On-line shopping keeps growing

Tesco has posted a 28.7% rise in sales at its online division, with revenues coming in at £554m in the first half of this year.

The supermarket giant, which dominates the UK’s online grocery sector, said profit at Tesco.com increased 43.1% to £33.8m, excluding the launch costs of its non-food operation Tesco Direct.

The John Lewis Partnership has launched a direct services company called Greenbee , which will market a range of financial, travel and leisure products online and by phone.

Source e-consultancy

Google plays with images

Google is playing around with a new Ajax interface and novel search ideas at SearchMash. B2Day says: It gives you image results on the right, and you can drag results around if you think, say, the fourth result should be the top result instead. Click on the green URL and it gives you options such as "open in this window," "open in new window," and "more similiar pages." Click on "more web pages" and it scrolls the page down. Pretty nifty.

Putting the media channels together

News Corp has continued its internet shopping spree with the purchase of UK graduate recruitment site Milkround.com.

The deal – reported to be worth around £20m – will see the site being integrated with the media giant's UK business News International. The full report is at e-consultancy.

The group, which saw off competition from Trinity Mirror and DMGT in an auction, hopes to use Milkround to strengthen The Times' employment supplements.

Mashing up print and online goes well beyond news online first. But Milkround is important for PR recruitment so interesting on two fronts.

Gadgets get green

A short-range, wireless technology that is more energy-efficient than Bluetooth has been unveiled by Nokia says the BBC.

Ben Wood at UK-based Collins Consulting told Reuters news agency "Bluetooth is clearly not suited to some of the cooler applications like intelligent jewelry, watches - a less power hungry, smaller, cheaper solution will open some interesting new opportunities."

This thinking opens up ideas for even more platforms for communications channels to work through.

Happily for those of us who try to keep up, its a few years (OK weeks) away.

Making notes fflexibly

Stepan Pachikov has a great one liner:

One person cannot ruin a good company. It takes a strong management team to do that.

He also has cool software and a new startup called EverNote. Like Google Notebook, EverNote offers a software download that lets you highlight and clip information as you surf the Web and stores your clippings for you online. But, says B2Day, EverNote goes much further than Google Notebook because you can also clip text from any Word document, Excel spreadsheet, PowerPoint slide, Outlook e-mail, or digital-ink scrawl. It stores all of these clippings on the Web in an endless, chronological tape that is highly searchable.

Sony sidles up to BT

Sony BMG has struck a deal with BT to offer on-demand access to music videos through the telco’s upcoming IPTV service, BT Vision.

Although it is yet to announce pricing, the move will give BT exclusive early access to newly released videos through the BT Vision Download Store, launched in July.

Its nuts!

This is going to be fringe stuff. It will make some money but will be diddly squat compared to the rest of the online video exchange.

Old thinking.

PRN buys USNewswire

Press release distribution business PR Newswire has bought US Newswire from Medialink Worldwide for £10 million.

The purchase of US Newswire will give PR Newswire, which is owned by United Business Media, a significant foothold on the government and public interest sectors and improve its distribution channels in the US says Journalism.co.uk.

Students blog about bars - an idea for PR

An undergraduate student at the University of Plymouth, Darren Jones, is launching a social networking website, Nights Out @ Uni (http://www.nightsoutatuni.co.uk), run by students for students.

The site will provide users with entertainments information including events listings for nightclubs, pubs, bars, restaurants and cinemas, as well as the latest offers and promotions in their area, and could rival the likes of MySpace and Bebo, says Press Dispensary.

One wishes it well but its a big mountain and there is a lot of competition.

There is a useful thought here which is that a PR practitioner can create such portals for groups of people with common interests. For example what about one for your company, industry sector or locality?

Wal-Mart scream marketing social media site a flop

Wal-Mart’s brief fling with online networking appears to have come to an end, with several blogs saying the retailer has closed its teen-oriented social networking site - called ‘ The Hub ’, among other things says e-consultancy.

The site, temporarily launched this summer as a promotion for the start of the school year, aimed to copy Myspace et al by encouraging ‘hubsters’ to set up their own personalised web pages.

Apparently, features such as parental approval and photos like the one below (courtesy of The Blog Herald) weren't as appealing as hoped.

My impression of the site was that it had been designed by a control freak who wanted to blast Wal-Mart adds at everything in sight.

Aimed at a generation that counts the number of pay-as-you go text messages left on their phone, the targeting was awful.

The issue here is that people imagine that these sites are a communications channel. Yes they are but only if they facilitate community building.

A LexisNexis sponsored survey reported in Silicon.com says:

When asked for their top three choices for accurate and up-to-the-minute information, 50 per cent of people surveyed chose network/local television, 42 per cent chose radio, and 37 per cent chose newspapers. Slightly more than a third picked cable news or business networks, and 25 per cent said they went to "internet sites of print and broadcast media". Only six per cent said they turned to "emerging media" sources.

When asked to choose the top five topics that interested them, consumers were more into pop culture than politics. The most popular topics, chosen by about a third of the consumers surveyed, are popular entertainment (books, movies, music, TV, plays), hobbies, weather and food/cooking/dining. Almost a quarter of the people chose sports.

Of course, social media as a whole is one thing but I am reasonably happy with the sources I use but RSS is not well understood in domestic circumstances yet.

For the PR practitioner this suggests that there remains an imperative to work across all media - as always.

Mobile, TV and Games gardgets get juices going

A new survey reveals where a sizable chuck of our income is going each year – on buying new gadgets and gizmos suggests an article in Pocket Lint.

The research says that over 60% of Brits spend £5000 on gadgets every year, with 30% of those surveyed saying that they have 15 gadgets in total.

These are all Internet platforms offering a wide range of communications channels and channel convergence (e.g. watch TV on your mobile and text message from your game).

The popularity of communications platforms suggests that there is enthusiasm backed with hard cash to enjoy the Internet.

MySpace is taking ads

Social media website MySpace has struck its first-ever UK television deal which sees it promote drama series Brotherhood.

As part of the agreement, the first episode will be available in its entirety exclusively on the MySpace site ahead of its debut on the FX channel on 9 October says Mad.

It will be interestiung to see how MySpace users take to this new departure.

Ouch!

Peter Cochrane had some pithy comments to make to Information managers this week but his points if fire off in the direction of senior managers in PR would hole them below the watermark.

I reproduce some comments here but suggest you read the whole article and where you rile most - act.

1. Throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s people who knew deep technical stuff (nerds) were derided and discounted. The management attitude was that these people were irrelevant and a pain. Deep tech understanding was not seen as necessary to manage anything. How the world has changed - today some of the richest people in the world are ex-nerds!
2. This retrograde management attitude had a lot to do with the greater than 85 per cent failure rate of IT programmes through that era, that continues today in industry, defence, education and healthcare. Know-nothing managers are a menace to any industry and profession.
3. Not including the end user, not understanding the technology and not understanding the difference between data, information and knowledge is not only dangerous - it turns out to be very expensive!
4. The biggest universal mistake has been to take the old paper processes and transplant them to the screen, and then create even more paper! IT presents a much bigger opportunity to change organisations and operations but, unfortunately, people seem unable to adapt and change in more than one dimension at a time. Contrast the old (50- to 100-years-old) companies to the new (10- to 20-years-old) and it is stark in the way they use IT to create, run and advance the business.

