A football fan site that has links to YouTube showing Premiership goals has been told to stop this practice, according to reports.
NetResult, the company monitoring internet activity for the Premier League has warned the website 101greatgoals.blogsport.com to not put any more links on the site.
Cisco has a new 'telepresence' product which uses three large-screen televisions with a resolution of 1080 vertical lines. It requires a high speed network connection of 10 megabits per second.
Telepresence is essentially videoconferencing on steroids, using high definition (HD) streaming video on large-screen televisions.
"Telepresence can do for business networking what Myspace and the other social networking sites is doing for social networking," said Marthin De Beer, general manager of emerging markets for Cisco.
"It will create new relationships with people you may have never met before and enable you to do business in a much broader circle than what you are able to do today."
A new training workshop for PR (Public Relations) executives explains the well-intentioned behaviour that consistently annoys journalists in contact with them – and how to avoid many of the most common errors when seeking to place a news story or feature, to secure media coverage for PR clients. The post goes on to list many of the things Journos hate...
Here is another wiki application. It provides information for campaigners and other interested bodies.
NHS 23 wiki (http://editthis.info/nhs_it_info/ ) is a dossier of documents, reports, letters and press coverage about concerns with the direction and progress of England's National Programme for IT in the NHS.
The digital divide is deepening in the UK, with the most tech-savvy households embracing the internet while a growing number of standouts are being left behind, according to new research. The reasons for not getting internet access were found to fall into three broad groups – lack of need or interest; cost or other material constraints; and lack of the necessary skills. Almost everybody has at least heard of the internet, but only 26 per cent of respondents from non-access households believe they have a good knowledge of how to use the internet.
Symbian's research VP, David Wood had an excellent comment reported by Guy Kewney.
He is reported as saying:
"In Web 2.0, the network itself has intelligence, rather than just being a bit-pipe for pre-cooked information".
Ashley Friedlein talks about measurement for online marketing: He says: "My own feeling is that the usual Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) should still apply, be they ‘hard metrics’ like sales, clicks, conversion rates, or ‘softer metrics’ like brand favourability, purchase intent. Engagement metrics need to be understood in terms of how well they contribute to delivering these KPIs, rather than be seen as the KPIs themselves.
But what how can we measure “engagement”? A few thoughts:
- Number of friends, connections etc. on social media sites
- Volume and quality of mentions in the blogosphere
- Network analysis of the above, as well as inbound link mapping and analysis
- Dwell time on site / Depth of visit / Page views per session / % repeat visits
- Customer satisfaction (e.g. how likely are your customers to recommend your brand to a friend of theirs?)"
Interesting to find that the newspapers' blogger' becomes a news story in the newspaper.
"It occurred to me while sifting through the winners in this year’s Hollywood film Awards on Monday just how pointless these ceremonies seem to have become, writes our Movie Blogger Carl Jones.
Dominic Ponsford has found that a new Dutch daily newspaper is attracting thousands of new young readers – but unlike most other new dailies around the world, it is paid for.
NRC Next is attracting “young, well-educated people who were not regular newspaper readers” – according to the World Association of Newspapers.
Jeff Jarvis makes the point that opinion is cheap and there are now new rules in publishing. He says:
"The problem with old guys on newspapers trying to attract young people is that they pander and insult the people they so desperately want to attract. They create lite products because they think the young have no attention span when, far more likely, the young have no patience for the overlong blatherings of the old"
Well, I have been working with on/off electricity at home with teaching and so I am late with this great news. Good luck to Joseph Jaffe, veteran communicator Shel Holtz and podcasting pioneer CC Chapman Gary Cohen, Aaron Greenberger, Chris Trela and Michael Denton with Neville Hobson for thier new company crayon,
We will hear a lot about this new company and its a great venture.
Neville's Blog post describes more here.
The NHS 23 wiki, available at http://editthis.info/nhs_it_info/,
features links to articles tracking problems with various suppliers and coverage
of the academics' open letter and the agreed statement. It was developed over
the past few months as a resource and reference tool for those interested in the
progress of National Programme for IT (NPfIT).
However, a quarter of the 2,122 people surveyed earlier this year were unhappy with the standard of customer service offered by their internet providers.
The two websites are Bolt.com and Grouper, the latter being the website that Sony agreed to buy in August for $65m (£35m). Universal Music has stated that it is retaining the right to add Sony Pictures to the suit.Of course, Universal is shooting itself in the foot. The key to getting revenue is more outlets not less.
