technology, launched by the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and various other groups, aims to calm publishers’ fears that they are getting a bad deal when their content is indexed online. Reports e-consultancy.

Tagging is ver good and helpful. It is an aid to finding stuff on-line.

They say that the system, set for launch later this year, will tell search engine’s crawlers how their material can be used, so that the likes of Google and Yahoo! can no longer claim ignorance of their copyright rules.

Ah... so now the publishers want to use it to hinder finding stuff online - why do that?

“This system is intended to remove completely any rights conflicts between publishers and search engines,” said Gavin O’Reilly, president of WAN and also the COO of Independent News & Media.

“This industry-wide initiative positively answers the growing frustration of publishers, who continue to invest heavily in generating content for online dissemination and use.”

The move follows a recent Belgian court ruling that Google had infringed on newspapers’ copyright by publishing sections of their articles.

So this is a copyright protection idea. Its so that publications can generate content and be paid for the content.

They have a problem. Millions of people create content (blogs, wikis, podcasts, vidcasts, lectures, papers ..........). Some of it is very very good content.

Content is cheap.

The idea that you are going to protect copyright is a fine idea. It means that if you have a monopoly, you can sell it.

But this is only true as long as you have the monolpoly and is only true if your monopoly is competitive. It is only true if you can innovate (generate original content) faster than your competitors.

And what do we know about this? We know that is not how it works.

When Bloomberg broke the story about Mrs Blair commenting about Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour Party Conference yesterday, it had no value until broadcast. At that point a frenzy of activity by journalists added to the story. They took the copyright and added value to it but it the value was in its presence on the newswires and Internet. The real value in conversations all over the world was well beyond the reach of the publishers. It was a topic of conversation in households pubs and bars all over the place. That is where the real value was.

And, if it had not been Carolin Lotter who spilled the beans, it could have been a blogger. The result would have been a firestorm just as potent.

All I say to the publishers is to be very careful what you wish for.

Online advertsing growth slows

This means that the rate of increase in the USA (and mirrored in the UK) is less but growth continues. Comment from e-consultancy says:

Research firm eMarketer has forecast that growth in US online ad spending will slow slightly this year as due to weaker consumer spending and as the market matures.

A report by the firm predicted internet ad revenues would rise 26.8% to $15.9bn this year – a move that may calm some fears in the industry after Yahoo!’s warning sent shares tumbling last week.

But that represents a slight cooling off from growth rates of 30% and above in the past two years, and is lower than eMarketer’s previous estimate of $16.7bn, the company said.

Microsoft have an ad strategy

Microsoft has launched of a set of services that firms can use to target consumers via PCs, game consoles, mobiles and PDAs reports e-consultancy.

Announced at Advertising Week, ‘Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions’ the company’s ad products and services now come under a single umbrella, assisting firms that want to reach customers across different digital platforms at a time when media continues to fragment.

Its hope is that consolidation of its ad platforms will persuade firms to move more of their marketing budgets online.

On-line advatorials - who is going to read them?

Techmeme, the go-to site to find out what tech bloggers are talking about, is finally putting ads on its site, but with an RSS twist. The ads are a combination of sponsorship spots and paid placement. For between $3,000 to $4,500 per spot, you can deliver your message via a regular RSS feed straight to Techmeme's homepage, reports B2Day.

The conclusion from Erick Schonfeld is that "this kind of effort is that once you cross that line from content to advertising, you are going to turn a lot of readers off. It's like those 12-page advertorials in magazines that everybody skips over."

I agree.

However, I like the technical capability and that may offer a different opportunity which could be value related and that would be a different story.

Wine + Blog + sales

Here is a case study about how one can use blogging to increase sales from B2Day:

While I am on the topic of blogs and marketing, I've been meaning to write a post about Stormhoek, a South African winery that is using blogs as its main marketing channel. Last year, it launched its blog marketing campaign in the UK by offering a free bottle of wine to about 85 bloggers there. Some of the bloggers then wrote about the wine, others wrote about the marketing campaign, but the buzz worked. (Yes, I got two free bottles myself—a pinot grigio that tasted more like a chardonnay and a red pinotage—and I've got to say they tasted quite good). Last year, Stormhoek doubled its exports of wine to the UK from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases.

Friends are more than hyperlinks

I extract from Bernaise Sourse.

He says: Apparently, competition for friends among the younger set can be fierce. Too few friends, and you are like way uncool.

Apparently friending has become big business.

Rachael King recently reported in Business Week: "As companies try to build or keep relevancy among young people, they're increasingly tailoring marketing campaigns specifically to social networks. These go far beyond placing banner ads on a site, and involve interaction with users over time in what companies hope will be a memorable way...Burger King, for instance, created a MySpace page for the King, the weird character that appears in their commercials."

There are some who think it is no longer a matter of numbers anyway. There is an emerging school of thought that says - when it comes to social media -- the level of customer engagement is the more meaningful metric.

There is evidence elsewhere that the friends where there is a big numbers game going on are regarded differently to the friends in a social network where introductions are made at a very personal level. The interaction does count.

This is really about this acknowledgement of values and creation of relationships through mutually accepted values.

Berger King is a token with values and it will only have a relationship with its 120,000 'friends' in MySpace if it is able to find the values of those friends to which it can offer empathetic values. Otherwise its friends are unused hyperlinks.