School PR - watch the social media as well

TWO Sheffield secondary schools have become the first state schools in the city to employ a professional public relations firm to improve their image.

The Sheffield Star reports that

Myers Grove and Fir Vale are paying Sheffield agency Pickard Communications which also works with fee-paying independent schools in the city.
The firm's director Chris Pickard said he thinks it is money well spent - although he acknowledges some parents will wonder why a portion of the schools' budget will be spent on his services rather than paying for more teachers, books or equipment.
"Schools are increasingly becoming a focal point for their local communities, offering services far beyond classroom teaching. It is therefore ever more important that schools communicate effectively with local people," he said.

There is also a good case for monitoring and working with social media when dealing with schools. Over half of students will have a presence on channels such as MySpace or Bebo and almost all students will be suing Instant Messaging very heavily. This is both a PR opportunity and a threat.

Managing vulnerabilities

Cyber-Ark Software has announced the surprising results of its 2006 Privileged Password Survey.

Privileged passwords are the non-personal passwords that exist in virtually every device or software application in a company.

Managing Information reports on vulnerabilities.

2006 Privileged Password Survey reveals that privileged passwords are far more common in enterprises than previously thought: approximately one-half of all enterprises contain more privileged passwords than individual ones.

Secondly, although these privileged passwords provide "super-user" system access, the survey exposes that up to 42% are never updated, a frightening prospect in today’s environment of increased audits and hacker attacks. In fact, half of the IT professionals surveyed reveal that they’re concerned about audits, and 6 out of 10 state that their organization has been hacked.

This reveals a problem for mangaging issues in PR. You may find just asking the question for your issues management programme may save a lot of future embarrassment.

Be careful what you mean when you write

When they think of the word ‘industry’ young people see ‘money and computers’ whereas older people see ‘dirt and decline’, reports Onerec.

Younger people’s attitudes towards ‘industry’ have almost nothing in common with those of older people, a new national survey of 1000 people has found.

This is an interesting survey and useful for copywriters in PR.

Spoof is always with us

A video blog by the Conservative leader has been targeted by cyber-hoaxers supporting the UK Independence Party reports The Times.

A group called UKIPhome, which claims to be “unauthorised but proudly pro-UKIP”, has produced a video parodying the similarities between Mr Cameron and Tony Blair, which appears on a website with a similar address to the Tory leader’s own blog.

The parody video on webcameron.info has already been viewed more than 7,000 times while the authentic Cameron website on WebCameron.org.uk had received 160,000 hits, according to a spokesman.

It was inevitable and is just the kind of thing that every company involved in Social Media outreach should consider in their plan. It is an issue but nothing to get too excited about.

Computers - part of the furniture

As movie and TV downloads become more popular and the hard drive replaces the DVD drawer, people may want a nicer look, and a lot more storage suggests C|net.

Suissa, a new company featured at the Canadian design conference IIDEX/NeoCon, launched a line of wood-encased computers on Monday, Slashdot reported.

As people use thier computers in the living space (to watch on-line video, multitask etc). It is only to be expected that this would b ecome a 'must have'.

The key for Public Relations is the extent to which practitioners can accept that the PC is part of domesic life.

Social Media to turn on youth vote

The Conservatives say they are turning to blogs, or online diaries, to talk to the "iPod generation" of 16- to 25-year-olds who are less likely to get their news from traditional media, says Reuters.

They say blogs allow politicians to be heard without the filter of the traditional press.

"There is a crying need for intelligent use of the new media," Conservative member of parliament and former shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe told a meeting dedicated to the topic at the party's annual conference this week.

Smart PR.

A Case study worth watching.

PR's have new comms channel in South Wales

The South Wales Argus has become the first Newsquest title to launch a reader blogs section on its website.

Readers were invited to write their own online diaries at www.southwalesargus.co.uk three months ago and since then their blogs have proved to be a popular part of the site.

Green Communications - Social Media unit

Green Communications has launched a new division advising business how to deal with the rapidly expanding world of web logs - or blogs for short reports the Yorkshire Evening Post.
The launch coincides with the release of research showing nearly half of small and medium-sized firms understand the business benefits of corporate blogs, but only three per cent have plans to start one.

Hoe to run a party the Google way

e-consultancy reports the speech by Google boss Eric Schmidt at the Tory conference, Schmidt said party leader and blogger David Cameron should adopt the search giant's internal model.

"We run Google in this bizarre way which we call 70-20-10. Seventy percent of our resources are applied to our core business, 20% on our adjacent businesses and 10% on new and innovative things that nobody could possibly ever have thought of," he said.

"I was thinking Mr Cameron and the leadership could say 70% could work on our core activities, 20% could work on our adjacent activities, and 10% of you are in charge of inventing completely new ideas - half of which are wacko, and half of which are brilliant."

In such fast changing time perhaps this would be a good model for PR departments too.

Convergence and Murdoch

Timesonline has started broadcasting video news packages supplied by Sky News on its TV service. Says Journalism.co.uk.

Times TV already carries video news from Fox News and Reuters but this is the first time that it has carried news from the UK-based 24-hour news channel.

The Times simultaneously launched its online TV service and an e-magazine in June, this year.

Niche marketing with podcasts

Dr. Taffy Wagner and Ms. Bettye Jamerson, better known as the ‘virtuous women’, have done it again with the advent of their new Literary Corner podcast that spotlights new, non-fiction, men and women authors each week. Dr. Wagner and Ms. Jamerson were inspired to create and produce this podcast after facing marketing challenges of their own when promoting their non-fiction books. Bettye often comments on the struggles she experienced early on when learning the process of how to market and promote her own book. They decided to come up with a strategy for new authors to help them with promoting their book and themselves, whereby making their promotion process easier. “Knowing what to do and how to do it really takes the pressure off and gives new authors that necessary immediate exposure” said Bettye.

Making money from podcasts

Peter Kay is jumping on the podcast bandwagon, by charging fans up to £1.50 to hear him read the first chapter of his autobiography.

The book, The Sound Of Laughter, is out on Thursday – but those who cannot wait to hear how it starts can order the recording from his official website by text message.

The Phoenix Nights star wrote the memoirs after learning that journalist Johnny Dee was putting together an unofficial biography, which came out in June.

But even if it was reluctant, Kay’s decision appears to have paid off handsomely. More than 250,000 advance orders have been placed for the £18.99 book – making it the fastest selling autobiography this year.

The ROI question again

Charlene Li is asking for help.
Sge says:

One issue that keeps coming up over and over again is how to measure the ROI of blogs. I’ve written about this in the past and have been stewing over how to go beyond the intangible “blogging is good for your business” exhortations to quantify blogging’s benefit to organizations.