The Telegraph's integrated multimedia newsroom
We can now expect every publishing house to begin to deliver news in a huge array of formats. They will all broadcast with podacst radio, TV and video on-line and there will be print. There will be blogs and wiki type resources, file and picture sharing, story forwarding and sharing facilities. News to cell phones will include text sound and video and much more.
Why?
Because the same story, reformatted automatically will have a revenue stream attached to it.
In the past in print, there was one opportunity to sell advertising alongside several editorial stories. Today each story can have a dozen advertisements attached to it in a range of formats through an array of channels. Furthermore, where once a story had no market the day after it was published, today it stays on a server for people to access and use in perpetuity (with a brand new add attached).
The best editorial, the fastest news the best journalism will gain market share.
The market, once largely limited to UK audiences, can now reach round the world, the audience opportunity is far greater.
The PR industry now has a big challenge. We have to understand these forms of publishing. We have to be able to offer content that is optimised for this new form of publishing.
We will need to re-adjust to news being published as a continuous flow 24/7. The first edition will be published every few minutes and there will never again be a second edition. We have to monitor news all the time. Not once a week or day but every hour, every minute.
We also have to recognise that reach has changed. Half of news across Europe is first read online. In fact only half of the readership of newspapers sees the print version. The readership, audience and demographic is completely different.
Value added will come from the further opportunity to attach relationship values to these stories and give them added life among our client constituencies. We can do this with our own media. It might be hyperlinks on blogs, wiki posts, content in Second Life but whatever additional channels we use will be enhanced by using highly regarded content from the new and reformed publishing houses.
These are exciting times.Who are you?
Introducing yourself never hurts.
What's your schtick?
What's your blog called? What's the link? Some basic info about what your blog is about.
Whaddaya want?
Well - pretty self explanatory.
Also, why?
Just a basic explanation will suffice.
When can I get back to you?
A practical time-frame for getting back to you.
How do I reach you?
Email's great but ... a phone number as well.
Don't be a dick.
PR people in general have pretty thick skins and I think most will make a concerted effort to address an incoming request, but man, I've heard some horror stories lately of bloggers with just zero tact or respect, trying to use strong arm tactics to bully and manipulate (and blackmail) companies for info and access, and that's just ridiculous — and totally unnecessary.
More at New Communications Review.
For example, many companies are already setting up shop in SecondLife. CNET Networks, Reuters, Adidas, Sun Microsystems, Toyota.
Is the PR industry involved. Yes. Notably Text100. And the other consultants?Media companies even face competition from virtual upstarts inside Second Life, including New World Notes and SL Herald.
Reuters has even commissioned its longtime tech reporter, Adam Pasick, to cover Second Life full-time and act as Reuters' Second Life bureau chief.
One of his thoughts is about the way blog content is delivered which means the visual identity is less important. As a blogger your personal brand is communicated more through what you write and how you act as a blogger - how your site looks is less important than ever before, especially for your audience that reads your RSS feeds.
The Express & Echo in Exeter beat television news to a major regional story by publishing a video report on its website Reports the Press Gazette.
Using only a £190 camcorder and consumer software, the paper rushed an exclusive story onto the web which revealed that Devon County Council's preferred bidder for Exeter Airport was a consortium of London City Airport and Balfour Beattie.Online PR practices can now learn the lesson that Newspapers take theironline presence very, very seriously. Contributing to this new mindset is essential in PR practice.
The blog, walmartingacrossamerica.com, chronicled a couple's journey across the country in an RV while stopping at various Wal-Mart parking lots. Although the blog did not initially bear any clear disclosures outside of an advertisement, the trip was funded by the group Working Families for Wal-Mart [WFWM], a Wal-Mart-backed organization designed to promote a positive portrayal of the company. The group is part of Edelman's effort to turn around the reputation of the controversial retailer.The fact is that, 'passing off' is bad practice, transparency is essential and both Edelman and WalMart know this and both are culpable. There is no excuse. It is, as Edelman says, an error. It is also bad practice and reflects on the professionalism of the profession. In the UK Asda was acquired by Wal-Mart and would hope its PR team is more professional.
Richard Edelman posted a statement of apology for the incident on his personal blog on Edelman's website today."For the past several days, I have been listening to the blogging community discuss the cross-country tour that Edelman designed for Working Families for Wal-Mart," the statement said. "I want to acknowledge our error in failing to be transparent about the identity of the two bloggers from the outset. This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client's."
