Thus far, there seem to about sixty, most full of fear that their beloved virtual community is about to be turned into a drab corporate hell-hole, and as the US wakes up, the volume of anti-Google agit-prop will surely skyrocket. Looking once again at Google's own video site, you can only sympathise: its front page offers the obligatory home-made clips, but its "featured" section rather tediously flags up The Cartoon Network, a new Oasis DVD and Sky Sports' coverage of the Ryder Cup. There is also the dull sound of cynical commerce: charges for video "downloads", when - doh! - the whole point of streaming technology is that no download is required.
Friday, October 13, 2006
GoogleTube
John Harris has an alternative view of the Google acquisition of YouTube.
Apple's secret society exposed
I am not sure what TechDigest is doing.
It reports (and one can only assume from an insider tip off)
The problem here is that secretive companies get 'exposed' and cannot get across their own viewpoint when they are secretive. Apple has a reputation as "uber-secretive" and so is under constant attack and investigation.
It reports (and one can only assume from an insider tip off)
Take one uber-secretive company, the ongoing saga of the perils of blogging at or about work, and someone who claims to be working for Apple (and in the UK at that) and all the ingredients are there.It seems to want to scoop the next blogger to get fired for blogging about their employer.
The problem here is that secretive companies get 'exposed' and cannot get across their own viewpoint when they are secretive. Apple has a reputation as "uber-secretive" and so is under constant attack and investigation.
Exhausted celebs
Does the use of famous names still have the power to attract the public to events and causes, or have we over-used them, and is their power diluted by B lists and scandals? Love them or hate them, celebrities are still sought after to help promote new products, launch events or attract clients to a new venue.
Active Events discusses this issue. Celebrity has always been with us. It is something that society enjoys. The Hittites, Ancient Greeks and Romans had celebrities.
Today there is a big gorilla in the room. It is really easy for celebrity status to emerge in social media very fast which can make some celebs appear passe.
Active Events discusses this issue. Celebrity has always been with us. It is something that society enjoys. The Hittites, Ancient Greeks and Romans had celebrities.
Today there is a big gorilla in the room. It is really easy for celebrity status to emerge in social media very fast which can make some celebs appear passe.
Press relations and the vultures
The CIPR Active Events blog reported on its media conference that Justin Hayward and Sam Stokes from MS&L began the conference with ‘Selling-in you stories playing a game of network bingo. Justin, Head of Technology & Telecommunications, went on to discuss the rapid changes in media and recognising ways to remain relevant as more consumers turned to the web as an information resource.
Perhaps the best way to remain relevant is to create news stories that journalists want to find, have it in social space or, at worse where an RSS feed will find it and save all the cost of the phone round and 'selling in'.
The old model is dying, the vultures are sitting on the shoulders of tradition means of press story distribution.
Perhaps the best way to remain relevant is to create news stories that journalists want to find, have it in social space or, at worse where an RSS feed will find it and save all the cost of the phone round and 'selling in'.
The old model is dying, the vultures are sitting on the shoulders of tradition means of press story distribution.
Monday, October 09, 2006
Online is now bigger than magazines and papers
From e-consultancy, a pick-up from the FT:
European consumers are now spending more time online than reading newspapers and magazines, according to a new study.The Jupiter Research survey, covered in the FT, shows internet consumption has doubled from two to four hours per week in the last two years, but is not cannibalising print and TV.
If ever there was a reason for PR to take the Web seriously this is it.
Risk trust and reward
What a sensible post at J LeRoy's blog:
Risk and trust are a balancing act online and we have to be sure that we both tell our clients and, like Google, have a plan in place for when it goes wrong. If we do these things the rewards are great.
Issues management planning in PR is often put to one side in the excitement of planning programmes. It should be an integral part.
....... we have to assume a certain amount of risk tolerance when we venture forth into the world of net based business.
This week, even vaunted Google was hacked. The post was actually quite brilliant and has made its point.
Risk and trust are a balancing act online and we have to be sure that we both tell our clients and, like Google, have a plan in place for when it goes wrong. If we do these things the rewards are great.
Issues management planning in PR is often put to one side in the excitement of planning programmes. It should be an integral part.
Why Internet Mediated PR will win - it's measureable
Where the Internet is really making TV look creaky, though, is in the most important area of all, the one that determines where the money goes: audience measurement.
So claims Steve Johnson of the Chicago Tribune
Readers know, by and large, what it means when they hear that a TV show has 3.2 million viewers: The Nielsen Media Research monopoly has extrapolated from its sample of the U.S. population's viewing habits to arrive at that number, and if that show is on a network, it will be, in all likelihood, canceled very soon.
But people outside of the business often stumble over the meaning of Internet-specific measurement terms such as "hits," "page views" and "unique visitors," to name some of the most common ones. They don't grasp how site rankings are arrived at. And, bigger picture, they fail to understand, perhaps, how very fragmented the Internet audience is: Social networking site MySpace made news recently when it climbed to the top of the Internet heap - by tallying just 4.5 percent of all U.S. Internet visits.
So consider this a primer, necessary in so new and dynamic a medium, on Internet audience measurement.........
We its quite good and worth reading.
We do need to harness some of this stuff. But there are caveats. This is not a 'mass audience medium' and so the numbers can and do conceal a lot of information and comparisons are very hard to make. But if we use it wisely it will offerpower to Social Media PR such that now one has seen before.
Shopaholic dream
Printed material can be turned into a remote control for digital content. Imagine clicking a product on the catalog, only to have it fire up the Web browser on your PC that brings you to the store’s online checkout counter with the item in mind already in the shopping cart.
Cameron or Murdoch - you choose
Rupert Murdoch said he was not yet impressed with David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, because he is a 'PR guy'.
But, you might be successful as a publisher - who knows .
Rupert, you're charming, very bright and behaves as if you doesn't believe in anything other than trying to construct what you believes will be the right public image. But really just another jumped up journo."Look, he's charming, he's very bright and he behaves as if he doesn't believe in anything other than trying to construct what he believes will be the right public image," Murdoch said.
"He's a P.R. guy. He came out of public relations. He was a lobbyist and P.R. man for Carlton Television for seven years, and then went into Parliament five years ago, and that's the only experience of life he's had."
But, you might be successful as a publisher - who knows .
One in five don't trust the net
David Smith Sunday in the The Observer reports that
This is an issue for PR. We depend on people finding a reasonable comfort zone using Social Media.
People fear they are more likely to become victims of online crime than they are to be mugged or burgled, research shows. A survey at the start of Get Safe Online Week reveals that 21 per cent of people now believe they are at greater risk from e-crime - up from 17 per cent last year. This fear of online crime is deterring the public from using the internet for everyday activities, the survey on getsafeonline.org found, with early a quarter of respondents too concerned about e-crime to bank online.
This is an issue for PR. We depend on people finding a reasonable comfort zone using Social Media.
Second Life, Work and PR play
More from BL Ochman. She says:
"Its Hard to understand how an interview with Second Life creator Philip Rosedale could be boring, but Toby Sterling at Associated Press asks questions that are (extremely) far from insightful. The Guardian, on the other hand, has a meaty article.
I agree, the Guardian article is excellent and presents how people Use SL, to promote their organisations and even trade with this 800,000 population.
Some examples:
Universities are staking out places on Second Life to offer virtual courses.
Politicians have started doing interviews in Second Life
Doctors are doing simulations that may have real-world benefits
The Hedrons will become the first British band to do a virtual concert in Second Life
The BBC has rented an island on the site for music festivals.
There is much more in the article. It offers good ideas and is well written.
"Its Hard to understand how an interview with Second Life creator Philip Rosedale could be boring, but Toby Sterling at Associated Press asks questions that are (extremely) far from insightful. The Guardian, on the other hand, has a meaty article.
I agree, the Guardian article is excellent and presents how people Use SL, to promote their organisations and even trade with this 800,000 population.
Some examples:
Universities are staking out places on Second Life to offer virtual courses.
Politicians have started doing interviews in Second Life
Doctors are doing simulations that may have real-world benefits
The Hedrons will become the first British band to do a virtual concert in Second Life
The BBC has rented an island on the site for music festivals.
There is much more in the article. It offers good ideas and is well written.
Consumer trials online
From BL Ochman, comes this find.
It is another form of online promotion. Give active users a product to try and focus their response into a single social media site and the result is coverage, comment and buzz,
It is another form of online promotion. Give active users a product to try and focus their response into a single social media site and the result is coverage, comment and buzz,
Email - Porous, Transparent and an Agent
Email is a great channel for communication. It is also easy to use.