Well, we’re getting close but we could use some help. My colleague, Chloe Stromberg, and I have been interviewing companies about how they measure ROI and realized that we needed to throw the net wider – this is where you come in!

I have some questions about ROI as a measure. It is easy to take a simplistic view.

Medical science podcasting

Another case study for research organisations comes from Medical News Today.

Marking a major milestone in the delivery of Nanotechnology related information; AZoNetwork and Nanotechnology Victoria (NanoVic) announced the official release of the first in a series of Nanotechnology Reviews in a Podcast format.

This initial Podcast provides a short history of the development of Nanotechnology and interviews several key players from within the Nanotech industry, research community and government to draw out their current views on the likely impact Nanotechnology will have on healthcare, materials and the environment.

This is a serious production. It is a way of offering content to niche audiences very easily.

Trade Association podcasts

Todd Zeigler in the Bivings Report offers a case study for Public Relations practitioners who are working for trade associations in which he says:

It is just sort of a fact that very few trade associations blog. One of the few that does is the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), whose blog is called shopfloor.org.

Not only does NAM blog, it does so very effectively. What makes shopfloor.org work is that it is written by real live human beings who have opinions. Sure, some people aren't going to agree with NAM's point of view. But regardless of your politics you have to respect NAM's willingness to participate in the conversation online. What they are doing is extradinary for a DC-based trade association.

Monitoring using RSS and other tools

Simon Wakeman discovered an interesting post by Steve Rubel about how he finds news and material to blog about - Steve has created what he calls a blog feeder.

Simon notes the potential for this just got greater, as Steve has blogged that Technorati now offers RSS feeds for searches, which means that it’s a whole lot easier to include Technorati searches in a blog feeder (althoug it does not cover all blogs and sometimes takes a long time to index sites). Also spotted this news on i-wisdom and Webfeed Central.

Can I add that it is also possible to use RSS for Google News, Google Scholar and any web site can be monitored using Google Reader (When you find content you want to read on a regular basis, you can subscribe to it, and Google Reader will monitor that website for updates and add them to your reading list). There is an issue with how fast it will update with Google.

As I am now experimenting with Google Reader, it is an interesting option. In addition, of course, I do have my sumarisation software that allows me to load interesting items direct to my blog in summary form which is very quick.

Of course there is a ton of software out there to help you monitor changes on web sites.

If you can't monitor news, blogs and web sites these days you will be at least 20 hours behind the news so I do it and I expect every PR practitioner does it as well.

For some practitionser these tools are helpful to maintain modernity for thier client blog.

Monitoring using RSS and other tools

Simon Wakeman discovered an interesting post by Steve Rubel about how he finds news and material to blog about - Steve has created what he calls a blog feeder.

Simon notes the potential for this just got greater, as Steve has blogged that Technorati now offers RSS feeds for searches, which means that it’s a whole lot easier to include Technorati searches in a blog feeder (althoug it does not cover all blogs and sometimes takes a long time to index sites). Also spotted this news on i-wisdom and Webfeed Central.

Can I add that it is also possible to use RSS for Google News, Google Scholar and any web site can be monitored using Google Reader (When you find content you want to read on a regular basis, you can subscribe to it, and Google Reader will monitor that website for updates and add them to your reading list). There is an issue with how fast it will update with Google.

As I am now experimenting with Google Reader, it is an interesting option. In addition, of course, I do have my sumarisation software that allows me to load interesting items direct to my blog in summary form which is very quick.

Of course there is a ton of software out there to help you monitor changes on web sites.

If you can't monitor news, blogs and web sites these days you will be at least 20 hours behind the news so I do it and I expect every PR practitioner does it as well.

Charity site launch

Former Turner Broadcasting executive Richard Kilgarriff is launching a community-based broadband offering in November, allowing people and companies to promote their products and services online, while raising money for good causes, reports the Guardian.

Famous Top Fives offers users "best of" lists provided by celebrities, experts and members of the public for everything and anything - books, films, albums, DVDs, songs, wines, hotels, TV shows.

Celebrities already signed up to provide a list include Minnie Driver, Michael Stipe, Pete Doherty, Cliff Richard and Lennox Lewis.

This means that practitioner involved in not for profit and Charity PR may like to add this site to their 'little black book'.

If

Get involved with peer-to-peer media platforms

With a background provided by Kami Huyse, and a very interesting talk by Dr Kolb, considered Text 100’s ‘resident futurist’, you can join a discussion about how new media technology is changing PR practice. He outlines some new skills PR practitioners need to develop.

To my mind there is no alternative. Would one expect a PR person (what ever the domain of practice) to ignore the press, radio, television, or the web? Of course not.

In this Forward podcast, Dr Kolb encourages PR students and new practitioners to get involved with peer-to-peer media platforms, and also outlines Text 100’s involvement in Second Life. To begin the podcast, Kami Huyse gives some introductory information about what Second Life is and why PR practitioners should take notice of it.

TV is dead? Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis in the The Guardian suggests that the definition of television is up for grabs.

His article begins with a disagreement with Amanda Congdon - a daunting experience no doubt.

The video blog Rocketboom.com made Amanda Congdon a star on the internet. It earned her a guest slot on the TV series CSI. It got her considerable publicity in the major American media when she left the vlog. And it just plopped her into a hybrid car with her name emblazoned on the side for an internet-video tour of the US. That was what brought her to my den in New Jersey with three friends wielding cameras for an interview that is now online at AmandaAcrossAmerica.com.

Amanda and I got into a tussle over television. I said she was creating the new TV. She dismissed the label "television" and insisted she was making something else, a video blog. But I argued that the definition of television is up for grabs. What is TV now? We don't know yet, for every time I think I've spotted all the sticks of dynamite set to explode under old, linear television, I discover new fuses sizzling.

Apple has just announced iTV, a box that will wirelessly transport internet video on to our televisions. Thus, the line between broadcast and online - like the line between terrestrial and cable or satellite - is erased.

I have no trouble with this idea except that there is huge market inertia.

In the meantime, the success of Sixty Second View in its niche is an example of how powerful this new for of TV can and will be.

Blog alert goes mobile

Always-on reports that mobile search company 4info allows writers to upload their blogs so that mobile phone users can receive them as text messages or alerts.

This is a useful additional lever that PR can use to extent the impact of their on-line relationship management.

Watching on-line politcal PR - case study in the making

Stuart Bruce agrees with Anthony Mayfield's analysis analysis. Webcameron is a very good initiative.

He says that the key difference between what Labour is doing and what the Conservatives are doing is understanding. You get the impression that the Tories get what social media is really about, while Labour still just sees it as a set of new tools.

Simon Collister has some interesting thoughts about Webcameron on his eDemocracy Update blog. He also questions if "Politics needs a sea-change in attitudes, not a ride aboard the blogging bandwagon."

Watching what is happening in Politics offers an excellent case study for practitioners with commercial and not for profit portfolios.

