IR stuck in the mud

IR Daily » Hey Google, Where’s the YouTube Video of Your Earnings Call? - www.irwebreport.com/...

Google just acquired web video sensation YouTube for $1.65 billion.

Google — webcasted it earnings call yesterday using investor relations website outsourcing service Shareholder.com, a company owned by Nasdaq.
Visitors to Google’s investor relations pages have only two choices to access the call. Windows Media Player and Real Player. And in neither case is the call indexed to make it easier to review.
No YouTube? The audiocast archive is available only in Windows Media Player or Real Player formats and there’s no transcript here.
There’s also no podcast option (available free at EarningsCast!) or MP3 for playback in a Flash player.
But what’s stopping Google’s investor relations people putting a video camera or webcam in the conference room?
They could live videocast the call and then post the archive on the site as an embedded YouTube video.
Even little Telecom New Zealand has been doing something like that for ages.
Seeking Alpha transcript sucks away Google IR’s traffic
Here’s another irony. Right now, one of the most linked-to items about Google’s earnings call is nothing that Google itself provides.
It is the earnings call transcript provided by Seeking Alpha, the blog network. Like about 87% of other companies, Google itself doesn’t offer transcripts of its earnings calls.
Actually, if you go to Google’s page on Google Finance, you’ll find a link to the Seeking Alpha transcript buried at the bottom of the page below the fold under the heading “More Resources.” But that’s not indicated anywhere on the company’s main investor relations site.
Drinking your own “Kool-Aid”
Google isn’t the only company that should do a better job of communicating with investors by using its own technology.
Microsoft also uses Shareholder.com for its earnings calls. Funny thing here is that when I tried to load the Q4 webcast in Microsoft’s just-released IE7 browser I got an Active X warning telling me that the website wanted to run Quicktime from Apple Computer Inc. (see the screenshot below)
The warning in IE 7 reads: This website wants to run the following add-on: Quick Time from Apple Computer Inc.
Well-known VoIP analyst Andy Abramson was critical of eBay back in July for not using its own Skype services to host its earnings conference call.
To quote him: “In my view not using the technology you tout …shows a real lack of belief in the technology.”
Investor relations people, especially at consumer Web companies like Google, need to understand that they don’t operate in a vacuum.
Investors can also be your customers, your suppliers or your employees. How management handles its investor communications can make a big impression on their opinions of your company in other areas as well.

I would only add, this is another case for the fast development of XPRL

Ethics, arrogance and elitism

IR Daily is looking at PR ethics (note 1) . It makes some powerful points. There are others that have emerged this year. It is time to take stock.

"Increasingly, it appears that companies are being sucked into a
quagmire of risky Web communication practices.

PR firms set up front
organizations and websites to say nice things about their clients and their
products. People using these sites are supposed to be deceived into
thinking the sites and the information they provide are
unbiased.

Marketers offer money to
people who will write nice things about products and companies on the Web,
without disclosing that the company bought their opinions.

Companies
infiltrate message boards to post nice things about themselves or their products
and services. They do so under fake names so that people will think they’re
unconnected to the company.

Sleazy practices go unquestioned!

Then there are practices in the IR industry that are just
plain sleazy.

For-profit agencies dress themselves up as “associations” or “societies” and hand out undeserved awards to companies who fail to ask questions.

A consulting firm pretends to have a glitzy New York address when in
fact it is merely renting a “virtual address” and its real head quarters are in a place most people can’t spell. </P>

Over 100 American companies use technology to compile detailed reports on the online habits of individual visitors to their websites, never stopping to ask if this might be an invasion of privacy.

Sometimes deception and dishonesty seem harmless. If it’s not illegal or it’s not personally or monetarily injurious, it’s seen as acceptable. A minor inconvenience to the user.

We’ve dabbled in a bit of “minor inconvenience” deception ourselves here at IR Web Report. I’m not proud of it. We used to use our articles to link to pages on
the site that promote our services.

We might say something like “In our recent research on online annual reports, we found that…” The problem here is that there’s no indication that the link goes to a sales pitch for our membership plan.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Lots of people do it, from the Web’s
usability guru to a former SEC lawyer who uses it to pitch subscriptions to
his online services.

But it’s absolutely not ok. All it does is lead someone to click on a link that they might otherwise avoid. They immediately feel cheated after you “get” them to do what you want. It’s a stupid tactic, isn’t it? Someone who has just been deceived >by you is hardly softened-up to become your customer.

This is but the tip of the iceberg.

Pick any press release and read it. The content, claims and syntax is transparently hyped. This as a document given to a journalist, is patronising, arrogant, elitist. Here, the company, one partner in the communication process, is demeaning the other. Talking down, assuming journalism and journalists need to be fooled. What kind of partnership is this? What kind of people is the company prepared to partner with - some hack journo who cannot check if 'world leading' is meaningful? Would the company really partner with such people?