It makes organisations porous (information leaks out). It makes organisation transparent (information can be shared easily) finally it is easy to for people to change the content, for the technologies to alter that structure and re-purpose the content. It is truly a thing of the Internet because the Internet vests email with its own agency - a capability to do things beyond the initial purpose.
This is evident from the Sunday Herald's story yesterday.
It makes organisations porous (information leaks out). It makes organisation transparent (information can be shared easily) finally it is easy to for people to change the content, for the technologies to alter that structure and re-purpose the content. It is truly a thing of the Internet because the Internet vests email with its own agency - a capability to do things beyond the initial purpose.
This is evident from the Sunday Herald's story yesterday.
SCOTLAND’S green watchdog played down the risks of radio active contamination at a popular coastal resort in Fife following an 11th-hour intervention by government spin doctors.Internal emails reveal the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) delayed and then altered a news release after it had been described as “not entirely helpful” by a senior Scottish Executive public relations official.
Saturday, October 07, 2006
How to pitch a blog
Lee Odden tells that Online Marketing Blog gets about 5-10 pitches per week on average, which provides more than enough of a sample on how blogs are getting pitched these days. What’s the verdict? It doesn’t look good.
This is a good post on how to be really good at blogger relations and makes these points:
- Be relevant.
- Personalize.
- Make it easy.
- Schwag is good.
- Be persistent.
Its relationships, stupid
Charline Li focuses on why Google and YouTube would be interested in working together. She makes this point:
In PR we can focus on the social element. The channels are interesting and can be ceeded to the folks like marketers, but the social group is the key.
This is where Public Relations has to focus.
In practice, YouTube is interesting for PR because it is a place where we can engage with social groups and their conversations.
It’s not just the sheer numbers that grabs Google’s attention. YouTube is a gem because it figured out what Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL, and all of the other video players in the marketplace couldn’t – that it’s not about the video. It’s really about the community that’s around the video.
In PR we can focus on the social element. The channels are interesting and can be ceeded to the folks like marketers, but the social group is the key.
This is where Public Relations has to focus.
In practice, YouTube is interesting for PR because it is a place where we can engage with social groups and their conversations.
ROI and relationship value
JP Rangaswami is one of the good thinkers. He is following through Charlene Li's discussion about discussion on Calculating The ROI of Blogging. He quotes: Strategy Under Uncertainty in Harvard Business Review, November/December 1997,
Well, I am glad he has had his pop at current accounting practice. When all value is a metaphor, you are left with the elements and knowledge. If all knowledge is freely available through the Internet the balance sheet rests with those who can use knowledge to convert elements using knowledge.
Throughout mankind's history (as for every other sentient being) this depends on relationships.
Why are we so slow in looking as relationships and its social value?
That is why I the Relationship Value Model is helpful.
If we restrict ourselves to measuring investments by ROI alone, we run the risk of weakening our capacity to survive, much less thrive, in an age of strategic uncertainty. Big Bets are like early stage investments, you have to work out what percentage of your investment portfolio you want to expose to those risks and returns; that percentage could be zero, but you then give away the right to receive hockey-stick returns. Big Bets are measured like early-stage VC portfolios. Options are just options, the price you pay for a place at the table, and you decide which tables you need to sit at. Options need option pricing and suffer time decay. No-Regrets Moves, in contrast, are all about ROI. You have to do something, now all you’re working out is the best something. Build Or Buy. Which Build. Or Which Buy. And there’s probably no better tool than ROI to work this out.In a long and very interesting post he concludes:
There is a destination. One that values human capital and relationships and institutional knowledge. And we will get there. So I will continue to track the conversations on the blogosphere looking for signposts that will make it easier to get to the destination.
Well, I am glad he has had his pop at current accounting practice. When all value is a metaphor, you are left with the elements and knowledge. If all knowledge is freely available through the Internet the balance sheet rests with those who can use knowledge to convert elements using knowledge.
Throughout mankind's history (as for every other sentient being) this depends on relationships.
Why are we so slow in looking as relationships and its social value?
That is why I the Relationship Value Model is helpful.
Dog blog
He's got a hairy coat and a glossy nose and is fast becoming a Norfolk celebrity, says EDP24
For Murphy the dog has got his own internet blog which has just celebrated its 1000th visitor.
There are regular updates, the topics including 'What we did for our holidays' and 'Separation Anxiety', a common problem when dogs have to be left outside shops or toilets for brief periods while their owners pop inside. And there are loads of photos of the duo.
Its a new angle for blogging. Niche.
For Murphy the dog has got his own internet blog which has just celebrated its 1000th visitor.
There are regular updates, the topics including 'What we did for our holidays' and 'Separation Anxiety', a common problem when dogs have to be left outside shops or toilets for brief periods while their owners pop inside. And there are loads of photos of the duo.
Its a new angle for blogging. Niche.
Biofuels blog for farmers
Farmers are some of the biggest adopters of new ideas and technology. Now they have a chance to take part in a new blog from FWi and its sister publication ICIS.
This is a publication useing blogs to cover an emerging interest for an industry. Another application for blogging.
ICIS's Simon Robinson has started a blog about biofuels, looking at how crops could figure in fuelling the planet in the future and talking about non-food crops for power and the potential that farming has to replace large parts of the petrochemicals industry.
This is a publication useing blogs to cover an emerging interest for an industry. Another application for blogging.
ICIS's Simon Robinson has started a blog about biofuels, looking at how crops could figure in fuelling the planet in the future and talking about non-food crops for power and the potential that farming has to replace large parts of the petrochemicals industry.
Celeb podcast for PR campaign.
Former Senator and health care advocate Bob Dole made available today the tenth and final episode in his podcast series, Ten Things Seniors Need to Know about Medicare's Drug Coverage, reports Medical News Today. In this podcast Dole discusses some of the enhanced features that Medicare is offering beneficiaries to help them prepare for the 2007 enrollment period. This episode can be downloaded at http://www.bobdoleonmedicare.com, as well as on iTunes and other podcast directories.
This is an example of both political application of social media and a practical use of a 'celebrity' to put across a point.
This is an example of both political application of social media and a practical use of a 'celebrity' to put across a point.
Media or society - what is the new Social Media
Mr web reports that two leading US media analysts have this week announced the formation of a new non-profit institute, iFOCOS, the Institute for the Connected Society. iFOCOS aims to bring thought leaders together to better ‘understand and use the new expanding media and to create better-informed global citizens’.<br>
The goal is to drive innovation around a new definition of ‘media’ which includes traditional and new forms such as social media.
This is doomed to failure. Social media uses channels for communications but can use many channels.
The channels can be a blog, IM, email, Bulletin board, SMS etc. The key here is that using a specific medium the blogger (or other social media channel user) is at the nexus of a group of other people.
Just focusing on the 'media' part of the deal will only offer part of the solution.
The goal is to drive innovation around a new definition of ‘media’ which includes traditional and new forms such as social media.
This is doomed to failure. Social media uses channels for communications but can use many channels.
The channels can be a blog, IM, email, Bulletin board, SMS etc. The key here is that using a specific medium the blogger (or other social media channel user) is at the nexus of a group of other people.
Just focusing on the 'media' part of the deal will only offer part of the solution.
Monetising blogs
This item from Reuters set me thinking. The article says:
If an author can turn a blog into a book, so too can a company, or a consultancy. The book can be an e-book, printed book, wiki etc.
Bloggers are scoring rich paydays by turning their online diaries into books, but some publishers say the craze could fizzle out with a glut of new titles destined to yield disappointing sales. Penguin became the latest to jump on the bandwagon when it bought "La Petite Anglaise", the memoirs of Catherine Sanderson, who was fired by her company because of her blog, in one of the more hotly discussed acquisitions this week at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
If an author can turn a blog into a book, so too can a company, or a consultancy. The book can be an e-book, printed book, wiki etc.
Friday, October 06, 2006
Online politics - a book reviewed
David Meerman Scott has been looking at an online book:
As the 2006 political season moves into the home stretch, my friend Colin Delany editor in chief at epolitics.com has released a terrific new free e-book Online Politics 101: The Tools and Tactics of Online Advocacy to help campaigns useful ideas on how to spread the word on the Web. Colin totally gets the online political world and helped me to understand it enough to include some case studies in my upcoming book The New Rules of Marketing and PR. Colin's ebook shows how to use the Internet to promote candidates, shape public opinion, motivate supporters and raise money. Read the press release here.So much is shifting sands but we have to find out what we can.
Online Politics 101: The Tools and Tactics of Online Advocacy, looks comprehensively at the online organizing methods that work today -- including cutting-edge applications such as MySpace, viral marketing, text messaging and video distribution.