Bebo worth mega bucks

Four-and-a-half years after Michael and Xochi Birch created www.Bebo.com it is one of the hottest properties on the internet. In less than two years it has acquired more than 27m users and claims to have overtaken MySpace to become the leading social-networking website in the UK and Ireland.

“At the moment there’s a race for traffic,” says Birch and for public relations practitioners this mantra is critical as well. It is worth watching how Birch is going about doing it.

According to The Sunday Times Bebo still has only 15 full-time employees, including four in London, and as yet generates modest revenues from advertising. But its huge and growing audience of young users has prompted suggestions that the business is already worth hundreds of millions of pounds.

Sounds fanciful? It might have been last year, before News Corporation (ultimate owner of The Sunday Times) paid $580m (£310m) for the company behind MySpace.

Birch is adamant that he has no interest in selling. “We used to follow conversations a bit more (when we received approaches). Now we pretty much just say ‘No’ immediately. I was more curious to begin with.

Google to tell Tories about the digital age

Eric Schmidt, chairman and chief executive of Google, is set to make a keynote speech to the Conservative party conference on tomorrow.

Following his first speech to the Tories as party leader on Sunday, Mr Cameron, 39, is to welcome Mr Schmidt to Bournemouth, where he will address the conference on challenges posed by the internet and digital age.

Newspapers are now doing PR

"An exciting new interactive service starts this weekend so you the Cardiff City fans can tell us what you think about the Bluebirds ."

The Echo is launching a new Cardiff City blog on our icWales website to give fans an opportunity to have their voice in your favourite paper.

Fab...

Are YOU spreading your podcasts about?

Figures obtained by the Scottish Conservatives showed eight people downloaded a podcast of a recent sports summit at Stirling University.

Tory MSP Derek Brownlee questioned the amount spent on creating the downloads when "the figures are so poor" reports the BBC.

Mr Brownlee could have a point. Is the podcast being offered to the media outlets across (not just Scotland but) the world. Are they presented in a variety of formats, have they been offered to all the sports club web sites in Scotland .......... and so a normal PR person would want to know the answers.

The politician wants to know about ROI - over how many years?

Silly Mr Brownlee.

Evaluate before the PR campaign...

Glenn has given us this advice :

Evaluation is often thought of as a “concluding” activity - something that is done once a programme or project is finished. But evaluation has its role “before” and “during” an activity. A recent experience highlighted for me the importance that evaluation can play in the “before” phase.quote>In landscaping (see: Gregory. A. 2002 Planning and Management Kogan Page, London) in preparation for planing public relations one has to get the widest view possible. In the use and application of Social Media, which is very dynamic, one needs to be able to both maintain monitoring and evaluation and feed this into both strategy and tactics as a continuum.

This there is no 'PR plan' but a process for managing the organisation's capability to maintain mutually effective relationships.

Create voting sites and get RSS on your Blackberry

Philippe Borrimans always has good stuff.

He introduces us to Ning, a social web service, let's you create and customise applications such as
voting sites, online groups etc... Then ethere is a new RSS to e-mail service called SimplyHeadlines. I think this is a nice one for people who want to stay up to date with news headlines by e-mail based on RSS feeds. The lay out is very easy to read and they also have a "mobile" version for Blackberry or other mobile readers. Another one to add to the list of "RSS by e-mail" readers. Then there's the mix of blogs and forums set off by Tooum and called Switchboard. Their hosted service includes categories, tagging, RSS feeds, sticky posts etc...

Political PR online

In Ohio, U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, has stocked his campaign website with video clips of speeches and TV commercials. MySpace.com and other websites display cyberspace bumper stickers that can be copied to promote Strickland's campaign for governor.

These candidates aren't alone. The Tory leader has a vidcast. Blogs wikis and podcasts are everywhere in the political PR space are there too.


"If you think of the Internet as a city, those social networking sites are virtual town squares where people spend time, where they share ideas, show their opinion, share information," said Keith Dailey, press secretary for Strickland's campaign.

And I guess that is a pretty good explanation.

Brands are sets of values

The idea that brand are a set of values is prettty old hat but works well in the Relationship Value Model which is why it is good to hear marketing people talking like Public Relations people.

A post in Marketingweb makes this contribution:

In a world of spreading social influence due to the internet, brands are sets of values and ideas whose importance ebbs and flows among communities. Social influence affects which ideas are important within a group of people to such a degree that it is very hard to make accurate predictions. (Important values and perceptions may diverge in different communities and cultures). So we need to become far more flexible in how we manage brands. Coca-Cola has begun to address this by using different colours for its brand in England, depending on the colours of the football team that it supports.

The extract is from Nilewide Vol 22 No 13. For more information or to subscribe, go to www.nilewide.com. and costs mega bucks (unlike the Relationship Value Model - which is free) but is informative and most of it is here.

Emerging blog law

Gradually we are getting legal advice about blogging.
In this case for the USA and covering employee blogging Law.com offers some insights.
It wouls seem that there is not much to stop and employee blogging and not musch more to stop the employee posting about thier employer.

How the Internet sells beer

The Internet's big, it's powerful, but how the heck do you use it to sell beer?

A simple question from Jim Ewing on Business Week.

Easy, why don't you come to my pub The Calley Arms (in the hills near Stone Henge) . It does not have a web site, but lots of people put interesting stuff about it on the web. It is seldom mentioned on blogs (well now its is) and it sells local beers.

The landlady makes great food using locally sourced country ingredients. The locals are just so much fun and guess what, there are always plenty of people there - lots come for the food and some of us go for the beer :)

Of course, you will need a map - it is located here, and as you can see it is very rural and yet is only a couple of miles from Junction 15 on the M4 motorway.

A very friendly place and great beers... what more do you need....

And that is how 1000 people all over the world knows how to get good beer in Wiltshire. Not that hard then....

Well... whose coming over for a quick pint then?

Beyond Advertising

Advertising is not the only model for monetising Social Media but it seems to be the only idea in town.

I am tempted to write about this because of a Red Herring post.

Lets suppose, for a moment one took the advertising out of the deal.

What is of value.

Assets:

Relationships
The digital footprint.

Investment:
Systems and procedure development (especially to make the corporation responsive to consumers)
Creative (technical, managerial, systems) input into the organisation.

P&L:

Direct contact
Sales opportunity
Sales completed
Continuous consumer relations

The problem is that we are hamstrung by the accounting systems we use.

The Rise of the Celeb Social Network

The BBC's Marc Cieslak has been digging arround Social Media to get some celeb comments and begins by saying:

The notion of Web 2.0, or an internet model where content is created and shared by users, has given birth to some of the most popular sites the internet has ever seen. So much so, that anybody who is anyone, wants to be part of the online social networking scene.

Obviously one has to be seen there, otherwise one does not exist and one would like to be thought to exist!

It is also quite useful to keep the celeb brand in view.

AMEC make-over

Gosh! This took a long time to come to me (via Toni's Blog).