What sort of company is this? Elitist, deceptive, manipulative and prepared to work with second class partners. This is what the PR industry is prepared to recommend to its clients.

PR by the very documents it shows to the world condones elitism and perpetuates the divide between communication partners and yet in a second breath will talk about diversity.

Take this as an example statement from the PR Industry:

It’s really the sense of most blogs being first jottings and half thought
through that bothers me. I value the language of Shakespeare, Samuel Beckett and
Hemingway too much to see its daily massacre. ‘Blogs’ seem in many cases to
spring straight from a semi-engaged brain on to the page. I cringe at the
inability of people to stand back and critically assess their thoughts before
committing them, arrogantly, world-wide (or so they think – most get read by a
few saddies and surfers).

Here we see the PR industry commenting ill of and ill prepared to learn about, understand adopt or use a channel for communication and a form of social interaction. It makes demeaning comments about people whose first trade is not writing. It even is disdainful of the blogging editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Once again, PR shows how elitist, arrogant and, perhaps ethically at odds with a readership as big as the national newspaper industry it has become.

Alongside these issues there are concerns about atroturfing (passing off) which is another case of bad practice endemic in PR practice.

Gary Bivings has made this point:

.. 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.)

The fact of Internet Porosity, Transparency and Agency firts put forward by Anne Gregory (2) and outlined here in a sequence of posts (click 'next' at the bottom of each post).

It is time to look at the ethical issues from the inside out (note 3). The essential is this:

Now, and
increasingly in the future, trust will be
imperative. Ethical PR will need to
prevail. Part of the ethic will be deliv-
ered by technology, and only then will
a brand be able to survive electronic
navigators able to compare efficacy dis-
passionately. The wider implications
for ethics will then come into play.
Part of ethical practice will be in the
management of reputation. Essentially
this is management of transparency,
porosity and agency in all aspects of
corporate governance. When, because
of ethical misdemeanour (whether
actual or perceived), trust is lost, com-
panies lose competitive advantage.

If the PR industry cannot do it, Internet agency, this time using machines, will.

There is no greater issue for the PR industry today.


1 IR Daily » Less Deception Needed on the Web - www.irwebreport.com/...
2 Gregory, A, (1999) How the Internet Radically Changes Public Relations Practice, paper submitted to the IPR/PRCA Internet Commission.
3 Phillips, D. (2000) Blazing Netshine on the Value Network - The processes of Internet public relations management Journal of Communication Management December 2000 Vol 5 No 2

Access the Web on mobile devices - a lot do

An average 29 percent of European Internet users access the Web on mobile devices. This includes users in Germany (34 percent); Italy (34 percent); France (28 percent); Spain (26 percent); and the U.K. (24 percent). In the U.S., 19 percent of Internet users access the Internet on cell phones and other mobile devices.


IR Daily » News Digest for October 24, 2006 - www.irwebreport.com/...

IBM as a Model

This is a valuable case study:

"Often credited as being a pioneer in investor relations podcasting, IBM is one of the few companies that has used podcasting with a strategic communications objective rather than just as a parallel distribution channel.

"Starting in August 2005, the company ran a series of interviews with company experts discussing future trends in particular industries. It called the series “IBM and the future of” and its primary objective was to educate investors and demonstrate the depth of expertise inside the company.

"IBM’s podcasting series, which was also available in transcript form, had the happy side benefit of producing significant positive press for the company in the mainstream media as well as on a wide range of smaller websites and blogs.

"That may help account for the fact that as of a couple weeks ago, IBM’s podcasts had been downloaded 186,000 times — a huge figure when compared with other companies’ podcasts."

IR Daily » The State of Podcasting in Investor Relations - www.irwebreport.com/...

Conversations have rules - so do blogs

Shel blogs:

Southwest Airlines‘ Paula Berg just wrapped up a talk on the ”Nuts About Southwest“ blog, one of the really excellent examples of a company blog. Paula noted that she and three other members of the blog team moderate comments; she listed a number of criteria for comments that don’t make it, including specific customer service issues and politically incorrect meanderings.
Wisely, Southwest lists those criteria under its ”User’s Guide.
That’s great, but I like the idea of putting these guidelines on the comment page itself, which is what GM does on its Fastlane blog. Many readers who opt to comment will never click to a discrete page containing your moderation policy, but it’s entirely likely they’ll see that policy if it appears right where they enter the comment. It can reduce the risk of somebody accusing you of censorship when their comment doesn’t appear and they don’t know why.

a shel of my former self - blog.holtz.com/...

Shakespeare's PR consultant

Indiana University Professor Edward Castronova has made a name for himself as an economist who studies virtual worlds. Now he's been awarded a US$240,000 (128,000 pounds) grant to create one himself, based on the world of William Shakespeare.

"What we plan to do is have people encounter the texts in Shakespeare and ideas in the text at many points within a really fun, multiplayer game, so without even knowing it, they gradually are learning more about the bard's work," said Castronova, author of "Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games".