Doc Searle on BT
He Says:
There's a buncha high-level IT blather (by quotees, not by Gordon, who's doing the quoting) about ROI and "global networked IT services", and about BT now being in a position to compete with Google... but that's just a red herring sandwich.
There's a buncha high-level IT blather (by quotees, not by Gordon, who's doing the quoting) about ROI and "global networked IT services", and about BT now being in a position to compete with Google... but that's just a red herring sandwich.
| The real story is that a major carrier is finally starting to grok, at the top, that the main benefits to incumbency are not just ownership of the pipes. There are countless creative things that an incumbent carrier — with existing relationships with customers, with "plant" all over the place, with science and business advantages out the wazoo — can do to make money, other than just by creating false (or any other kind of) scarcities in the backbone and the last mile (or acre, in the case of wireless). |
HSBC goes mobile
From ITPro: Financial services giant HSBC has become the first bank to offer customers mobile banking facilities.
It will start inviting customers to join the new service, developed in conjunction with mobile banking specialist Monilink, Monitise and LINK, immediately.
email Statistics
US email marketing company MailerMailer released its Email Marketing Metrics Report this week, revealing practices to help businesses increase returns from their email campaigns.
Key factors highlighted in the report include the use of shorter subject lines, personalisation of emails, and targeted, well-managed lists. Campaigns using these strategies achieved higher then average open and click rates.
An interestin view of email 'marketing' from e-consultancy
Google to buy YouTube for $1.6bn
Michael Arrington has reported a rumour that Google “may be in the final stages” of a US$1.6 billion deal for video sharing site YouTube.
If the rumour is true and the deal goes through it could be another coup for Google, though it might yet turn out to be a big headache for the search giant.
Source: e-consultancy
User generated content on Sky
Mark Sweney at the Guardian got this story:
Al Gore knows a thing or two about PR and this is a great brand extension.
I wait the time when a Public Relations practitioner mashes user generated content and sells it to Sky.....
Sky is making its first major move into the booming user-generated content market with a deal to bring Al Gore's Current TV, the channel made up of viewer-created clips, to the UK and Ireland.It is the first deal Current TV, branded "the TV network created by the people who watch it", has made outside the US since launching last year.
Al Gore knows a thing or two about PR and this is a great brand extension.
Finding out about search
Who is talking about searching and what's new. It matters in PR. Relying on one or two serach engines has its downside. These resources my be useful:
- Search resources
- Ask Jeeves Blog
- Goobile
- Google Adwords API Blog
- Google Blog (Official)
- Google Blogoscope
- Google Video Blog
- Inside Google
- Inside Google Adsense
- Inside Google Adwords
- JenSense
- Jeremy Zawodny of Yahoo
- John Battelle's Searchblog
- MSN AdCenter Blog
- MSN Search Blog
- Search Engine Blog
- Search Engine Journal
- Search Engine Watch
- Search Engine Watch Blog
- SEO by the Sea
- SEO Roundtable
- Unofficial Google Blog
- Valleywag
- Xooglers
- Yahoo Search Blog
SEO + Social Media = winner
Search engine marketing firm Spannerworks today launched its Social Media division with services to help brand and media owners implement effective strategy in this area reports e-Consultancy.
With Anthony Mayfield, Head of Content & Media, at Spannerworks involved it will be a really powerful player.
Social media is being positioned as Spannerworks’ third division, joining to its existing paid and natural search marketing specialist teams.
As well as offering research, analysis, training and consultancy services it is making serious investments in developing new software and content services to help brands engage with social media.
With Anthony Mayfield, Head of Content & Media, at Spannerworks involved it will be a really powerful player.
Social media is being positioned as Spannerworks’ third division, joining to its existing paid and natural search marketing specialist teams.
As well as offering research, analysis, training and consultancy services it is making serious investments in developing new software and content services to help brands engage with social media.
PodShow and BT gang up
"A few week back, BT confirmed that they have closely tied themselves with US podcast aggregator, PodShow, so closely in fact, that they've stuck BT at the front of PodShow domain to form BTPodShow," says Digital Lifestyle.
BT aren't making the service exclusive to only their network - their normal approach to try and encourage people to subscribe to their DSL service. BTPodShow will in fact be open to anyone in the UK.
Yet more channels for the practitioner. But this one is really cool.
BT aren't making the service exclusive to only their network - their normal approach to try and encourage people to subscribe to their DSL service. BTPodShow will in fact be open to anyone in the UK.
Yet more channels for the practitioner. But this one is really cool.
Social impacts of social media
Mark Vernon at Guradian Unlimited has an interesting article about online social habits.
There is no doubt we need more reserach into the social significance of social media.There is a new verb: "to friend". It is what happens when people link up on websites such as MySpace. It differs markedly from "to befriend" which involves getting to know someone. To friend is just to connect.
As Danah Boyd, a social media researcher for Yahoo, has said: people do not think of meeting their online friends - they only think of connecting, for all sorts of different reasons. Michael Bugeja author of Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, makes a different distinction: "Friending really appeals to the ego, where friendships appeal to the conscience."
Sociologist Sherry Turkle, in New Scientist, expressed her worries that online living is transforming human psychology by deskilling us from being able to be alone, and managing and containing our emotions. We are developing new intimacies with machines that lead to new dependencies - a wired social existence, "a tethered self". Conversation becomes merely sharing gossip, photos or profiles, not, on the whole, the deeper aspects of commitment, community and politics.
Second Life gets voice
With the unveiling of its 'million minutes' promotion on Wednesday, Vivox is now enabling Second Life users to speak to each other via their phones.
That's a big step for Second Life, as the 3D virtual world does not have a default voice feature, as does There, from Makena Technologies. And that's because Linden Lab, the publisher of Second Life, has so far chosen not to integrate voice directly into the software.
C|Net gives the low down.
A Web TV broadcast gizmo
Always On reports on a new online TV technology:
This may be a very handy way for PR practitioners to create their own TV channels.
Itiva Digital Media has created a platform for broadcasting video and live content over the Internet that addresses industry concern over bandwidth management. Itiva’s patented technology, called Quantum Transport™, delivers high definition, full screen, rich media content to millions of viewers in a secure, cost effective manner. Itiva’s broadband broadcast technology breaks content into individual Web pages (called quanta) and sends them over the Internet to be re-assembled at viewers’ computers. Itiva provides a breathtaking video experience on the Web at lower costs for content publishers, ISPs and the consumer.It is quick and I would like to experiment more.
This may be a very handy way for PR practitioners to create their own TV channels.
Polling tool
Polldaddy, the online poll tool RRW has been testing has just launched as a public beta.
It simple but handy.
It has one of the best designs I've come across in a while, with functionality to match. Not only does it make it simple to create polls to include on your blog or website, but you can deliver them via widget and RSS feed as well - essential in this day and age. I think polls are are an excellent - and easy - way to bring more interactivity into websites, which is why I wanted to bring this to your attention.
It simple but handy.
New Planning TV and Radio advertising tool
The Guardian reports on a new planning tool for the advertising industry.
Until now, advertisers and their media agencies have had to rely on separate audience measurement tools - such as Barb and Rajar - that don't take into account that consumers are often using multiple media simultaneously and in different ways. Now there is a new advertising campaign planning tool from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
"Before, all the standard industry measurement tools have been limited to individual media, such as TV or radio - this new tool pulls them all together," said Jim Marshall, the chairman of the Media Futures Group at the IPA.
Called the Touchpoints integrated planning database, the new tool has taken almost three years and more than £1m to develop.
Just in time for the podcasting revolution, I wonder how practical it will be for social media?
How bloggers should behave towards companies
Mike Manuel says;
This is a two way street for practitioners who are both bloggers and who also pitch to bloggers and it has huge implications for in-hose and agency practitioners who face calls from the blogging community.
There is an emerging crop of "citizen journalists" that have developed an unrealistic sense of entitlement and have ceased asking and are now demanding, at least in some cases, the same level of access and information from companies that has long been the exclusive privilege of mainstream journalists.It is worth reading his complete post.
This is a two way street for practitioners who are both bloggers and who also pitch to bloggers and it has huge implications for in-hose and agency practitioners who face calls from the blogging community.
Financial Reporting - using Blogs?
CEO Jonathan Schwartz has sent a letter to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox asking permission to disclose news about Sun Microsystems on the technology company's web site and on his blog, says Red Herring.
Mr. Schwartz made the intention known on his company blog, including the text of the letter he sent to Mr. Cox, on Monday in a posting.
The news would be a major shift in the way business news is distributed.