The new site (www.amecorg.com) says:

Following a series of strategic planning meetings over the past year members have agreed to re-name AMEC, the international trade body and professional association for media research and evaluation.

The name and corporate re-branding as The Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication reinforces the body’s new strategy to expand its membership and services to meet the needs of all organisations and individuals across the globe that are involved in the provision of media evaluation and all kinds of communication research.

Membership is now open to include "PR companies that offer bespoke measurement and evaluation systems and media monitoring companies that offer media evaluation as part of a wider range of services. Individual members will range from students to executives working in the industry for several years."

I might re-join.

PR Return On Investment or bull sh**

Toni Muzi Falconi tells of the IfPR Summit on Measurement and notes that Jim Allman, Ceo of Devries public relations who works for some ten major Procter & Gamble brands, showed how the world’s largest fast moving consumer goods company succeeded in demonstrating that every dollar invested in marketing public relations gives an average return of sales of 2.8 dollars against 1.1 dollars for advertising and 85 cents for promotions!

I wonder how they do that!

Is this more PR agency smoke and mirrors? It has that taint about it.



If the measure is based on return of sales generated attributed to each activity (press, radio, tv bought for time and space v not paid for v promotions) do they also include social media (blogs, wiki, podcasts, vertical search, SEO, RSS, SL etc) in PR or does that not have an effect? For example Arial which is exposed to perhaps ten time the 20,000 blog posts in the last year (and I agree it does not seem to have any expert optimisation of this asset) would be included in what kind of calculation? OTS?<br>
Alternatively is this a measure of return on PR investment and if so:

Is this return on investment on the trading account or balance sheet (and how long is the tail - we know it is quite long on-line)
If cash, is this discounted cash?
Is this based on social media asset as well as press, radio, TV etc assets.
How long is residual value discount for press v social media. Is archive press now included on the balance sheet now that Google as Google News Archive with a repository of 4,000 Ariel citations and 4000 blog posts on permanent display, not to mention web sites going back to those embarrassing ones like this 2002 version.

Then there is the extent to which the brands are the object of consumer interest as a result on PR activity. Is this on the trading account or balance sheet?

I only ask.

Digital natives - kick over the traces.

Most PR practitioners had had to learn about the Internet as part of their job. It is becoming part of every day life (11 million bananas were bought online in the uk last year - now that is pretty much every day). But we were not brought up with 'everything' online.

But as Richard Baily points out, there is a generation that knows nothing else. For them the world has always been online. That is not to say that they have explored its opportunities to the full, or moved very far away from their own comfort zone.

He points to see John Naughton's column in The Observer to get a sense of being a digital native but now, freed from the constraints of mom 'n dad and school warnings about the dangers, students will be quick to try new things out. Time to kick over the traces.

Social media for this generation will be a steep, but necessary learning curve - not necessarily to use blogs but to be able to use other tools like RSS.

Why? Because, as a student, you can use advanced search engines to find both established and recent works (this is Google Scholar's view of PR in 2006) or del.icio.us to keep up to date with your subject tutor or an RSS news feed on an important topic.

These are simple tools that any PR practitioner can use and apply to keep up todate with their client's interests.

PR event listing online - in social media

Sam Sethi is proposing either putting together a “socialtext” wiki to enable event organisers to list their own events on TechCrunch or UpComing.org.

Either way, it is a good idea for Web 2.0 and Mobile start-ups in the UK (the topic for TechCrunch).

It would also be a really cool idea for the PR industry and an inititaive like this by the CIPR, would be a boon for practitioners (over half of members are responsible fo organising events).

It needs to be open (not hidden behind some member firewall) to offer a real service to the whole industry and would help the CIPR live up to its claim as 'The ears and eyes' of the industry.

Of course, one would expect its to be XPRL compliant and with RSS feeds to make it easy for the industry to make it interoperable

Tesco take on Microsoft

Tesco is to launch a range of budget own-brand PC software, in a move that will pitch the grocery giant against the likes of Microsoft and Symantec claims the BBC.

Tesco said it would offer six packages, including office software, security systems and a photo editing tool.

Britain's biggest retailer said each title would cost less than £20, challenging what it described as the current "high" price of PC software.

XPRL - Game-On.

There has been some discussion about a paper I wrote and which is being privately distributed but affects us all. It is about XPRL called "XPRL - Game-On". I have been asked for copies and though it more relevant to post it here.

The big issue for PR, as the paper explians is how the industry can use information from many sources and bring it together as tools for practitioners to use.

The evolution of software development such as AJAX mean that we can use Web 2.0 much more effectively with a PR mark up language conforming to a W3C based schema.

It sounds and is technical. The industry can no longer hold its nose when we talk about this sort of thing because it is pregressively being dragged into the use of more technology based services which is described here.

Introduction

In 2001, the big consultancy fee earning driver was financial reporting. It caused the accountancy firms, stock markets and the regulatory authorities to come together in common cause to develop XBRL (Extensible Business Reporting Language - http://xbrl.org).

The biggest accounting firm now boasts: “Getting the right information to the right people at the right time—faster, more accurately, and with greater efficiency—is vital in today’s business world. Which is why investors and analysts alike favour XBRL” (PwC 2006). The culmination of this work was the announcement in August 2006 that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has plans for its own XBRL analysis tools that feature easy-to-use software that will allow any investor, analyst, or company to access the benefits (note 4).

In the intervening years, a considerable shift in web development, especially in advertising for relationship building has moved on-line.

"In the month of June alone, our web properties at FOX Interactive attained 30 billion page views, and just yesterday served 4 billion ads (Murdoch 2006)."

Each quarter the shift from traditional media advertising shows a significant change in favour of the Internet. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) reported that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006."

In addition, there is realisation in the public relations sector that on-line developments are becoming pivotal to the future of Public Relations.

Sir Martin Sorrel CEO of WPP, the second largest adverting, public relations and marketing services group worldwide commented that "One of the interesting thing(s) is that the new technologies, the blogs, the development of Web sites, the development of social networking sites, is really ...... giving a new driver to public relations and public affairs. Paid-for publicity, it is known from research, is probably less effective than editorial publicity." (Sir Martin Sorrel Augst 2006).

Omnicom's Fleishman-Hillard Interactive note that "The Internet and interactive technologies are changing how people communicate. New skills, new strategies, and new capabilities are needed today to build brands, manage relationships, and interact directly with key audiences."

Guy Lambert joint managing director of OgilvyOne also indicates the increasing demand for digital involvement. "Agencies have to really understand the digital agenda and they need to reorganise agencies around putting digital at the heart of the agency," Lambert says.

This is a very different picture to five years ago.

To drive this new era, the Public Relations industry now needs the same capabilities as those developed by the financial sector half a decade ago. In many ways, with the growth of social networking, much of it driven by application of XML (note 4a), there is an urgency of far greater import than developments hitherto.

XPRL, the global Public Relations industry wide eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is now pivotal to realisation of the potential for the Public Relations sector.