Well its good to see that Shakespeare has a good PR agent in Second Life.

Note created Oct 25, 2006Professor funded for virtual Shakespeare world Technology Internet Reuters.co.uk - today.reuters.co.uk/...

Another MP blog

Tom Brake, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, yesterday celebrated the launch of his new MySpace by simultaneously posting his first blog on both http://blog.myspace.com/tombrake, and in the History Matters, 'A Day in History' archive.

The political landscape in the UK is following the US... a lot more social interaction. Political PR is getting interesting.

eGov monitor | - www.egovmonitor.com/...

Mullah minds in corporations and the EU

The EU is not alone in looking at ways to regulate technology it doesn't approve of: Iran, too, hopes to stem dissenting voices, this time by taking the drastic step of banning high-speed internet connections.

The Guardian reports Iran has 5 million internet users. This worries the country's fundamentalist mullah leadership, who worry that these impressionable young minds are open to the evil influence of western culture. This, they says, "undermines Islamic culture" in young minds.

And, as you go into many companies in the UK, the same mentality is evident. Yet, the advantages are higher productivity of between 1.7 and 3.7 % among other advantages.

EURSOC: Iran Blocks Broadband - eursoc.com/...

Would you buy a company from a second hand employer?

Almost two-thirds of UK employees say they are allowed to act independently, but less than half feel they contribute to their company's overall mission, research has found.

An international survey of more than 9,000 workers by software provider NetReflector also revealed one in 10 UK respondents said they were unlikely to recommend their own company to a friend. The global average is about 8%.

So internal PR has a big job to do. Here is what Lee Hopkins had to say on the subject and its great.

Employees value their independence over the company's mission, survey shows - 19/10/2006 - Personnel - www.personneltoday.com/...

"Marketing last legs - Advertising legless"

"I've never seen things changing as much as they are now," says Rance Crain, editor-in-chief of trade magazine Advertising Age and a 40-plus-year observer of marketing. "Advertisers will not be satisfied until they put their mark on every blade of grass."

Ad-zapping devices — and a decrease in consumer attention spans — have created doubts about the effectiveness of traditional TV, radio and print ads. In response, marketers have become increasingly invasive.

"It's out of control," says Jenny Beaton, a mother of three in Westlake, Ohio. "I don't know how advertisers can think they're selling more products. It's just annoying everybody."

Many, such as Beaton, are tuning out.

"Advertising is so ubiquitous that it's turning people off," Crain says. "It's desensitizing people to the message."

The more consumers ignore ads, the more ads marketers spew back at them, says Max Kalehoff of marketing research firm Nielsen BuzzMetrics. "It's like a drug addiction. Advertisers just keep buying more and more just to try to achieve prior levels of impact. In other words, they're hooked."

We have seen some of the fall out. We have seen WPP try to escape its advertising bonds and we have seen some awful attempts to shift advertising from paper and TV to the web and social media....
Now companies have to learn. Repeat after me.... "Marketing last legs - Advertising legless"

USATODAY.com - Product placement you can't escape it - www.usatoday.com/...

A new way of measuring PR effectiveness

Bebo, the popular UK social networking site that is rivalling social networking giant MySpace in share of UK visits, looks set to overtake eBay as the most searched-for UK brand according to the latest analysis from Hitwise.

It is interesting to see how search statistics are revealing interest in brands, products and issues. Another new measure for the PR industry and a great way to evaluate a PR programme.

The Good News - News - www.thegoodnews.co.uk/...

Mobile is getting more traction

Tech Digest tells us that..."There's huge amounts of interest around mobile social networking right now, and in particular over who's best placed to make the most of it. Following Tech Digest's feature on the issue, and the follow-up interview with MTV's Angel Gambino.

As mobile phone functionality increases (radio, internet, e-mail, camera) so does their role in everyday life. The money is moving there but is the timing right?

There are some really cool gadgets coming to market and they will offer more than yer average diddy screen

Tech Digest: Friday interview: Yahoo's Mitch Lazar on mobile social networking - techdigest.tv/...

Nerds in C suites

A new survey has found that the number of CIOs sitting on the operational board has increased to 46%, from 43% last year.

Harvey Nash got KPMG to survey over 500 CIOs from leading UK businesses -- average salaries were up to £104,000 from £84,000 last year

As long as they understand that PR moves at the speed of opinion and not the speed of a programme implementation.... Now, as a counter ballance, we need at least that many PR people on both the ops board and the main board because the job is getting bigger by the day.

Jason Stamper's Blog: Are UK CIOs still not strategic enough? - www.businessreviewonline.com/...

'Second Life' tops 1 million

Daniel Terdiman celebrates

"A few years ago, it was considered an article of faith that massively multiplayer online games and virtual worlds struggled to the million subscriber mark.