In order to make sure investors get important information about public companies at the same time, companies are required under so-called “Regulation Full Disclosure” guidelines to distribute such information via press releases and conference calls.
This now brings financial PR right into the heart of social media.
Mr. Schwartz made the intention known on his company blog, including the text of the letter he sent to Mr. Cox, on Monday in a posting.
The news would be a major shift in the way business news is distributed.
In order to make sure investors get important information about public companies at the same time, companies are required under so-called “Regulation Full Disclosure” guidelines to distribute such information via press releases and conference calls.
This now brings financial PR right into the heart of social media.
Podcasting is growing - Fast
Frank Barnako tells us.
Feedburner reports the number of subscribers to podcasts, for which his company is managing feeds, is growing 20-30% a month.Rick Klau, vice president, business development, said that at the beginning of the year Feedburner had 1 million subscriptions to podcasts it helped deliver. That number has now grown to 5 million subscribers for 71,000 podcasts. For you math fans, that means the average podcast has ... ta da!!! ... 70 subscribers.
MySpace silver flirters
More than Half of MySpace Visitors are Now Age 35 or Older, as the site’s demographic composition continues to shift.
Analysis reveals that significant age differences exist between the user bases of these sites.
Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively.
The data are interesting for PR people who are involved in social media and for practitioners who have not yet realised how broad the demographic is.
Analysis reveals that significant age differences exist between the user bases of these sites.
Visitors to MySpace.com and Friendster.com generally skew older, with people age 25 and older comprising 68 and 71 percent of their user bases, respectively.
The data are interesting for PR people who are involved in social media and for practitioners who have not yet realised how broad the demographic is.
The Value of Social Media Sites
Knowledge @ Wharton has been looking at the value of services like MySpace..
Less than three years after emerging from nowhere, the hot social networking website MySpace is on pace to be worth a whopping $15 billion in just three more years. Or is it?
Is the much smaller Facebook, run by a 22-year-old, really worth the $900 million or more Yahoo is reported to have offered for it? Maybe. Or maybe this is Dot-Com Bubble, Part II, with MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the other new Internet phenoms destined for oblivion when the fad fades.
"What makes this hard is that these companies seem to be so many years away from the kind of earnings that the valuation numbers are forecasting for them," says Andrew Metrick, finance professor at Wharton. The $15 billion MySpace figure "would imply that a lot more people will be on MySpace than are currently on it."
Perhaps the problem is that they are looking at an old fashioned marketing and advertising models.
Thinking more about the nexus of relationships that form round bloggers would be a better model. Think in terms of society rather than customers.
Skype TV
The Skype founders are at it again. This time they are creating peer-to-peer software, dubbed the Venice Project, to stream TV shows over the Internet (see earlier post). Skype founder Janus Fris tells Om:
Like Skype, The Venice Project is simple - you download and you get free television. . . . we are inviting more people to our beta program. It is near television quality, and it needs about one megabit per second. We are building an ad-based system, and it is close to the television model. We will do revenue share with the content providers. With our system, people can be targeted with the right kind of ads. We are respecting the copyrights.
TVoIP is an interesting idea as a channel for communication.
Thursday, October 05, 2006
Flirt of buy
Nice way of putting it... Seth Godin points out
Amazon users visit to buy stuff, and MySpace users visit to flirt.
But.... If you want to flirt don't go to Amazon unless you want to buy roses to help with the flirting. The pay off is better flirting and that is at the core of monetising social media.
I can help you flirt better.
Amazon users visit to buy stuff, and MySpace users visit to flirt.
Last time I checked, flirting was a fairly unprofitable activity.
There's a long list of high-traffic sites (beginning with theglobe.com and extending to hotmail and many others) that couldn't monetize. They were stuck because the bait that got them the traffic had no room for a reasonable hook. You could use a TV like model and interrupt with irrelevant ads, but it doesn't work so well.
All a long, long way to say something simple:
Whatever your website, I think you want better traffic, not more traffic.
But.... If you want to flirt don't go to Amazon unless you want to buy roses to help with the flirting. The pay off is better flirting and that is at the core of monetising social media.
I can help you flirt better.
Benfits of blogging
Andy Lark has been looking at benefits of blogging and adds these elements:
Some of the other areas we also see benefits in are:
Some of the other areas we also see benefits in are:
- Reduced cost of customer acquisition: customers are looking at the blog for education and insight reducing the requirement for hard materials and ongoing dialogue with sales engineers. In short, blogs reduce the sales cycle. We can measure this in hours of people time taken back.
- Reduced SEO costs: By participating in other blogs (especially those of pundits and analysts) we see more inbound traffic against key topic areas reducing our dependency on paid search to drive traffic. We've seen this go as high as 25%.
- Participation reduces research costs: Closed blog communities are a great source of insight for polling and thought taking. They reduce the cost of insight.
Go on... make your own show
BloomBox is a web application that makes it easy for PR people to create movie and video contnet based arround user generated content.
BloomBox was launched in September 2006. The first BloomBox-powered site is Islandoo. For Islandoo, BloomBox has been customised to create a user generated audition site where the community's collective wisdom is used to decide who gets picked.
BloomBox was launched in September 2006. The first BloomBox-powered site is Islandoo. For Islandoo, BloomBox has been customised to create a user generated audition site where the community's collective wisdom is used to decide who gets picked.
Since it started marketing they have been surprised by the new uses that people have seen for the software. Sports clubs are considering using BloomBox to create a community of fans. Large professional services firms are considering using BloomBox as a knowledge management system. BloomBox would be great for these applications, and probably many more!
How students get thier own back
“Whoa… dude… Code of Hammurabi. I’ve seen this in … I’ve seen this in a British Museum.” If only these words came from someone goofing off in a high school class. Instead, they were uttered by a lecturer, John Hall, during a class he gave in September to more than 1,000 students taking a business course at the University of Florida.
Within weeks, highlights from the lecture were uploaded onto numerous Web sites, including Break.com, where the video is labeled “Stoned Professor,” and YouTube. And shortly after that, the university placed Hall on paid administrative leave.
Four daily editorial deadlines at The Telegraph
The Telegraph is planning to use new editorial touchpoints to drive multi-media advertising.
Annelies van den Belt, new media director of the Telegraph Group, told the Association of Online Publishers' conference in London, that touchpoints - four daily editorial deadlines focusing on delivering news to different platforms and audiences developed as part of the Telegraph's integrated newsroom project - are key to new advertising plans.
Source Journalism.co.uk
Annelies van den Belt, new media director of the Telegraph Group, told the Association of Online Publishers' conference in London, that touchpoints - four daily editorial deadlines focusing on delivering news to different platforms and audiences developed as part of the Telegraph's integrated newsroom project - are key to new advertising plans.
Source Journalism.co.uk
Affiliate marketing worth £2 billion in UK
The UK Affiliate Marketing sector, which has more than tripled in size since 2004, has made huge strides since it was first used by marketers ten years ago says e-consultancy.
Online businesses increasingly see this as an invaluable way of generating extra sales by using networks of websites as a virtual sales force to broaden their reach.
More about affiliate marketing
Online businesses increasingly see this as an invaluable way of generating extra sales by using networks of websites as a virtual sales force to broaden their reach.
More about affiliate marketing
200 years from coffee shop to cyberspace
The Times has plans to open up parts of its 200-year-old archive, Times Media's digital publisher Zach Leonard told the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) conference, in London, yesterday.
Mr Leonard said the Times was looking at ways to make use of the newspaper's archive and turn it into a revenue steam.
He later told Journalism.co.uk that Timesonline would first look to experiment with subscription-based offerings to the business community before turning its attention to the consumer market.
Mr Leonard said the Times was looking at ways to make use of the newspaper's archive and turn it into a revenue steam.
He later told Journalism.co.uk that Timesonline would first look to experiment with subscription-based offerings to the business community before turning its attention to the consumer market.
Evaluation conference
So, Evaluation is a PR thing... Don't you believe it.
The UK Evaluation Society and the European Evaluation Society are collaborating for the first time on the organisation of a major international conference to be held in London on 4-6 October 2006.
The conference invites evaluators, commissioners of evaluation and users to reconsider the role of evaluation in democracy, what it contributes to social and public policy and how it reflects and shapes cultures and institutions. The conference is expected to be the largest evaluation conference ever held in Europe and has already attracted widespread interest from around the world.
The UK Evaluation Society and the European Evaluation Society are collaborating for the first time on the organisation of a major international conference to be held in London on 4-6 October 2006.
The conference invites evaluators, commissioners of evaluation and users to reconsider the role of evaluation in democracy, what it contributes to social and public policy and how it reflects and shapes cultures and institutions. The conference is expected to be the largest evaluation conference ever held in Europe and has already attracted widespread interest from around the world.