This paper explores these developments and the opportunities and proposes a route map with some financial and specialist resources already penciled in.

Why is XPRL so important today

Until recently the application of PR programmes could be separated. Financial PR, Press relations, corporate affairs and the many other domains of PR practice could operate without significant interoperability. The means for communication were discrete and independent.

Social media

The rise and rise of blogging, the evolution of citizen journalism, podcasting, wiki's and convergence between communications platforms such as PC's, mobile text, voice and video and iPods seems to be a sudden and pervasive evolution.

The ability to offer content and interactivity on these platforms has two notable features. First is an ability to spread content (RSS) and second is to transpose content from on platform or channel to another (e.g. blog to wiki to calendar to spreadsheet and back). This is facilitated more by the application of XML than any other technology.

Content

In addition, there is a need for a different form of content. The evolution of interlinked content such as that proposed by the New Media Release (Note 5 ) and knowledge management capabilities under development by PR developers (Note 6) are but two examples of significant developments within the Public Relations sector. To be interoperable with client content, requires software development this is easy when using a recognised XML standards and complex and expensive to develop and maintain when it is bespoke.

In the meantime other sectors are undergoing huge change like the publishing industry and they too have been pushed into action. The International Press Telecommunications Council has continued its development of an XML standard, NewsML (Note 7). It is a standard that PR developments will need to recognise to allow interaction with press release distribution vendors, news agencies, web content aggregators and search engines to smoothly exchange news, text, photos or other media using standard XML modules and tools. The result will be lower costs and shorter development for news agencies and news system vendors who face the challenges of presenting news on the web and a wide range of personal electronic devices.

Volume

The evolution of social media is forcing the Public Relations industry to monitor off-line newspapers, their on-line versions and added value content, on-line only publications, blogs, wiki's podcasts etc. At the same time there is need to make sense of this huge volume of content using a range of techniques from Google Trends to traditional evaluation companies. The industry now has to find software vendors to bring these data together in order that relationship, and especially reputation management can respond 24 hours a day and at speed.

In order to make this happen, there is a need for these vendors to deliver their content in such a way that it can be used in cross vendor applications. This 'interoperability' is key if the PR sector is to offer services to respond to the influences of social media. Interoperability is dependent on common standards.

PR independent vendors

Were this just a matter for the PR industry, bespoke solutions for individual departments and agencies would be, if less than adequate, at least possible. This is not happening. A raft of vendors with no connection with PR have content and data that is used by public relations practitioners. The content and statistical data are available from many applications (Note 8).

Without common standards to allow different vendors' data to interact, the PR industry is at a disadvantage.

Developers

PR software exists. More is coming available but for such a diverse industry and with so many different domains of practice, the numbers of software developers working in this sector is minuscule.

Part of the reason is that every programme and every data fields has to be specified every time a new programme is called for. It is expensive and always one off. Integrating data between one system and another is trying, updating legacy data is difficult. There is almost no open source movement behind the PR sector.

The simple expedient of specifying XPRL compliant software would change the whole industry and the range of products and services available to practitioners.

Interoperability

In simple terms, what XPRL does is to offer names for information and data so that different software programmes know what the data are.
There are many ways of describing a press release or media release or press notice or..... For a computer programme this is confusing. Media reach, circulation, distribution is another example.

To be able to develop capability for simple things like distributing media releases, there is a need for a standard to allow a range of data to be processed without confusing the many computers between the PR executive and the newspaper, television station, blog, cell phone or wiki.

The PR industry needs interoperability.

Meet international norms

To get interoperability it needs a standard and the best standard is the one provided by the World Wide Web Consortium (WW3) but which needs adaptation to the requirements of Public Relations.

There would seem to be an opportunity for a big group to develop their own XML format. Why not? It would offer competitive edge and would exclude others. A schema developed for group subsidiaries like PR firms, evaluation companies, press release distributors, research and evaluation companies and new media agencies would be quite sensible.

Co-operation

Except that, as soon as there were are two suppliers (today there are three XML executions for press lists, umpteen for news distribution and even more for media evaluation) of information and so the existing (confusing and unusable) data transfers will remain and the PR industry will have to continue to make different data match up as now.

And now? At present we use people.

Account executives cut and paste data to prepare research, content, distribution, evaluation and reports. The cost is high, accuracy is a management problem and other vendors easily usurp the PR role.

Multi platform multi channel

At present this is manageable. The introduction of five (e.g. blogs, wikis, podcast, print media, broadcast radio and TV), ten (add mobile sms, Instant messaging, VoIP, vidcast, etc) or more communications channels across a dozen different platforms to reach a single public for a campaign will make cut and past impossible.

The number of platforms and the number of communication channels keeps growing.

At the same time, globalisation means that there is a need for a single international standard. A single PR schema.

For a single company or group to achieve an accepted standard would be, at best, very difficult.

Competition

Competition is coming from where it is least expected. The audience is often the source of news. The amateur competes with the professional. MySpace with its 30 billion hits per month is mostly home to the amateur relationship builder and content provider. These people already have XML.

The publishing industry (NewsML) is already laying out its capability to distribute content to a common standard. The financial sector (XBRL) has adopted a standard for management reporting because the PR industry could not.

RSS having usurped email in many cases is about to replace the news clipping industry (where so many of the vendors have - each - an XML execution).

The need for multi channel, multi source output interoperability is critical between vendors and agencies as much as between client agency, communication channel and feedback.

At present the industry is at a disadvantage.

Future aims

Excite the Industry

Never before has there been such an opportunity for an industry sector.

We are now talking about billions of interactions every month where PR can blossom (Note 9).

From a process of developing relationships with a few journalistic intermediaries, mostly at a national level to building global relationships with intermediaries and the end user is a big leap. It is full of opportunities and rewards.

The PR industry desperately needs a range of tools to be able to realise such ambitions. We need to know what these tools need to achieve and we need to be able to attract the expertise to build them.

The best developers are going to develop products that have large and global markets. A beggar thy neighbour approach will reduce the total size of the market, hamstring software creativity and will encourage competitors to usurp swathes of relationship building and management from the PR sector.

Working together will grow our markets, revenues and profitability.

Provide a platform to respond to new media opportunities

The present schema still stands and forms a basis for development. Industry wide adoption or significant uptake will help development of capability in the old and 'new media' sectors now.

There is a need to build on the existing schema to provide added 'new media' capability and to provide capability for service integration and interoperability.

There is a need to encourage the software developer base, using XPRL, to create software for the industry at least comparable with other sectors like engineering, pharmesuticals and banking.

Enhance revenue and profitability with better service

It is possible for the Public Relations Industry to achieve what the financial sector achieved? Yes of that there is no doubt. because the adoption of XPRL into XBRL will create added revenue and enhance profitability.

For press relations, initiatives like the New Media Release offer so much more to practice by way of added, measurable reach that revenue and profit will follow.

An ability to interact with new media using automation tools will add to capability, increase capability and reduce cost.