B2B publishers embrace online

This is really importnat for PR practice and comes from Stuart Bruce.

He says:

UK Press Gazette has a great article on how B2B media is adapting to the increasing dominance of the internet...

But it's not just the technology B2B publishers that are embracing online and multimedia content......

The article is a good reminder of why PR professionals need to be looking at how they change and adapt the way they work...

I recomend you follow the links

Mobi domian - register yours

The mobile web is about to receive the biggest shake-up in years with the start of open registration for mobile phone-specific website addresses, says the BBC.

The general public can now register websites ending with .mobi (dotmobi) as the backers of the mobile net hope to overturn consumer apathy.

This means that you can now get your mobile domian names registered.

Only one in 10 mobile owners use their phones to surf the net due to concerns over cost, speed and poor content. Sites ending dotmobi are designed for phones and must meet agreed standards which will help.

Almost 13,000 companies have already registered dotmobi addresses as part of a pre-registration process open to trademark holders.

B L Ochman is on the button with

I must have read and heard a hundred times that viral marketing is an inexpensive way to get a message across. Nice idea. But it's not true.

To be good in the use of social media takes time, and costs money.

Her example is about video but it applies to all new media work

The cost of creating value from the long tail is huge but can be multiplied by a factor of three with good management.

Ad-Servers and splicing for PR

New markets for ad-servers and ad-splicing equipment promise dramatic near-term growth in North America, Western Europe, and Japan, report Always-On.

A new study from ABI Research indicates that revenues from these new technologies will total $284 million in 2006, but that the equivalent figure for 2011 will be approximately $1.8 billion.

"Trials have shown that while many consumers don't mind paying a few dollars to download a movie, they are less willing to do so for TV programs," says principal analyst Michael Arden. "So cable companies and content providers want to generate revenue from their video-on-demand (VOD) and other services without having to charge a fee. In some trials, VOD viewer numbers increased dramatically when the service became advertising-based instead of fee-based."

What do these new technologies offer that older ones did not? Traditional ad insertion is a one-size-fits-all affair, while effective advertising is all about customizing the message for specific demographics. That is where the new generation of ad-splicers and VOD servers with ad-server capabilities shine.

If one takes out the scream element and think in terms of being able to offer opportunities for interactivity and community building and there is a considerable opportunit for PR here.

MySpace - tops YouTube

The social networking juggernaut MySpace, owned by News Co was the No. 1 video site in July, topping YouTube, seasoned Internet companies, like Yahoo and and older companies in this area like Viacom says MarketWatch.

This is pretty significant considering that YouTube and Google Video have considerable media coverage and are regarded to be leaders. But now that third-party figures are available for individual sites, we're beginning to see who's actually attracting those coveted eyeballs.

According to a new video report that comScore Media Metrix will begin offering starting Tuesday morning, 37.4 million unique individuals watched a video on MySpace in July.

Richard Branson get the buzz

Charles Pretzlik in his FT blog has been examining what the bloggersphere has been saying about the Branson announcement last week. He reports:

The web has been buzzing this weekend with discussion of Sir Richard Branson’s decision to devote $3bn to alternative energy, announced at the Clinton Global Initiative. Chris Hughes explained in Saturday’s FT how this “amounts to a massive ‘asset allocation’ switch out of transport and into green energy” and he went on to ask if this was wise. But the bloggers (see below) have been providing their own answers.

There are a number of important outtakes from the article.

The first id that a journalist has not only looked but commeneted in depth and critically at what the bloggersphere is saying.

Secondly that the buzz created by the announcent has been of a dimention to make it newsworthy.

Third, is the acknowledgement that bloggers are making a serious contribution.


I also noted that the FT is using its blogs for informed comment. In many ways bringing the style of the Economist to FT blogs.

David Davis launches new PR training service

David Davis has extended his askdd service.

The service ( www.askddtraining.com ) from “agony uncle” and former vice chairman of Edelman, the world’s largest independent PR company, comprises:

* Training needs analyses & planning
* Customised in-company workshops which are practical and tailored to meet the needs of individuals and their employers
* Continuous post-workshop mentoring
* Quality support materials
* Confidential management reports
* 1-2-1 coaching


The askdd service has a single fee of just £245 for up to a maximum of eight delegates at an askdd training workshop with a guaranteed 100% refund if there is any dissatisfaction with the quality of the service.

“This is a fairer way to charge. It doesn’t mean any lowering of standards and most importantly it brings professional PR training into the reach of even the smallest agency or in-house department.” David said.

David said that currently there was a mixed picture of PR training in Britain. On the bright side universities and professional bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Public Relations successfully offer longer term PR training to achieve a qualification for those who had the time and money; at the same time the large companies with HR departments invest heavily in improving the skills of their own people.

However, he notes, it was a serious concern that many PR companies and their people were being left behind in the training stakes because the public workshops were not delivering what is needed.

He had, he says, received many complaints about PR training workshops which critics claimed were often:

* Irrelevant with excessive focus on theory
* Did not meet individual needs
* Provided no follow up support
* Too expensive

If some of the blogging courses we see are anything to go by, one can but agree. So many of them identify 'control' as a key outcome. Silly really.