Ring tones are to pirate what storks are to frogs
"The ringtone business in the UK has stalled and is now in decline. You can put it down to price, piracy and the Crazy Frog effect," said Rob Wells, director of the new media division at Universal Music UK, home of artists including Eminem and U2.
Guardian report.
Guardian report.
Scream marketing gets one in eye
Within the web advertising world, interruptive formats, including pop-ups, dropped by 9% from a year ago and are now worth only 0.7% of all online advertising spending, reports the Guardian.
Guy Phillipson, the IAB's chief executive, said advertisers were realising that more tailored campaigns were the way forward and were moving away from formats such as pop-ups that mirrored the old-fashioned interruptive nature of TV and radio advertising.
Well... what a shock!
Or, take your tank off my screen.
This is good news for Public Relations when it seeks to engage with online consituents. Oh yes and were did the money for pop-ups go? Is this a budget that PR practitioners picked up?
Online advertsing still on the up
The Guardian says Online advertising spending soared more than 40% to just shy of £1bn in the first half of this year, putting it on track to overtake press advertising by the end of 2006, according to research by the online marketing trade body the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB). The figures echo reports that indicate the online sector is shrugging off a tough overall advertising market, which has hit ITV and larger radio stations in recent months.
Expats get own web site
The Guardian has launched a website, GuardianAbroad.co.uk, aimed at expatriates.
The site will mix stories with practical information about living abroad and is linked with Guardian Weekly, the international weekly print edition of the Guardian.
Publicis new executive chairman
Olivier Fleurot, the former chief executive of the Financial Times Group, has joined ad agency Publicis as executive chairman.
With a shareholding in Feud Communications to entertain the Board with too.
With a shareholding in Feud Communications to entertain the Board with too.
Gamers rock round the world
This attracted my attention from NMK.
This is a form of Second Life but in a more controlled environment. It is a channel for communication which is very 'sticky'. Gamers spend hours in this space and is an opportunity for engaging audiences.
This is a form of Second Life but in a more controlled environment. It is a channel for communication which is very 'sticky'. Gamers spend hours in this space and is an opportunity for engaging audiences.
With MMORPGs (massively mulltiplayer online role playing games) rapidly gaining traction in the media world, will we soon be talking about the latest "virtual" reality shows instead of Big Brother?
In turn, this event will ask if UK creative suppliers, agencies and brands are ready to grasp emerging opportunities in this new media space.
World of Warcraft is one of the most played games in North America, and the most played American MMORPG, with a total of over 6 million customers worldwide. As of the first half of 2005, Lineage II counted over 2.25 million subscribers worldwide, with servers in Japan, China, North America, and lastly, Europe. The free Korean MapleStory features purchasable game "enhancements" and claims to have more than 30 million players in all of its many versions, with the majority of them from East Asia.
Powerpoint for the Social Media set
Niall Cook tells us he has been playing with SlideShare after reading Ross Mayfield's comments. Think YouTube but with PowerPoint presentations rather than videos (most PPTs are arguably more amateur).
"For corporate bloggers like me, it promises to be a great tool for embedding presentations into blog posts."
Google mystery
I noted this in my RSS reader from Read/Write web. And the page has been taken down too:
"I've been tipped off about some mysterious Google screenshots - including what appears to be a mock-up for a Google Web Office product, called Google RS. The screenshots were at this location, but have since been taken down. Luckily I saved them just before that happened ;-) Here they are:
GoogleRSMockup.png
NewHomepageMockup.png.jpg
GoogleHomepageMockup.png
GooglesearchMockup.png
GooglesearchMockup2.png
What do these screenshots mean? Perhaps just the noodling of a Google freelance designer. But that Google RS one seems significant. The WebThoughts blog was the first to post about this and his comments about Google RS are great:
"So, it seems as if Google will incorporate Gmail, Calendar, PicasaWeb, Blogger, Writely, Spreadsheet and Notebook to this new service.
I guess that this also includes GDrive (leaked as “Platypus”), and a combined web-interface. I guess that Writely and PicasaWeb will get different user interfaces, Writely will be orientated on Spreadsheets (which indeed looks better IMO).
Another part of the deal could be Google Reader, which has recently been updated to the unified Google interface."
More on this as it develops..."
What is this blog thing anyway?
Philip Young has an interesting post.
I have a thought that may help.
If one considers blogging as a social media, we can think of the channel for communication as facilitator for use by groups of people who form the nexus of a number of relationships with the blogger at its core. If you like, the community that is connected through the blogger is a small hamlet. which has a tight knit community but which is part of a wider community (parish?) and thence to the breadth and depth of the network offering a connectivity, a penumbra of links. Such a hamlet is to an extent dependant on the channel but can use other channels (Usenet, email, phone etc) to maintain its existence.
Thus a blogger is the nexus surrounded by close and progressively remoter connections.
The nexus forms when its Hamlet has values in common and at its core these values (interests, ideas, passions) are very akin.
Thus to a definition of a blogger being the nexus of values at the core of a community of other people (who will be, predominantly) connected through blogging channels.
Where there is commonality of values across a wide range of individuals, they might be considered to be a public, with common values they share passionately (e.g. the notion of professional public relations). Thus, from time to time they coalesce, because they have common cause (many shared values). Such a coalition can, and probably would be, within the 'hamlet' which is the nexus around the blogger.
This has consequences for Public Relations.
It means that in thinking about building relationships, the practitioner will be addressing a wide number of individuals sharing values with other individuals. Public Relations is therefore about values that can be shared with individuals each of whom have, to an extent the same or similar values.
Endorsing values, sharing values and empathetically adding values is the means by which the practitioner can engage with bloggers and, equally how bloggers can engage with organisations.
This could be an explanation the viral effect of some notions. It is more than word of mouth, it is the sharing of values. Some, as we know can be very effective because they can be driven by emotional values. Shared emotion is very powerful indeed.
Of course, such an explanation may also help us understand why YouTube, and Flicker and del.icio.us are important because they help explicate values.
All good Relationship Value Model stuff.
Like a few others, I have been trying to work out what a blog is. Specifically, is Mediations a publication that is on general release and should be regarded in the same way as a newspaper, magazine or book? Or is it a place over which I have some control and where I can expect some personal rights? My feeling is that very few bloggers who I read have resolved this dilemma.
I have a thought that may help.
If one considers blogging as a social media, we can think of the channel for communication as facilitator for use by groups of people who form the nexus of a number of relationships with the blogger at its core. If you like, the community that is connected through the blogger is a small hamlet. which has a tight knit community but which is part of a wider community (parish?) and thence to the breadth and depth of the network offering a connectivity, a penumbra of links. Such a hamlet is to an extent dependant on the channel but can use other channels (Usenet, email, phone etc) to maintain its existence.
Thus a blogger is the nexus surrounded by close and progressively remoter connections.
The nexus forms when its Hamlet has values in common and at its core these values (interests, ideas, passions) are very akin.
Thus to a definition of a blogger being the nexus of values at the core of a community of other people (who will be, predominantly) connected through blogging channels.
Where there is commonality of values across a wide range of individuals, they might be considered to be a public, with common values they share passionately (e.g. the notion of professional public relations). Thus, from time to time they coalesce, because they have common cause (many shared values). Such a coalition can, and probably would be, within the 'hamlet' which is the nexus around the blogger.
This has consequences for Public Relations.
It means that in thinking about building relationships, the practitioner will be addressing a wide number of individuals sharing values with other individuals. Public Relations is therefore about values that can be shared with individuals each of whom have, to an extent the same or similar values.
Endorsing values, sharing values and empathetically adding values is the means by which the practitioner can engage with bloggers and, equally how bloggers can engage with organisations.
This could be an explanation the viral effect of some notions. It is more than word of mouth, it is the sharing of values. Some, as we know can be very effective because they can be driven by emotional values. Shared emotion is very powerful indeed.
Of course, such an explanation may also help us understand why YouTube, and Flicker and del.icio.us are important because they help explicate values.
All good Relationship Value Model stuff.
Better Google serach for the blind
This is an upgrade from Goole for easier searching for the visually impaired.
Major communication channel upgrade
Today, the Google Groups team launched a new beta version, available to anyone at groups-beta.google.com. It may have been awhile since you thought of Groups as cool or sexy — if you ever did — but I couldn’t have been more excited to work on the team responsible for making the current Google Groups better.
Google Groups is the old Usenet rendered as web pages.
In many subjects it competes with Blogs for comment, criticism and content.