Edelman went on to say his agency supports the transparency guidelines of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association [WOMMA], which call for disclosure of the source of such efforts.
| Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, is launching a social media encyclopaedia that will attempt to balance the original's democratic principles, allowing anyone to add content, but with much greater editorial control. |
Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), which will go live in the next few days, will initially be made available to a limited number of content editors and members of the public who apply. It will become available to the masses by the end of the year. |
German media giant Bertelsmann AG has begun crafting plans to develop an entertainment-driven social networking website to compete with MySpace and other similar services, a source familiar with the discussions has revealed.
The news comes less than one week after Bertelsmann agreed to sell video content to the popular internet video site YouTube, which has a social networking component and which was acquired days later by Google.
With the new site, Bertelsmann aims to create a community for its music and video projects, according to the source.
"It really took off last year," says Saudi journalist Rasheed Abou-Alsamh to the BBC.
There are now between 500 and 600 Saudi blogs - in English as well as Arabic - and the bloggers are women as well as men.
"I think young people see the internet as a way of expressing themselves easily and in an uncensored fashion," says Mr Abou-Alsamh.
This means it is not too difficult to open a dialogue with Saudis.
Before I get started I just want to get one thing clear, in case you don’t already know. Rhian is a Welsh name, pronounced Ree-Ann.So at least there is no excuse for getting her name wrong.
All the world's a multimedia platform, and all the men and women merely bloggers. Or perhaps to blog or not to blog sums up better the sense of Hamletian introspection, the solitary unburdening of one's hopes and fears.It comes from Tom Leonard writing for the Telegraph. He reports:
Research published yesterday by Harris Interactive suggested that nearly one internet user in 10 has started a blog.The big suprise is how few undergraduates are bloggers. In Bournemouth the figure is (was) 2%. So these figures worry me a little:
The figure suggests that the blogging habit goes way beyond the teenager stereotype and, today, charities including the National Trust and English Heritage are asking all of us to submit a blog of our day to a website (historymatters.org.uk) to provide a snapshot of a day (October 17) in the life of Britain.Perhaps David C has more than one blog.Once more famous for people wanting to talk about their sex lives, their views on politics or, perhaps, just what they had for dinner, blogs are now frequently seizing the news agenda.
Who'd have thought David Cameron would ever jump on a fashionable bandwagon? But sure enough, he has his own blog, featuring video clips of his thoughts on cleaning up politics and his actions on cleaning up the kitchen, while his children scream in the background.......
Sky News is to be broadcast in major Network Rail stations across the UK, replacing BBC News 24.There is a case for much wider use of big screens offering interesting content. The technology is changing fast and soon we will gave digital posters like this one all over the place.Transvision, the national digital outdoor screen network owned by Titan Outdoor, chose Sky News after a pitch against BBC News last week.
The outdoor network, which is seen by around three million people each week, will provide five strands of Sky News including main headlines, financial, entertainment and sports news and the weather.
With virtual economies booming at double digit growth per month the world's tax collectors are on the lookout for a new source of revenue says IT Pro.
Users of online worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft transact millions of dollars worth of virtual goods and services every day, and these virtual economies are beginning to draw the attention of real-world authorities.
"Right now we're at the preliminary stages of looking at the issue and what kind of public policy questions virtual economies raise -- taxes, barter exchanges, property and wealth," said Dan Miller, senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress.
Online network LinkedIn is to offer a new directory search, giving its members a new method of choosing business service providers based on recommendations, reports e-consultancy.
With a massive student user base, this could help in development of markets to student networks and a revenue stream for this MySpace/Bebo competitor.
In the new directory, LinkedIn users will be able to search for service providers among those recommended by friends, or else broaden the search to include friends of friends.
The site will also offer a global search option, which will search for service provides across the whole LinkedIn network.
Many eRetailers use a ‘spray and pray’ targeting technique to push out one size fits all marketing to their database. Despite the intelligence that can be gathered through email marketing including interest areas and behaviour on site/ within the email, the email promotion resembles more mini-brochures and less tailored communications using techniques such as dynamic content. None include any information about any local stores or capture this information on sign-up despite many asking for address.
Unveiling the study, EU commissioner Viviane Reding said citizens needed re-assuring that radio tags would not lead to large-scale surveillance.
Ms Reding said she was ready to draft new laws to control how the radio frequency tags could be used.Potential abuse
The Information Society Commissioner made her comments at a conference called to mark the end of a six-month EU consultation exercise in which it sought opinions about the growing use of radio-frequency ID (RFID) tags.