Then along came World of Warcraft, which quickly disabused the world of that notion.

Now, Second Life has joined the seven-figure club. On Wednesday, the so-called metaverse, which launched in 2003, passed the million mark.

And its growth -- it was at 963,212 accounts midway through Tuesday, and sits at 1,014,617 at the time of writing -- is continuing at a brisk pace of at least 20 per cent a month."

News.blog: 'Second Life' tops 1 million, News at CNET.co.uk - news.cnet.co.uk/...

Pod helps decision making

Pension customers at Legal & General have access to a three-minute podcast, which offers information and advice on their contracting out decision for the 2006-07 tax year.

Hey! Here is an interesting application for a podcast.

Legal & General offers pension podcast - www.qck.com/...

Sony shouts louder

Sony Pictures has launched an interactive campaign to promote the release of its latest film 'Marie Antoinette'.

The online campaign is targeting 16- to 25-year-olds with banner, MPUs and flash overlays, which will run across youth-orientated and social networking sites such as Piczo, Get Lippy and Refresh.

The sites will run interactive promotional activity including SMS and instant message campaigns in addition to competitions offering users prizes such as a trip to Paris and Sony Walkmans.

Natalie Wilkie, account director at Spinnaker, said: "Our challenge was to speak to our target audience, creating a strong campaign which encompassed the aspirational nature of today's youth culture and the decadency of the period in which Marie Antoinette is set.

I have some big worries about this sort of push promotion. Where is the conversation? Where is the interactivity? Where is the community? Why is Sony shouting?

In PR we can do much better.

Sony targets social networking sites for Marie Antoinette - Digital Bulletin - Digital news by Email - www.brandrepublic.com/...

Blog cop on rack

CONTROVERSIAL Chief Constable Richard Brunstrom is to face an inquiry over his use of the North Wales Police blog to label people "idiots".

The issue will be discussed behind closed doors by the police authority's professional standards committee next week.

Authority member Darren Millar, a Conservative candidate at next year's Assembly elections, said there had been complaints from members of the public about the Brunstrom blog, which the Chief Constable updates just about every day.

Recent entries have criticised opponents of a needle exchange scheme as "nimbys" and called a driver a "dangerous idiot" after she broke the speed limit going to a speed awareness course.

Well, Darren Millar is, of course, a saint when some idiot cuts him up doing a a ton on on Welsh roads. I guess he says 'poor dahling - just needs quiet counselling'.

A real voice is a bit too close to home for a politician I guess.

icWales - Police chief Brunstrom's blog sparks row - icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/...

Buckinghamshire has another journo blogger

So this is what it's come to. After years of scribbling in notebooks, using typewriters and mastering keyboards to produce stories on a screen for newspapers - I have been launched into the brave new world of online journalism. This is the first day of a Bucks Blogger's diary I hope you enjoy what will follow!

For all those PR's in Bucks... it's good to converse.
Bucks Free Press: Opinion: Bucks Blog - www.thisisbucks.co.uk/...

Voices do more

Voices.com, the voice marketplace, has produced a web-based guide for small businesses and entrepreneurs who want to start their own podcast, including complimentary pre-recorded podcast episode numbers.

I just like thier stuff!

Press Release: Voices.com Delivers Podcasting Support Online for Small Biz - Voice Over/Recording/Po - www.newswiretoday.com/...

Its dawned on the FT

The Financial Times will next week launch FT Alphaville - a digital news and commentary service.

The sub-site of FT.com, which will feature blogs and rolling discussions, is aimed at finance professionals working in hedge funds, private equity and investment banking.

Lionel Barber, FT editor, said: "Our readers need timely and tailored news - FT Alphaville will do just that.

"The '6am cut' will allow readers to pick up vital financial news either on their way to work or as soon as they get into the office and the rolling blog and online discussions will mean FT Alphaville will constantly be on top of breaking financial news, giving readers core relevant information when they need it."

The FT could do better. 'Relevant news at a time and via a channel of the readers' choosing is a good model and better than 'buy this product'.

But, where there is wifi... there is a channel that is as good as broadcast.

News and jobs for journalists :: FT to launch Alphaville - www.journalism.co.uk/...

Corporate Social Responsibility - makes me shudder

Vodafone may be under the cosh from shareholders but it emerged today as a world-beater when it comes to corporate social responsibility.

The mobile phone giant led by the embattled Arun Sarin has been ranked as the world's most accountable business in a survey by AccountAbility, a London thinktank on organisational and corporate accountability, and csrnetwork, a British corporate responsibility network.

So says the Guardian

As soon as I see Corporate Social Responsibility, I give a little shudder. If not responsible - not corporate. Just an accident waiting to happen - and shareholders will gnash thier teeth twice over.

If a company needs to hang CSR on its sleve, the person i/c PR should be going round wringing necks to get rid of those who are not responsible - especailly in the week the Enron Chief got banged up.