It is one of the really big online channels for communication and this has potential. It is quite MySpace in its way.
Google Groups is the old Usenet rendered as web pages.
In many subjects it competes with Blogs for comment, criticism and content.
It is one of the really big online channels for communication and this has potential. It is quite MySpace in its way.
Google haf vays off making you tell zee truth
Jim Horton was really on the ball with this one. He posts:
Hooray!
No doubt you read this story in the last day or so about Google's CEO predicting a way on the internet for anyone to check the accuracy of a politician's statements. To some degree, that exists, but one has to dig. Schmidt is predicting in five years there will be an easy way for any citizen to do it and for a service like Google to render a probability of truthfulness.monitoring, searching and fact checking is a habit. For the PR industry its time to hone those skills and for 'creatives', stretching the truth has a five year half life but even better we will get rid of the marketing speak garbage such as 'XXX company leader in...'.
What he failed to say is that similar truth-telling approaches will be applied to companies as well, such as this blog posting comparing the cost of car services for two chief executives in New York. Once facts are available somewhere, they are potentially available everywhere on the internet. It's a matter of building search and database functions.
Hooray!
Why we need Ajax
Now this is going to be difficult. Its about Ajax an approach to software development and what is comming up.
In the tech world Ajax its cool.
To PR practitioners its about being able to use information from one source and mix it with another source as an understandable page of information.
Look boss - no hands.
The process allows data to interact without you doing anything. It allows you to look at data from different perspectives. Er... should this photo be top right or bottom left and which title are we going to use for the MD.. is he a CEO today?
With XPRL (of course I expect that you are already demanding that any data coming into your company or agency is compliant) you can get Ajax software people to knock up all sorts of gizmo's really fast and really cheap (but you need XPRL to make it REALLY cheap).
One of the reasons all this is cool is at Read/Write today.
They comment on the Ektron and SitePoint survey of 5,000 web developers in a report entitled The State of Web Development 2006/2007.
One thing to note is that most development is XML based (blogs, RSS, wikis etc all depend heavily on XML standards) . The other thing to note is the sort of stuff that developers think are critical this year.
In the tech world Ajax its cool.
To PR practitioners its about being able to use information from one source and mix it with another source as an understandable page of information.
Look boss - no hands.
The process allows data to interact without you doing anything. It allows you to look at data from different perspectives. Er... should this photo be top right or bottom left and which title are we going to use for the MD.. is he a CEO today?
With XPRL (of course I expect that you are already demanding that any data coming into your company or agency is compliant) you can get Ajax software people to knock up all sorts of gizmo's really fast and really cheap (but you need XPRL to make it REALLY cheap).
One of the reasons all this is cool is at Read/Write today.
They comment on the Ektron and SitePoint survey of 5,000 web developers in a report entitled The State of Web Development 2006/2007.
One thing to note is that most development is XML based (blogs, RSS, wikis etc all depend heavily on XML standards) . The other thing to note is the sort of stuff that developers think are critical this year.
- Real-time visual 3D view and navigation of a site
- more standards compliance, responsible use of technologies and semantics
- portable information progress
- Paradigm shift: you will not search the Web for information. You will define what you want, and the Web will collect it for you.
- Voice interactivity/navigation
- "...total immersion. Cell phones, PDAs, laptops, PCs, TVs – so many different ways exist to access the Web and more are added every day. The Web is going to become –if it hasn’t already – the hub on which the world spins."
- "Integration of Internet technologies into everyday life that does not involve a desktop or even a mobile/cell/PDA"
PR's looking in wrong direction
'The speed of technological change' is a phrase frequently used in the media. It creates an image of a fast-paced world in which the advancement of gadgets is relentless. But the man on the street, it seems, is being left behind.
Sounds like Director General of my acquaintance. Actually it comes from a certain Haymarket publication hiding behind passwords that i have not got time to fiddle with.
Of course, this writer is wrong. He is just looking in the wrong direction. He can't see that technology is not just about a PC in the bedroom.
This stuff is not about Q: 'do you know about blogging?' ..... A: 'No but I have a few web sites I go to - an sometimes I comment'... You don't have to call it a blog to be able to use it.
You don't have to call it near field communication - you can call it an Oyster card or a season ticket.
The £5000 people spend each year on gadgets is of no consequence? Best of Stuff, claims that 30% of Brits own up to 15 gadgets, with mobile phones voted as 'top gadget' by 26% of respondents.
More than one million Freeview digital TV boxes or televisions with built-in digital tuners are being sold every three months as Britons prepare for the digital switchover, industry regulator Ofcom said on Wednesday.
The use of things like Oyster cards to get into football matches, the uptake of digital TV (zero to over 50% in less than a year) and all those things have passed this contributor by.
So much for the platforms but what then of football podcasts and blogs, YouTube look alike products and BeBo being the fastest growing searched for brand this year.....
The man in the street, far from being left behind is buying beers with his cell phone.
Its the PR industry that is being left behind.
Podcasting football - wshat opportunities
The second Connacht podcast is here! Rob Murphy talks with Connacht Coach Michael Bradley & captain John Fogarty about the game against Leinster and the up-coming clash with Ulster in Galway next Friday night.
He has provided a full podcast for the supporters club of his interviews with the Connacht Coach and Captain.
Podcasting is popular in football but the key here is the range of outlets that have been created.
Here are some used and suggestions for further distribution:
Club site
Local papers, radio (yes why not?) and TV sites
Email distribution
Club blog
Fan blogs
Local Pub/club/sports shop sites
iTunes etc
CD's
The list goes on... all in the name of creating communities
He has provided a full podcast for the supporters club of his interviews with the Connacht Coach and Captain.
Podcasting is popular in football but the key here is the range of outlets that have been created.
Here are some used and suggestions for further distribution:
Club site
Local papers, radio (yes why not?) and TV sites
Email distribution
Club blog
Fan blogs
Local Pub/club/sports shop sites
iTunes etc
CD's
The list goes on... all in the name of creating communities
When you get cut off
Seth Godin has an object lesson in managing an issue.
When web sites don't work, its your organisation that is cut off from the world and not the world cut off from you. The world goes somewhere else.
This then is an issue for people who are responsible for relationships - its a PR issue.
Back to Seth:
When web sites don't work, its your organisation that is cut off from the world and not the world cut off from you. The world goes somewhere else.
This then is an issue for people who are responsible for relationships - its a PR issue.
Back to Seth:
It's easy to riff and agitate and brainstorm about the marketing message, about authenticity, about treating people the way you want to be treated... but if your building burns down, it doesn't really matter so much.Amazon's shopping cart has been broken, off and on, for days now. I can't find a status blog for them, so it might just be me and a few colleagues, or it might be everyone in the world.
That's like every single Walmart in the country unable to open their doors because the locks are jammed. Suddenly, having good locksmiths on staff is really important.
As the bar keeps getting raised for what people expect from an online experience, the collection of things that you MUST get right keeps going up. It's expensive, but so is rent. It's part of the deal.
A million visitors every month
MAYO Communications, a Los Angeles public relations and marketing agency is celebrating its first anniversary of a prototype website that offers free publicity tips for marketing communications. www.MayoPR.com. It
MAYO evolved from a high tech public relations firm to servicing entertainment publicity clients and nonprofit organizations. MayoPR.com, which was launched a year ago this month now receives an average of 1.230 million visitors a month according the Urchin Statistics, which tracks the website.
This is an example of how one can build a presence on-line to attract people. It PR!
MAYO evolved from a high tech public relations firm to servicing entertainment publicity clients and nonprofit organizations. MayoPR.com, which was launched a year ago this month now receives an average of 1.230 million visitors a month according the Urchin Statistics, which tracks the website.
This is an example of how one can build a presence on-line to attract people. It PR!
If its mobile its (still) news
Tech Digest has caught up with Leverwealth:
It's not news that online social networking sites are going mobile. MySpace took its first steps into mobile earlier this year in the US (with mobile operator Helio).
But talk seems to be intensifying, as the big Web 2.0 sites realise that mobile will be an important part of their future development.
Bebo plans to launch its own mobile service next year, possibly in partnership with O2.
A call for a 'press listing' of Social Spaces
Introducing Weblo, a new virtual world where the networking is more financial than social.
It is said to be doing well. But here is yet another communication channel to watch. Its all about which niche publics want to use it. In PR we now need the equivalent of a Media list to keep track of all these emerging channels for conversations.
Members can buy and sell property and virtual domain names, as well as become the online publicity manager for a celebrity of their choice. All this based on real-world assets too, from buildings to celebs, while the domain names are the sames as ones owned out on the 'real' Web.