These "smart barcodes" are increasingly used by businesses to monitor goods as they move along supply chains. Governments are also starting to think about putting them in many identity documents such as passports.
I would add that such technologies can be used by event organisers instead of tickets (and also to keep track of guests as they move round on a facility visit); They are great for monitoring exhibition visitors and are useful when following up the use of 'freebees' such as a trip to the Tower of London and the Savoy Grill - if you get my drift.
Software packages installed by weblog authors to run on their own systems:
Software services operated by the developer, requiring no software installation for the weblog author:
Stella Creasey, the BBC's head of audience research, said they only attracted an average of 3,000 phone downloads per mobisode.
"That's not many," added Ms Creasey. "It seems we have a long way to go to understanding this new space."
Perhaps Skype can provide an answer.One problem, said Iain Tweedale, the new media editor for BBC Wales, was that even though the BBC provided the mobisodes free, most users had to pay a charge to their phone operator of between £1.50 and £2 per Tardisode.
"The fact that there were 2.6 million downloads to PCs shows that there was an interest, so I think the problem with mobile was purely a commercial issue," said Mr Tweedale.
"The operators' tariff structures aren't flexible enough to allow for low-priced usage," he added.
Guardian Newspapers is the latest national newspaper group to change its name to reflect the importance of new media activities says Press Gazette.
Guardian Newspapers – which comprises The Guardian, Observer and Guardian Unlimited – is to be re-named Guardian News and Media.
Chief executive of parent company Guardian Media Group Carolyn McCall said: “Over the last five years our output has expanded from print to include websites, digital TV, online communities and podcasts. These name changes reflect this ongoing transformation of our businesses.”
Reports are spreading of a mass spamming campaign organised by phishers which uses spoofed MySpace addresses to direct users to bogus web sites.
The ruse uses spoofed MySpace messages, that even contain the regular site boilerplate copy, claim to have a link to a song the recipient might like. Instead the link leads to a site selling very cheap music, but when the user tries to buy then the credit card details are harvested for later use.
WPP is not now an advertising agency. More than half its business comes from areas outside traditional advertising and media planning and buying – in specialties such as insight, information and consultancy, public relations and public affairs, branding and identity, healthcare and specialist communications. The most significant part of the last specialty is direct, interactive and internet.Here is why PR has a role, which may dig WPP out of its hole.
Reuters has joined the rush by big companies into web-based virtual worlds, setting up a news bureau in Linden Lab's hugely popular Second Life.
On Wednesday, the news agency plans to begin offering coverage of real-world events for Second Life members, and vice versa, at a new site.
Thank you e-consultancy for the tip off and a much longer comment here.
You gotta love geeks. Can't find what they're looking for, they code it.That's what Matt Swann did. He wrote a script that loads Wikipedia and all of its internal links onto on iPod.
According to Digi:Nation, says the Guardian, millions of internet users are now moving beyond using the web as a tool for shopping, information and entertainment and are creating their own content, downloading music and video and sharing photos online.
I guess this means that 10% of 'online adults' in the UK (3 million people - ish) are bloggers.The largest group identified by the researchers - dubbed Digi Joe Public - are regularly embarking on the kind of digital activities that just two years ago would have been considered the exclusive preserve of teenagers and early adopters.
Nearly four in 10 of that group have read a blog, with a quarter having started their own blog or website. Nearly three-quarters have downloaded music and almost a quarter have downloaded at least one movie.
... it seems that PR types and marketers are paying bloggers to write favoarble stories about client products. There's a story(not yet online) in the November issues of Smart Money called "Bloggers" by Anne Kadet highlighting this new (perhaps not, alas) and sordid trend. There's even a company called PayPerPost.com that as its name implies pays blogger for posts. Seems about as reputable as paying individuals and companies to fradulently click on search engine ads. (Yes, this is a real problem.)
As community consultation and stakeholder engagement practices continue to grow… I believe negotiating, conflict and dispute resolution skills are going to be as important… if not more important… than media relations and crisis communications skills. This is only one sentence from Jean Valin’s recent remarks at Puerto Rico’s recent Annual Conference (see recent post). Here attached you may find the full text Puerto Rico Speech Power of PR Sep 06.doc of his important speech. Jean Valin, Canadian, is past Chair of the Global Alliance.
In August, it was bankruptcy; now it's liquidation. Tower Records is no more.
Mike at TechDirt describes what led to this end:
See what I mean....While other record stores began to recognize that that they needed to completely revamp their business -- from becoming combination music/dance clubs and stores to starting their own record labels or becoming "destinations" rather than just stores -- Tower Records leadership insisted that the web "is certainly never going to take the place of stores."