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Vodafone tops corporate social responsibility survey - business.guardian.co.uk/...

To scream or build a community

Research, carried out by DJG Marketing indicates that visitors to the OPA sites bought more frequently and spent more money across several major categories including, entertainment, financial services, travel and automotive.

On-line Publishing Association president Pam Horan believes her members’ sites offer value for advertisers because:

“This study demonstrates that branded original content sites deliver more valuable buyers than portal and search sites. OPA sites allow advertisers to be where consumers are eager to learn, more likely to buy, and more willing to spend."

Advertising executives may take a different view. Advertising on portal sites gets products and services seen by a larger audience and also allows them to target potential customers through paid search marketing.

This is a debate about how to capture attention and involvement. I can't help feeling that scream advertising wants the big buck campiagns in this debate. OPA might feel it has a 'community' and that counts.
It is in building relationship that site owners win. Its more PR than anything else.

Branded sites more valuable for advertisers - OPA survey | Internet Marketing News and Blog | E-cons - www.e-consultancy.com/...

"Viral" as in catching a cold

In anticipation of the forthcoming debut single ‘I Know U Like Me’, from Mr Skillz and his Crazy Girls, EMI Music UK label, EMI Liberty,has launched "a multi-channel campaign" with interactive website and WAP site.

Andy Way, Digital Media Manager for EMI Liberty, explains, “We have created a cross-platform campaign with a strong viral element, to appeal to a young fan-base. The interactive website enables fans to interact online. However, as we will be attracting a young audience, all submissions to the site will be strictly moderated at all times

Elements include:
Cootie Catcher (old-school origami game), which can be downloaded and taken to school for playground fun, and a picture gallery enabling fans to interact with friends online.viral elements, including a ‘send to a friend’ function whereby fans can Bluetooth six different free animated gifs to their friends, The WAP site also enables fans to purchase mobile ring tones, download wallpapers, and put themselves forward for the title of ‘honorary crazy girl of the week’.

Well its an attempt. Very Marketing think! Keep screaming boys, your days are numbered. "Viral"... puhh!
In PR we can be much more imaginative, more engaging and can give people a real interactive and social experience - pity the poor marketers they just can't get it right.

EMI Music UK label, EMI Liberty, launches viral campaign to promote Mr Skillz and his Crazy Girls de - www.e-consultancy.com/...

How stories jump channels

CEN comments on PR pride....Now it is in the bloggershpere....The story had jumped from the press to bloggersphere and has another life in a new channel..... a lesson for PR people everywhere ....

"Hurt pride has made the PR team at Cambridge-based WAR withdraw from the latest Chartered Institute of Public Relations Pride Awards.

One of the region's premier media agencies, WAR has pulled out of the contest after not getting two of its campaigns short-listed this year.

As a result, the agency has withdrawn all its entries and says it is concerned about both the judging process and the standard of entries.

WAR's PR team swept the board last year, picking up 10 awards, including PR Consultancy of the Year."

http://www.war.uk.com/html/news.asp?nav=b2c

Note created Oct 25, 2006

CEN : Businesss : News : WAR out of award shortlist - www.cambridge-news.co.uk/...

Blog search from Google News

Google has given a boost to the blogging community by highlighting its blog search service on Google News.

The move, which took place over the weekend, has seen links to the one year old service added to the front page of Google News and at the end of search results.

Google News adds blog searches | Internet Marketing News and Blog | E-consultancy.com - www.e-consultancy.com/...

Another newspaper offers blogging.

Blogs have become a way of life on many websites and we now have the facility to do the same here on The Bolton Blog.

So if you feel like letting off steam or would just like to go public on anything let us know.
There's no money in it (naturally), but you can always let the fame go to your head . . .
Reply to Internet Editor Chris Sudlow if you would like to be a Bolton Blogger.

So here is another route for PR people to engage in conversation with journalists.

Welcome To The Bolton Blog (from This Is Lancashire) - www.thisislancashire.co.uk/..

Diplomacy exposed

Blogged by: Andrew Stroehlein

Khartoum has ordered Jan Pronk, Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN in Sudan, to leave the country by Wednesday because of comments Pronk made on his blog. Some may dismiss this as hardly surprising because diplomacy and openness don't exactly mix. I'm always a bit cautious of claims about the revolutionary character of blogging, and in some respects, I remain so in this case. After all, a diplomat can get kicked out of a country for saying the wrong thing in any forum, and annoying a host in a blog is little different from doing so in a media release or op-ed. But there has been something unique about Pronk's blog. While it hasn't been as casually written or as frequently updated as many bloggers' fare, it has provided a running log of a high-level diplomat's thinking quite unlike anything we have seen elsewhere. What other top envoy dealing with such delicate matters of conflict resolution regularly pens such an ongoing account and commentary?

Gosh! Diplomats that tell it as it is.

Reuters AlertNet - Darfur: The end of an insider's blog? - www.alertnet.org/...