It is said to be doing well. But here is yet another communication channel to watch. Its all about which niche publics want to use it. In PR we now need the equivalent of a Media list to keep track of all these emerging channels for conversations.
Shropshire Star football blog
ShropshireStar.com is joining the fun with the launch of our new Shrewsbury Town fan’s blog.
This is another newspaper using blogs as a marketing tool as much as a communication and social group building offeringbr
Their Shrewsbury Town blogger is fan David Craig, who will be sharing his thoughts on the comings and goings and the ups and downs at his favourite club.
Check out his blog in their Community section and see whether the Shrews gave him a happy birthday last weekend.
Political bloggers
By Tom Burgis at the FT gives a run down of the blogs that are providing excitement in Tory Party Conference week.
Big blog boris is on the list and is a VERY human voice.
As the Conservatives seek to recast themselves as a modern party, au fait with iPods and fretting over carbon footprints, Tories have eagerly been following their leader into the blogosphere - and the blue blogs have been abuzz with gossip and vim this week from the party’s conference in Bournemouth
Your job explianing the stuff
Nielsen//NetRatings has released a survey that shows the latest internet trends and technologies are still a mystery to many UK consumers, reports e-consultancy.
This means PR people have a role to play in educating the public to help just as the Sun newspaper is doing (and very, very well).
The report shows 52% of British web users believe online and digital technologies make their life easier, but a similar percentage say they find them difficult to follow.
The least-heard-of terms include VOD (75%), Wikis (70%), and IPTV and Really Simple Syndication (both 69%), while 67% aren’t aware of Web 2.0. One in seven also know of the iPod but don’t know what one is.While many of these technologies aren’t especially visible, the results suggest the industry could be failing to adequately educate internet users about new developments.
Readers flock to newspapers
Wired News reportes that:
Of course, it is content online that is making waves.The average number of monthly visitors to U.S. newspaper websites rose by nearly a third in the first half of 2006, a study released on Wednesday said, though print readership at some larger papers fell…
The average number of unique visitors to online newspaper sites in the first half was more than 55.5 million a month, the study said. That compares with 42.2 million a year earlier….
The Washington Post’s website increased its audience reach among readers aged 25 to 34 by more than 60 percent…
The number of page views at newspaper sites rose by about 52 percent in the first half…
So its silly for newspapers to put barriers to entry as in Belgium.
As a practitioner, of course, you need to be sure that any story run by a publications will be available in print AND online.
But we all know that don't we?
- Tom Bureau, CNET Networks UK
- Adriana Cronin-Lukas, Big Blog Company
- Lloyd Shepherd, Yahoo!
This is not about technology but a developing culture. This about creating content and distributing it like never before. The one trend driving this on all sorts of fronts. The consumer is no more. The monolithic is no more. People are contributing. Does this technology allow people to do what they could not do before?
In the early days, lots of people see the internete as another channel. TV, print, radio and internet are just seen as another distribution channel. But the internet is a sea for the other channels. It is creating leaks from these other channels. We all swim in the same pool. The internet is not a one way channel.
The internet is a network. Users are rerouting around the gatekeepers.
It's important to think about who you serve. There is only a small sliver of groups who will contribute, but they are very important. Try to focus on the top third of level of passion/expertise and numbers. Do not try to reach the 'true freaks' but with 'avid contributors' with a very deep way.
Blogging ROI
Kent Newsome Makes some excellent point in the debate about blogging ROI. I like this comment:
This never ending effort to treat blogging as some new age business plan continues to read to me like someone furiously trying to stuff a round peg into a square hole. But sometimes you take the conversation where and as you find it, so let's take a look.
Publicis to take majority stake in Freud
By FT reporters Tim Burt in New York and Gary Silverman in London
Published: June 17 2005 03:00 | Last updated: June 17 2005 03:00
Publicis, the French marketing services group, is to take majority control of Freud Communications of the UK in a deal valuing the privately-owned public relations business at about €70m-€80m ($85m-$97m).
Video in Social space needs contextual relationship
Forrester Research has just released a comprehensive study examining online video consumption and the effectiveness of online video advertising. For those of us trying to figure out how online video advertising will work, this is a very valuable report (see BeetTV for more info)
Senior Analyst Brian Haven speaks with Beet.TV from his Cambridge, Massachusetts office. His take on the nascent online video advertising space is both optimistic and harsh. He writes that video ads seen on clips as "pre-roll" don't yet resonate with consumers: they don't notice the ads, don't interact with them and are fairly negative about ads that interfere with their viewing enjoyment. He says that 82 percent of consumers say that ads within a video clip are "annoying."
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Easiest creation of a television channel in history
Ian Douglass at the Telegraph wants to point you towards a few things. The first is the easiest creation of a television channel in history. Terry Teachout, drama critic at the Wall St Journal, was dismayed at the lack of arts coverage on television so he scoured YouTube.com for things he liked and linked to them from his blog. The result, he argues, is a new arts-based on-demand channel (he calls it ArtsTube) that includes film of Picasso at work, Elvis Presley performing Blue Suede Shoes and Willhelm Furtwängler conducting Die Meistersinger in a hall full of swastika banners.
Instant publication of press releases - anybody?
David Meerman has an interesting post about Yesterday in the 'press release' distribution business.
He sums up with some advice that I add below.
For the nonse, this is OK but I just wonder what the business model is for the future.
Yesterday, talking to Peter Wilson, we pondered on how easy it would be for a distribution agency/publishing house to render 'press releases' ready for page and ready for print by using XPRL. Of course it is dead easy, would cut out a load of journalist's time and, from reliable sources, would be an instant pass straight through the system.
The whole business is designed to make it easy.
David's points are as follows:
The important things to consider before you send a release through any service are:
1. What reach does the service have into the ways that buyers search for news such as Google News, Yahoo News, vertical portals and online news sites?
2. What reach does the service have into the media that you want to target?
3. What value added social media tools such as tagging via Technorati, DIGG, and del.icio.us does the service provide?
He sums up with some advice that I add below.
For the nonse, this is OK but I just wonder what the business model is for the future.
Yesterday, talking to Peter Wilson, we pondered on how easy it would be for a distribution agency/publishing house to render 'press releases' ready for page and ready for print by using XPRL. Of course it is dead easy, would cut out a load of journalist's time and, from reliable sources, would be an instant pass straight through the system.
The whole business is designed to make it easy.
David's points are as follows:
The important things to consider before you send a release through any service are:
1. What reach does the service have into the ways that buyers search for news such as Google News, Yahoo News, vertical portals and online news sites?
2. What reach does the service have into the media that you want to target?
3. What value added social media tools such as tagging via Technorati, DIGG, and del.icio.us does the service provide?
Compare the various services and the pricing levels and choose accordingly. "We've always sent releases through XYZ wire" is not a good reason to continue to use that service.
Viewing Smoke and Mirrors from back stage
Is it enough for us to simply ‘accept’ that practitioners do not get involved in formative and evaluative research (a sort of ‘research-phobia’) because of lack of time and its prohibitive costs? Asks Toni Muzi Falconi.
For researches and academics, these are only outright excuses as low and even no-cost evaluation methods are widely available. Instead they cite practitioner lack of interest, commitment and knowledge, as the real underlying reason….Of course this is not sufficient for anyone interested in governed change! As change happens anyway, whether we like it or not, we should try to at least govern that change which mostly affects the dynamics of our profession!
This is both a 'must read' and an insight into where smoke and mirrors are viewed from back stage.
Net neutrality - its important
Dear Colin. Can you add this to the agenda for urgent action on the Internet front:
In the New York Times of September 27 Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, advocates “Net neutrality,” or limiting Internet service providers’ control over information.
[thanx to Gerrit Visser for the heads up]
Q. Is your view that the anti-Net neutrality infrastructure actually threatens political democracy? Does it go beyond just the technical structure of the Internet?
A. Net neutrality is one of those principles, social principles, certainly now much more than a technical principle, which is very fundamental. When you break it, then it really depends how far you let things go. But certainly I think that the neutrality of the Net is a medium essential for democracy, yes — if there is democracy and the way people inform themselves is to go onto the Web.
Q. So there are political consequences. Are there are also economic consequences? If so, what are they?
A. I think the people who talk about dismantling — threatening — Net neutrality don’t appreciate how important it has been for us to have an independent market for productivity and for applications on the Internet.
(..)
Q. Do you have a view about the behavior of the telephone companies in this debate? Is this simply traditional monopolist behavior, or is it more subtle? Have you talked to them to understand their motivations?