Added transparency and fluid project management for executing PR programmes in a time when the news (especially the social media driven news) changes fast will save time, cut cost and improve service very quickly.

The PR industry needs to sell this idea to itself. The belief of Sir Martin Sorrel is that the PR sector will grow. XPRL can make a major contribution to this growth by opening up added capability in the area of web and social media software.

Way forward

Requirements

From Leeds Metropolitan University and a private donor, XPRL already has an investment of over $100,000. It needs to continue to extend its capability and needs a route map.

This comes in a number of steps:

• Identify capability to underpin future development
  • A cross discipline PR/social technology research resource to identify the extant and evolving needs of the PR industry
• Identify and recruit leaders in the Public Relations sector who have the drive and ambition to access the benefits for their own businesses and the market in general
  • A group of leaders in the field who have existing and developing interests in the evolution of Public Relations as it changes to meet the effects of global communications development.
• Agreement, among industry leaders and the institutions that represent the Public Relations sector, to drive this opportunity forward including commitment to aid the evolution of the software and systems development base through adoption of global, industry wide standards for software and data interoperability (note 10).
  
• Implement a programme of development and inter schema relationships (e.g. XBRL, NewsML, New Media Release etc)
  • This requires co-operation among existing vendors and other schema as well as, in some instances, regulators.
• Public Relations for the concept internally to the Public Relations sector and its external stakeholders and publics.

Existing offers and potential

Recent interest in the evolution of XPRL has provided new imputus for the inititative. In less than a week, as the benefits of XPRL re-emerged a groundswell of interest has emerged that speak to the above agenda:

1. Cross discipline PR/social technology research
   1. An offer has been made to sponsor up to half the cost of PhD research over a three year period. There is a need for matched funding to create a total pool to the value of $500,000. This generous offer, with its matched counterpart, will provide the PR industry world wide with both technical and PR related research into the opportunities and technologies that can be depolyed by the industry to inform the development of XPRL to assist development of Internet mediated PR, software design and practitioner opportunity.
      
2. Leaders in the Public Relations sector
   
   1. A mini summit on deliverables from XPRL with a few of the very big hitters from the commissioning side (consultancy heads and in-house) to make sure the project delivers what they need. Colin Farrington, the Director General of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations, has volunteered the Institutes facilities for the meeting.
   2. There are a number of leaders in the Public Relations industry who have made very public statements about the opportunities for the Public Relations sector. They include Sir Martin Sorrel, Richard Edelman and Toni Muzi Falconi, the ex President of the Global Allience and many senior executives in a range of consultancies. In addition there are enthusiasts like the UK Governement Minister, David Miliband.
      
3. Aid the evolution
   1. This will require public relations and negotiation to generate effective funding levels. Lou Capozzi, president elect of ICCO has expressed a wish to be involved and its Director General Simon Quarendon has been briefed. Offers of support have come from David Rosen (NewYork), Toni Muzi Falconi (Methodos S.p.A) who has been very active in New York and among international leaders.
4. Programme implementation
   1. This will needs to be driven by a small professional and properly funded team. It will mean restructuring the present arrangement and there is every reason to propose that XPRL should have representatives and competencies in many countries.
      
5. Public Relations
   1. Toni Muzi Falconi (NYU) has resourced a group to prepare a global Public Relations plan.
   2. A concerted and dedicated competence is required.

Conclusion

The PR industry needs XPRL. In addition, it is the time for XPRL.
The PR industry cannot be very effective in grasping its current opportunities without it.
The way it can operate and the way it can evolve is reasonably clear cut.

While, on the face of it, there is a need for a great deal of goodwill, the underlying drivers are so significant that missing the opportunity will be negligent.

The PR sector has passed up the opportunity to be involved in enhanced revenue and profits through the application of XPRL once because of a lack of understanding that technology is important to PR however remote it may be from daily practice.

Today, technology is on every desk, Google news, Blogs and RSS are migrating across the industry like a virus. Every practitioner is now face to face with technology and, love it or hate it, it is not going away.

This second opportunity, many dimensions greater than the last can be grasped given cooperation, even self interested cooperation of the users of PR and PR services.

With our first donation of this round already offered, XPRL is at the disposal of every practitioner who is excited by the prospect of working among the hundreds of millions of people and billions of interactions that are on offer to the industry now.

Footnotes

1 Rupert Murdoch August 2006 Seeking Alpha http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/15237
2 PwC 2006 http://www.pwcglobal.com/extweb/service.nsf/docid/6BBA4081197E4EAA80256F500038FA6B
3 Sir Martin Sorrel 2006 http://edition.cnn.com/2006/BUSINESS/08/18/sorrell.intvw/
4a An example is explained at http://www.alwayson-network.com/comments.php?id=12133_0_3
4 The Financial PR sector was excluded from this dramatic development because it did not lever the value of XPRL in these developments.
5 New Media Release discussion list http://groups.google.com/group/newmediarelease and podcast http://forimmediaterelease.biz/index.php/weblog/nmrcast_7_real_world_implementations_09_08_06/
6 Cogenz http://blog.cogenz.com/
7 NewsML http://www.newsml.org/pages/index.php
8 Some data providers include Flikr http://www.flickr.com/, Digg digg.com, Technorati http://www.technorati.com/, Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends and products like Google Zeitgeist http://www.google.co.uk/press/zeitgeist.html, BlogBeat http://www.blogbeat.net/ etc
9 "In the month of June alone, our web properties at FOX Interactive attained 30 billion page views, second only to Yahoo! and just yesterday served 4 billion ads." Rupert Murdoch
10 A draft proposal on XML membership and membership benefits is being considered.

For historical news about XML see: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=xml&btnG=Search+Archives&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
For historical news of developments of XBRL see: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=xbrl&btnG=Search+Archives&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
For a historical news of development of NewsML see: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=newsml&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&btnG=Search+Archives

Other related schemas:

• NewsML and IPTC
• SportsML
• News Markup Language (NML)
• News Industry Text Format (NITF)
• XMLNews: XMLNews-Story and XMLNews-Meta
• Atom: The New XML-Based Web Publishing and Syndication Format
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication | RDF Site Summary)
• Open Content Syndication (OCS)
• Information and Content Exchange (ICE) Protocol
• Outline Processor Markup Language (OPML)
• Extensible Public Relations Language (XPRL)
• XML for Publishers and Printers (XPP)
• Job Definition Format (JDF)
• Personalized Print Markup Language (PPML)
• Printing Industry Markup Language (PrintML)
• PML: Markup Language for Paper and Printing
• PrintTalk Consortium
• printcafe eProduction eCommerce eXchange (PCX)
• XMLTV
• Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI)
• XML and Digital Rights Management (DRM)
• Creative Commons Project
• DIG35: Metadata Standard for Digital Images
• Common Picture Exchange Environment (CPXe)
• Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP)
• BannerML
• adXML.org: XML for Advertising
• SPACE XML
• Newspaper Association of America (NAA) - Standard for Classified Advertising Data
• AdMarkup XML DTD for Classified Advertising

Patents and Software

Suw Charman has an excellent post on this subject.
It is brief and informative and

Software should not be patented at all, it should be exempted at all times.