Don't mess with the soccer barons

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.

See also http://www.copyrightcontrol.com/

Links to YouTube land blog in hot water - www.ihotdesk.com/...

Video conferencing is moving on

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."

I will be interested to see if this really is as smart as they say. There are other products like Skype, that can offer a lot too.

Cisco unveils telepresence push - vnunet.com - www.vnunet.com/...

Why Journos dislike PR's

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...

creativematch: New course aims to help you avoid hacking off journalists - www.creativematch.co.uk/...

Campaigners use a wiki -

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.

This is a reason for PR people to monitor wikis and to be able (within a strategy of course) make contributions and edit content.

University scientists share their dossier on NPfIT concerns - www.bjhc.co.uk/...

Digital Divide hardens

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.

Number of UK web refuseniks rockets - vnunet.com - www.vnunet.com/...

The network has intelligence

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".

The relevance of Anne Gregory's work about Internet Transparency, Porosity and Agency is again seen as insightful. For more information an explaination is here.

newswireless.net .:. Comment .:. That Symbian Magic! - a lamp-shade's ... - www.newswireless.net/...

Evaluating online 'engagement'

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?)"

This is very client oriented. What about the invisible buzz. The comments between, for example, bloggers who do not link to the client?

Note created Oct 25, 2006

Web 2.0 – what are the metrics for successful ‘engagement’? | Internet Marketing News and Blog | E-c - www.e-consultancy.com/...

The blogger is the news

Interesting to find that the newspapers' blogger' becomes a news story in the newspaper.

The article starts:

"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.

So blogs are news after all.

And the winners are . . .: Shropshire Star - www.shropshirestar.co.uk/...

Young people pay to read a newspaper!

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.

Worth looking at this because a new editorial paradigm is always worth examining

Press Gazette - UK Journalism News and Journalism Jobs - www.pressgazette.co.uk/...

Blatherings of the old

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"

This might also apply to how Public Relations communicators present their case. Crisp, to the point and not condescending?

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » When will they learn: The young are smart - www.buzzmachine.com/...

Crayon - a new new company

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.

Technorati : Shel Holtz, crayon, edelman, rubel

More on Planning and Management

I have been working on Social Media Planning and Management models. This extends the model I proposed last June against a case study setting.

It occurred to me, after comments in on the Hobson and Holtz Report show 183, that I should make it available here to add to the debate proposed for show 184.

Citizendium goes live

In a press release issued this week, Sanger, who is now on leave of absence from the Digital Universe Foundation announced the progress to a pilot project. "A major new encyclopedia project will soon attempt to unseat Wikipedia as the go-to destination for general information online. Like Wikipedia, the Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), or "the Citizen's Compendium," will be a wiki project open to public collaboration. But, unlike Wikipedia, the community will be guided by expert editors, and contributors will be expected to use their own names, not anonymous pseudonyms. This week, the fledgling Citizendium Foundation will launch a six-week pilot project open to potential contributors by invitation (see http://www.citizendium.org/cfa.html)."

In an era when trust and recommendation make or mar content this could be a valuable tool for PR to use when providing background information.

Tayhoo to make money from Flickr or de.lic.io.us?

Via Always on we find Thomas Hawk writes "One of the most interesting things to come out of Yahoo's earnings call with analysts yesterday was a statement by Yahoo's COO, Daniel L. Rosenweig on Yahoo's plans to 'monetize' their various social network properties. Flickr was mentioned five times on the conference call and their de.lic.io.us property was as well, after neither were mentioned in last quarter's call. Rosenweig characterized these services as being largely unmonetized and talked about leveraging these "assets" and targeting and profiling a large growing registered audience base.

Using a wiki for campaigning

The 23 academics who wrote to Parliament outlining their concerns about the progress of the National Programme for IT have set up a wiki to track media reports and act as a resource for NHS IT, reports e-health insider.

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).

This is a interesting application of social media for campaigning PR.

Thumbnail re-sized for your site or blog

e-consultancy has been looking at WebThumb invites you to enter a URL and then spits out thumbnails in four different sizes. Websnapr, by contrast, only provides one (small) size at the time of writing.
WebThumb’s brainchild – and AJAX guru - Joshua Eichorn has made the code available as an open API, allowing you to do something lovely with it.
An alternative is Bluga.net .

30,000 blopg posts

More than 30,000 people across Britain have recorded a diary of their day as part of a project to create an online snapshot of life in the country, reports the BBC.

The National Trust said the entries - which range from the mundane to the extraordinary - have created "Britain's biggest blog".

Broadband customer service sucks

In Point Topic’s latest Broadband Consumer Survey, 91% of broadband customers said they were happy with the quality and reliability of their internet service, and 82% are satisfied with download times says e-consultancy.

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.

I go along with that (BT).