A. I have tried, when I’ve had the opportunity to find out, to understand their motivations, but I can’t speak for them. So all I can do is guess. But my guess is that it’s not that this is a nefarious planned plot to take over the Internet by a bunch of people who hate it. What I imagine is that it is simply the culture of companies, which have been using a particular business model for a very long time. So I think there is a clash of corporate cultures.
Watch Bebo watch Bebo
Heather Hopkins alerts us to Bebo which is catching up to eBay as the most searched for brand in the UK.
Since May, the term "bebo" has ranked #2 in the share of UK internet searches after "ebay", and Bebo's rapid rise is narrowing the gap. The market share of UK internet searches for "bebo" has increased more than three fold in the past six months and 17.6% in the past three months.
So everyone must head over there to see why this is such an interesting communication channel and Social Network.
Since May, the term "bebo" has ranked #2 in the share of UK internet searches after "ebay", and Bebo's rapid rise is narrowing the gap. The market share of UK internet searches for "bebo" has increased more than three fold in the past six months and 17.6% in the past three months.
So everyone must head over there to see why this is such an interesting communication channel and Social Network.
An interview in the Sunday Times last Sunday said that Bebo head Michael Birch seemed prepared to wait before earning much money from the service:
Birch, 36, is almost dismissive of the need for Bebo to generate revenues at this stage. For the next two or three years, his priority is to establish the firm as one of the global leaders in social networking. The big challenge is in America, where Bebo is currently a distant third behind MySpace and Facebook, a college-based site.
“At the moment there’s a race for traffic,” says Birch. “Implementing a successful business model does not necessarily help in that goal. There are so many avenues that social networking can go down.”
So Friday’s revelation that Bebo is planning a mobile service isn’t about revenue? Pete Cashmore notes:
…it seems that Bebo Mobile is a step closer - mobile phone group O2 is in talks with the company, although discussions are still at the early stages. There were rumors earlier this week that Bebo plans to extend the site via SMS, rather than the WAP-based services that other social networks are pursuing.
The Ad industry and ethics
Julie Rusciolelli is opening up a debate that offers a problem for 'Marketing PR'. Essentially, she is asking, to what extent can Public Relations endorse, nay even support, advertising when advertising stretches the truth.
'Creative' may mean unethical.
'Creative' may mean unethical.
Lets mashup the social space
MySpace is booming in popularity; Facebook is gracing the headlines again; Bebo is growing incredibly; Tribe relaunched; Cyworld, Hive7 and SecondLife are nothing short of a phenomenon; LinkedIn is becoming 'People Search'; ITToolbox relaunched with a host of social networking features; Friendster is now refueling itself to enter the market again.
This is a snippet from a post on Read/Write Web is a very comprehensive run down of waht is available for Social Interactions at present.
The call for a Social Space mashup is a cool idea too.
This is a snippet from a post on Read/Write Web is a very comprehensive run down of waht is available for Social Interactions at present.
The call for a Social Space mashup is a cool idea too.
City AM offers mobile news
Free financial newspaper City AM is today launching an evening news update service for mobile phones.
Called City M, the service will send breaking news updates to mobiles each day at 6pm. It will also contain banner and pop-up adverts personalised for the user.
So:1.... when pitching a story to City AM will it be available mobile and
2.... are you monitoring what is available on mobiles about your organisations
This New Media stuff is such fun....
Hezza -un reformed
The Tory party may like to think it is going to use social media to engage the British electorate.
I suggest they avoid ex-Tory minister, and leader hopeful Michael Heseltine's publishing houseHaymarket. Not only does it try to run Social Media conferences that pretend some speaker is going to show how a PR person will 'control' the bloggers, it can't even get a blog to work on its site.
The whole Hezza empire is surrounded with subscriptions, passwords and restrictions that, even if I get a copy of PRWeek because of my membership of the CIPR, there is no way I can use it here except in passing.
I suggest they avoid ex-Tory minister, and leader hopeful Michael Heseltine's publishing houseHaymarket. Not only does it try to run Social Media conferences that pretend some speaker is going to show how a PR person will 'control' the bloggers, it can't even get a blog to work on its site.
The whole Hezza empire is surrounded with subscriptions, passwords and restrictions that, even if I get a copy of PRWeek because of my membership of the CIPR, there is no way I can use it here except in passing.
Fake metrics in evaluation by fakers in PR
I note from the Institute for Public Relations site that they have bitten the bullet on multipliers.
There are some limited and highly specialist areas of our work where long experience shows there is a statistical correlation between and out-take and outcome. It is rare. I have no evidence to support this but have friends who say they have.
This week's Conversations column introduces a new paper (free on the Institute website) by Mark Weiner, president of Delahaye, and Don Bartholomew, senior vice president of MWW Group. In "Dispelling the Myth of PR Multipliers and Other Inflationary Audience Measures," the authors describe the ways in which multipliers are used by public relations professionals to report total impressions and value.
Multipliers are fake figures. Having evaluated millions of press clips - yes MILLIONS, I have no evidence to show there is a consistent multiplier.
The agencies who apply fiddle factor are conning their clients....
There are some limited and highly specialist areas of our work where long experience shows there is a statistical correlation between and out-take and outcome. It is rare. I have no evidence to support this but have friends who say they have.
This week's Conversations column introduces a new paper (free on the Institute website) by Mark Weiner, president of Delahaye, and Don Bartholomew, senior vice president of MWW Group. In "Dispelling the Myth of PR Multipliers and Other Inflationary Audience Measures," the authors describe the ways in which multipliers are used by public relations professionals to report total impressions and value.
Multipliers are fake figures. Having evaluated millions of press clips - yes MILLIONS, I have no evidence to show there is a consistent multiplier.
The agencies who apply fiddle factor are conning their clients....
yahoo paid for search on mobiles
Yahoo! has started a beta trial of paid-for search results on its mobile internet service in the UK and US.
The launch, starting with a group of just under 100 advertisers, forms part of the portal’s plan to extend pay per click services to mobiles.
Both it and Google, which has not yet provided advertising on its mobile search service, are in a race to attract mobile users through partnerships with operators.
The launch, starting with a group of just under 100 advertisers, forms part of the portal’s plan to extend pay per click services to mobiles.
Both it and Google, which has not yet provided advertising on its mobile search service, are in a race to attract mobile users through partnerships with operators.
There is a load of confusion out there
Nielsen//NetRatings has released a survey that shows the latest internet trends and technologies are still a mystery to many UK consumers. Another gem from e-consultancy.
The least-heard-of terms include VOD (75%), Wikis (70%), and IPTV and Really Simple Syndication (both 69%), while 67% aren’t aware of Web 2.0. One in seven also know of the iPod but don’t know what one is.
The report shows 52% of British web users believe online and digital technologies make their life easier, but a similar percentage say they find them difficult to follow.
Financial PR has to solve this problem
For financial PR there is a real problem with material information notes Andy Lark.
In a blog entry on Monday, Schwartz ponders why public companies like his must issue paper-based press releases or stage "anachronistic" telephonic conference calls every time they want to reveal information considered material to their financial performance.There has to be a better way and the XBRL evolution with XPRL has to resolve this issue.
Games - a communications Channel
Sony's PlayStation is to challenge Microsoft's Xbox in its one undisputed area of dominance - the online world.
The PlayStation 3 will be "network ready" out of the box when it launches in November and will offer a range of services similar to Xbox Live.
Darren Waters covers the story for the BBC.
For years I have been telling the tale of how games on-line are a channel for communication and on-line they are really powerful.
IBM - the blog case study
We encouraged employees to externally. They did, and we got tons of press without ever issuing a press release or calling a reporter - IBM
It is one of the great case studies.
It is one of the great case studies.
UK Online advertsing up 40%
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has predicted that UK online ad spend will overtake national newspaper advertising by the end of 2006, after reporting that the web’s share of the ad market reached double figures in H1.
The study, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the IAB, showed firms spent £917.2m on online advertising in Britain between January and June, a 40.3% rise over the same period last year.
The IAB said the web continued to be the ad industry’s fastest growing sector during the six months, having increased its market share to 10.5% from 7.3% a year before.
Evaluation problems
Eric T. Peterson is a veteran of web analytics and author of Web Analytics Demystified, Web Site Measurement Hacks and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators.
He spoke to us about how Web 2.0 features and concepts are shaking up the measurement space, the need for standards and the implications for site owners and advertisers.
In a nutshell, what are the challenges associated with measuring Web 2.0 traffic? asks e-consultancy.Blogs are being measured with, Visual Sciences , MeasureMap , Blogbeat etc, and RSS with Feedburner . Top-tier vendors like WebSideStory are announcing new measurement options.
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