No one in the audience has a patent.
Lots of people have coded.
No one has ever applied for a patent.

Is right. In fact, we also have problems with trade marks and the actualitie of copyright is now re-writing law in all but name.

In the meantime we have to act within the law - and I know its tough!

Your very own cartoon charecter

You can do lots of things with technology such as create little icons and logos to go everywhere and why not create a cartoon character that can act as an avatar for them on instant messengers, blogs and social networking sites, as well as mobile devices.

Try it... Its fun

What is non-linear search

Ian Delaney has a great description.

In brief:

Non-linear search is one of the bounties of the web 2.0 approach that has been relatively unheralded. Instead of finding information a la Google, social search is about finding knowledge. The idea is how do you connect with the information you need in a context that’s knitted together by people and by human expertise, rather than the linear way we do it now, which is to type a search term into a box.

But go to the post to find out more.

PS another reason for PR people to use tags when providing social media services.

New RSS reader

Simon Wakeman was quick.

He spotted:

Mainstream adoption of RSS took a step forward yesterday when Google launched its Reader product. This is the new version of Google’s RSS reader

I've tried it. Its good.

Adding content to your RSS feed

Lee Odden is trying out 'Feedvertsing'.

I like this. Not for 'advertising' but for use in delivering opportunities to add relevant additional content and messages.

Let Lee explian:

For the past week I’ve been beta-testing a new product from Patrick Gavin and Andy Hagans of Text Link Ads called Feedvertising. This is a service that allows you to monetize your RSS feeds with ads. Text Link Ads will sell the ads for you, or in my case, I just put in ads for some things I’m doing with Marketing Sherpa. You can do it either way or both.

Not only is Feedvertising a potential money maker, but it’s also a clever way to cross promote other areas of your blog, company web site or other web sites that you publish.

There’s a very good tutorial on Feedvertising over at Tubetorial or you can check out the Feedvertising site.

The cost of Control - Emap

Media group Emap is expecting a 2% revenue decline in the first half of its financial year, the company said today.

They'll be lucky....

To take a press clip costs money (even if you use your own scissors) which means their print brand distribution is low.
There is nothing of value on their sites (subscriptions, firewalls etc.) so some magazines have no on-line exposure at all.
The magazine sites have negligible or no interactive capabilities.
The radio stations don't offer podcasts....

If its only 2% it will be a amazing.

MySpace users only 43,000,000

Forever Geek has been at work.

The hype around the 'web 2.0' buzzword continues to grow and grow. From bullshit statements like 85% of college students use Facebook (umm no, that was when less than half of US colleges were supported, yet everyone continues to cite that magical number) to PhotoBucket drives 2% of US internet traffic (again, umm no - peak traffic is no reflection of sustained throughput), no one seems to be fact checking any more.

The latest annoyance has been the self-indulgent claim of web 2.0 bloggers that MySpace has 100,000,000 users. Interestingly, this specific headline says accounts, but the article and subsequent articles all say users. I would say that anyone with half a clue knows that 'accounts' are not the same as 'users', but that would be obvious, wouldn't it?

He then goes on to work out how many people are active in MySpace:

Looks like the popular claim that MySpace has 100,000,000 users is hot air. More than 50% can't even bother to visit again after a month. Based on assuming that type 5 and type 6 are the real 'users' of MySpace, it turns out that MySpace really has roughly 43,000,000 users. Very unscientific? Yep. More accurate than the 100,000,000 myth? Damn straight. The 100,000,000 number is inflated by 133%.

Ethics and online disclosure

The Guardian published this review about personal data.

It is an issue that the CIPR may like to follow through on because of its ethics ramifications.

Facts about each of us are increasingly available to men and women whom we have never met. News that the media giant AOL is being sued for inadvertently releasing details of individuals' internet searches is just the latest reminder. With computers ubiquitous, a log of how someone uses them can give insight into character that would otherwise require a strong personal connection. Such records are exactly what firms like AOL and Google are in a position to build up. This new corporate gaze has joined the well-practised eye of the state. And earlier this month the government proposed to reverse the presumption against sharing of personal data between public agencies, a move which stirs Orwellian visions of a future where officials can readily hunt out and find black marks against any citizen.

Mobile Bebo

Bebo is in discussions with mobile operators over the launch of a range of text messaging services in the first quarter of next year.

Another communications opportunity. This is bound to be great news for Bebo - why did no one think of it before?

From e-consultancy

The companies plan to use SMS to extend Bebo’s functionality onto mobiles, unlike the WAP-based services being developed by some of its rivals.

CNET gets Second Life

On Tuesday night, with a minimum of fanfare, News.com launched the CNET Second Life space, which means CNET is one of the very first mainstream media organisations to have a functional and permanent space in Second Life.

Although not as elaborate as some of the corporate initiatives being opened, CNET's space, which was designed by the firm Millions of Us, is a fully functional facsimile of the company's real-life office building in San Francisco.

The ability to use the facilities of SL for a magazine are endless. Conferences, interviews, advertiser promotions and all with the big hook of credible new.

Britney Spears - a PR person?

Britney Spears has fired longtime publicist Leslie Sloane-Zelnick and taken charge of her own public relations according to media reports in the US.

Years of training and study is now to be revealed.....

Source: Yahoo News

A peek into the future - thanks Taiwan

In Marketing Week, released online at Mad, we can see into the future with a glimpse at Taiwan which is Yahoo!'s canary in the coalmine.

While Microsoft and Google are technology companies at heart, Yahoo! is a media company. Last year, global chief operating officer Dan Rosensweig told the company's local managers in Taipei that they should strive to become the number one media company on the island, overtaking newspaper groups and broadcasters.

It is Yahoo!'s third biggest market in the world in terms of revenue, after the US and the UK. It also serves a very young and tech-savvy market, and provides an insight into what consumers in London and San Francisco might be doing in the future.

Yahoo as a media company is an interesting idea. Certainly Yahoo News is very underrated in the UK and needs more attention from PR practitioners.

I find Taiwan interesting and fun and insightful as is the article.

Are you a small PR agency? Here is an opportunity

This report from VNUNet offers a real opportunity to small PR firms.

Nearly half of small businesses say they would use a blog to drive traffic to their website, according to new research from hosting provider Fasthosts.

But only three per cent of the 2,000 small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) questioned in the survey intend to start a blog.

Go get 'em tiger!

Yahoo buys video editing company

Revolution reports Yahoo! has acquired online video-sharing and editing web site Jumpcut, in an attempt to enhance its Yahoo Video service and strengthen its community

The US website provides users with a free set of online video editing tools, which enables users to manipulate video images without installing software on their computers.

It allows users to do similar kinds of things as YouTube, where people can upload video, but Jumpcut goes a step further with its basic editing tools.

These tools are really useful for 'citizen' reporting.

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.