Camcord and upload in seconds

Pure Digital Point & Shoot Camcorder has introduced a new, pocket sized camcorder which will allow videos to be uploaded to sites such as Google Video (but not YouTube, for some reason) within seconds.

The Pure Digital Point & Shoot Camcorder is currently available in the US for $129.99 (around £70) and features 30 minutes of storage capacity, with a 60 minute version also available.

from e-consultancy.

Dow bets on Factiva

Dow Jones is to buy Reuters' 50 per cent interest in Factiva for £85.5 million to become the sole owner of the online news archive reports Journalism.co.uk.

Factiva, has 1.6 million paying subscribers and supplies business news and services to the finance, corporate, professional services and government sectors.

News monitoring is big business and Dow now opperates at both ends of the news chain.

I wonder if it can compete in a web 2.0 world.

Universal to sue Sony Picture

Universal Music has filed lawsuits against two video-sharing websites, one owned by Sony Pictures, for allowing users to swap pirated versions of its musicians' videos, reports the Guardian.

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.

Creating opportunities for people to use content attracts audiences. The kind of audience that wants the product.

Being creative about how content can attract revenues, and by that I do not just mean advertising...... let me see - sponsorship, product placement, branded goods ... do I need to say more to a creative audience? These are revenues with 'long tail' values. Oh what is their problem?

Guardian Media - buys radio station

Guardian Media Group has bought GCap Media's two Century commercial regional radio stations, in Manchester and Gateshead, in a £60m deal.

Local radio has had a torridtime recently but there is alot more to this extension of the Guardian's radio empire.

Radio is in the mix of channels for editorial and is a useful channel in its own right. Add an ability to re-purpose radio programmes as the BBC is now doing and the options for attracting a different range of listeners grows.

Good move.

E-mail marketing guide

"The Marketer & Agency Guide to Email Deliverability is a comprehensive document that provides marketers with a guide on their email marketing.

Available from the Interactive Marketing Bureau it is full of marketing verbiage but is, never the less useful.

It offer marketers a single standard definition of 'deliverability' as well as accurate and timely information around causes of delivery problems and measurement.

As a very high proportion of such conetnet is regarded as spam and because spam filtering is getting better all the time, this is a valuable contribution in the use of email for communication.

'Press Relations' is re-born

The news from every corner of the publishing industry in the UK is that they have a new way of doing business. In less than a fortnight the announcements have poured out one after the next.

The media has discovered that good, competent and rigorous reporting has value. In addition, its value is enhanced when attached to a well respected brand. Add these assets to digital distribution and publishing is a money machine all over again.

For PR, this is a massive change and a big shift in how we manage the PR process. This is what has happened and is happening now. Its too late to wait. First mover advantage is now.

The news that prompts this post is this:

The Guardian has re-branded to reflect its new digital self. Reuters has a Second Life. We see the Telegraph's new multimedia centre opened (see picture), The Times is getting new interactive features, National Magazines is creating an aggregated digital network. Then there is a huge change at Trinity Mirror which is to re-launch all its regional and local newspaper websites by the end of the year. Trails are already in taking place. The change will include 60 video journalists round the country (competition for local TV stations) .

The Express and Echo ran its first video story this week scooping the local TV station.

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.

How bloggers can get to PR people - and be loved

By Mike Manuel, Voce Communications and SNCR Research Fellow & Chair, Best Practices Committee has a problem with PR people.



He says: 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.


So, how should Bloggers approach a company?

He has some tips:

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.

Browsing in style

Personalising your browser front page is quite fun.
The biggest by far is Google Personalized Page, but there are many more.

They offer interesting opportunities for promotion. For example, creating widgets for them, content for them and even creating or adapting them can offer promotional and message carrying opportunities.
Examples of the genre are:

Webwag,
Motto
Microsoft's Live.com
Pageflakes

Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography

Congratulations to Charles Bailey for making the 10th anniversary of the Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography! For those of you playing along at home, this is version 64, and covers over 2,750 articles, books, and other resources related to scholarly electronic publishing online.

Monitoring and evaluating online content

Read/Write Web has been looking at some of the products that are available for monitoring and evaluation blogs.

He has reviewed:
Techmeme
Topix
Tailrank

For more read the reviews here.

Others might include:

Blogniscient

Blogrunner

Blogsnow

Chuquet

Megite

Memeorandum

Newroo

Tailrank

Technorati Kitchen

Tinfinger

Topix.net

TruthLaidBear

Move over PR's we're the new guys on the block

It happened with the web and its happening with social media.

The PR industry is letting outsiders take over the role of communications advice, service and competence.

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?

Big gaping void.

Instead there is Justin Bovington, CEO of Rivers Run Red, which helps companies like BBC Radio One create events and design buildings inside Second Life.

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.

I wonder what Peter Gummer thinks of SecondLife?
What does his wiki farm look like and where are his blog advisors?

Half of all people read their newspaper news online......

Does this tell us something?