Revver is less well known than YouTube but hosts the videos from Ze Frank, Ask-a-ninja, and (now ’she’ has outed herself) lonelygirl15.
Sid Yadav comments that the system ought to work, since it compares to the other well-established ‘vote-for-your-favourite’ systems in place:
I see a clear-cut model here: users like the content, they want the owners to be paid AND they want the content to be popular (just like they want their favorite American Idol contestant to win), so why not support them by voting for them?
Over on the FameTV site, there’s more explanation:
On Fame TV, viewers will be able to create their own moments of fame by uploading video clips, pictures and texts via mobile phones and the internet. Broadcasting will take place all year round, 24/7, and be available to Sky customers in the UK and Ireland.
Fame TV aims to broadcast all video submissions live on air within 15 minutes of the user submitting the content. Viewers are invited to send in their own music selection which will play as the backing soundtrack to their clip during broadcast.
Lloyds TSB last year sent more than 92m pieces of direct mail. That is almost 1.8m letters a week, detailing offers of credit cards, insurance and loans, landing on the nation's doormats from one bank alone. A spokesman for the bank sheepishly said the mail simply reflected the size of the bank and the volume of products it offered. "It is never sent to customers who explicitly say they don't want it," he said.
The Derby Evening Telegraph has posted a video on its website of a woman pleading for her partner to be allowed to stay in the country.
Her Iranian partner is the father of her 18-month-old son, and her unborn baby is due in three weeks.
Press Gazette reports The Northcliffe paper has published the woman's full story and filmed her plea to the immigration minister, which had been sent to the Home Office on DVD.
The use of video by a print newspaper is interesting. It has now extended its offering from print to web to video. It also means it can cross sell and cross promote the paper, web site and the video. It is great PR.
It is also an opportunity that any PR practice can develop. Have story - have video - can cross promote.
A good web promotion specialist/company is someone who:
•knows how to code a framed site and get it indexed, especially on Google;
•knows the most popular search engines and their affiliations;
•is an expert on web copywriting;
•will teach you how to decode your web traffic stats and monitor your website; and
•admits on aspects that they are not familiar with and refers you with other good companies that know the task better.
SOURCE:
What to look for in an online promotion company
On Wednesday night hundreds of clubbers descended on Liverpool Street station, turned on their iPods and danced all over the concourse. Mark Brown brought us this gem.
Its called mobile clubbing.
The rules are simple: Arrive at location at given time. Start dancing to the music of your choice on your personal stereo. Please utilise the whole space, spread out. The mantra comes from the website mobile-clubbing.com, where after-work dancers can sign up to be told of the next surprise venue.
Times Online has 9 million monthly unique users and is increasing its blogs and podcasts.
The rapid movement by the core print media this year is affecting how PR interfaces with its traditional communication partner.
This week has seen many major announcements.
The survey, to be published by Guardian Newspapers on Monday, reveals that of the 29% of consumers who did not refuse outright to pay for podcasts, the most they were prepared to pay was £1.
In my day we used to put the untrue stories on page one and the truer ones through the paper, so by the time you got to page 38 there was nothing wrong with them!
Ofcom has vowed to tread carefully when it comes to determining how internet-based TV services should be regulated.
At the same time, the issue has prompted the watchdog to take a step back and review its approach to regulation in other areas.
The 2006 PRWeek/Cymfony Corporate Survey reveals that communicators on the corporate side are grasping the importance of new media and measurement - but not everyone has jumped in with both feet...
A key finding this year is that while PR professionals are paying more attention to the online marketplace, the numbers of adoption do not nearly reflect the hype. One-tenth of this year's respondents had established a blog -- showing virtually no growth over the 2005 figure. And while pundits discuss the explosion of new media, it doesn't appear that number will shoot up in 2007...
Naturally, as players in this online world, we’re all QUITE familiar with spam. But in this case, I’m talking about SPAM (Hormel’s food product). A story on the news caught my attention this morning: “The producer of the canned pork product Spam has lost a bid to claim the word as a trademark for unsolicited e-mails.”Of the Marketing domains, brand management is one that retains interest (the rest being largely about scream marketing to social groups that are vanishing faster than snow in a microwave).
Even the news anchor reporting on the story was ridiculing the food company’s recent attempt. Hmm. Not a good sign, Hormel.
In this Fortune article, this little ditty is my favorite:
“Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, ‘Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk e-mail?’”