Visual branding blindsided

Simon Wakeman has begun a discussion about the nature of brand for bloggers.
It is an interesting and well considered piece.

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.

This issue of visual branding is also significant for re-purposed content. Say you want to offer a stry to the media, thoughts about Serach Engine Optimisation may colide with how you offer branding in video, MP3, SMS, newsprint text, an interactive PDF, and even the web page on your virtual press office.

As Simon says it is all about presenting values.....

Yahoo profits down

Yahoo posted a 37-percent slump in third-quarter profit and announced it would buy back up to three billion dollars' worth of its stock.

Newspaper competes with TV for hard news

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.

This means we need a new form of media release, we need a much wider range of elements we offer to the media (backgrounders, photo, video, re-purposed content for mobiles, blogs, contribution to media wiki's, podcasts and so forth).

To do this effectively we need XPRL..... but you know this don't you?

This is the new PR.

Passing off - the Edelman story

Richard Edelman today issued an apology for his agency's role in creating a blog for client Wal-Mart that did not properly disclose its origins or funding says Brand Republic.

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.

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.

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.

In the UK this form of practice is banned by the CIPR code of conduct. It may also be illegal anyway.

When Colin Farrington comes out of his six month purdah and it will not be soon enough for CIPR to ask its lawyers the nature of the legal position. Certainly in election law passing ones self off as another candidate or representing a participant is not legal and there is a lot of consumer law that would make miss-representation illegal as well.

Wikipedia to get competitor

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.

From Revolution

Bertelsmann to compete with Murdoch's MySpace

PC Advisor has an inside story.

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.

Saudi link up

"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.

In Blog Relations terms this is an opportunity for PR and the rest of the world.

There are some links in the BBC site.

Teen blogger for the Shropshire Star

Hey! I’m Rhian, I’m the new teen blogger for the Shropshire Star.

And away goes another blog published by a newspapers. What is going to be interesting is the kind of pitches she will get from 'PR' people.

She says:

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.

Next, I guess, you will want to know how to pitch to a blogger.......

One in ten are bloggers

Here is a nice quote for Colin Farrington:

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.

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.......

Perhaps David C has more than one blog.

Virtual meeting of communicators

BL Ochman reports that Kami Huyse has posted a PDF transcript of a meeting of communicators' avatars in Second Life last week. ....

Hosted by Text 100 this is a classic PR tool. It is a conference.

TV rules different for Internet content

The BBC is reporting a debate in the UK Parliament. Members of the House of Lords were told trying to impose new rules on audio-visual internet providers - like the YouTube site - could stifle new broadcasters.

Internet broadcasters should not be subject to the same rules which govern television, peers have been told.

The cost of complying with new rules could deter new would-be Internet entrepreneurs, the committee heard.

And it would prove difficult to get TV regulation to fit online services, as well as impose any rules on such fast-changing technology.

Each point is valid and the debate should be enjoined by the PR profession as well.

Demonstrating Social Media Value

Andrew Lark has a comment about LinkedIn.

He shows how valuable it is for job hunting (in his case recruiting).
It is this kind of exposure - public relations - that demonstrates the value of social media.

His comment begins:

I was extremely skeptical of LinkedIn but unlike Stowe and Jeff have found it to be pretty valuable. First for recruitment - the quality of the candidates I have seen through advertising on LinkedIn are fantastic - and I like the fact that some of them come recommended by people I trust. Second, it has proven to be immensely valuable in connecting with old colleagues and keeping my current network humming along

Optimising your content for search engines

Evert press release and all blogs, web pages and emails need to be optimised for search engines - if you want them to be found by journalists, bloggers or in email searches on the Intranet.

Its called Search Engine Optimisation. It is acore discipline for PR people. It is best done by a professional and here is are 20 reasons why you could do it yourself or could use Anthony Mayfield.

Sky ousts Beeb - Now go for digital posters for PR campaigning

Mark Sweney at MediaGuardian.co.uk tells us:

Sky News is to be broadcast in major Network Rail stations across the UK, replacing BBC News 24.

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.

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.

In fact, for direct communication, this is a really cool tool for PR. In addition, when pitching a story to Sky, are you asking if it will be available through this added communication channel.

Virtual Worlds can't avoid the taxman

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.

LinkedIn -

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.

MySpace makes vid easy

User profiles on the social networking site MySpace now automatically display latest clips for users who have uploaded material, removing the need to embed videos with HTML code.

This is another example of how even the simplest of technology is being removed to let notnerd users participate in Social Media.

It is getting easier - for the PR person - and everyone else........ (is this how PR will be disintermediated in the future?

Spray and Pray e-tailing misses opportunities

Henry Hyder-Smith has some good comments about the use of email marketing (e-tailing). There is a lot of good work being done and there are a lot of companies that, for the sake of a few pennies are just making consumers irritable. His comments include:

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.

Radio tagging - friend or foe

The BBC reports:

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.