There is a fixation among so many people that the internet is the web. US online ad revenues have reached a new record according to figures from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). They are talking about web sites (remember those things - sort of brochures with gizmos).
The report, conducted by PwC, showed a 33% increase in internet ad revenues from the same period in 2005.
But, in a speech in London yesterday, Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel said growth predictions were underestimating the market by failing to take account of the potential of video, social media and mobiles advertising. "[Video] will be ever-present throughout the internet, and it will find its proper way to advertise. "So whether it's mobile or whether it's video or whether it's more and more community, these factors have not gone into those numbers, so we think the actual growth potential of advertising online is really being understated."
And lots of it is 'community' the natural space for PR practice.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Local Newspapers stringers for the Beeb
BBC director general Mark Thompson speaking at the Society of Editors conference promised that online local TV would work in "partnership" with local newspapers, and even pay them for content.
"But in the words of one regional newspaper executive, the most constructive thing Thompson could have said would have been: "We're not going to do it."
"Thompson told the Glasgow conference this week: "In addition to our own local and regional newsrooms, we want to draw on the newsgathering clout of the UK's local and regional newspapers — and we'll pay for it.
"That means a revenue stream, but also visibility and credit on the BBC's new local service."
Not to mention an extra outlet for the video content generated by local newspaper reporters.
"But in the words of one regional newspaper executive, the most constructive thing Thompson could have said would have been: "We're not going to do it."
"Thompson told the Glasgow conference this week: "In addition to our own local and regional newsrooms, we want to draw on the newsgathering clout of the UK's local and regional newspapers — and we'll pay for it.
"That means a revenue stream, but also visibility and credit on the BBC's new local service."
Not to mention an extra outlet for the video content generated by local newspaper reporters.
Vodaphone offers grungy broadband
Vodafone has said it will offer broadband for £25 a month from January 8 to Vodafone mobile phone customers.
The "Vodafone at Home" package includes line rental, unlimited broadband access, landline calls within Britain and 25% off calls to mobiles. Bla de Bla de Bla.
Rivals Carphone Warehouse, Orange and satellite TV operator BSkyB, BT et al have been battling for subscribers with grungy 2 to 8 meg Broadband a load of junk dumped on your computer (called 'giveaways') and time wasting hours - sometimes days and days and weeks of Internet downtime while they swap you to their equally slug like service.
If Vodafone could offer cellular broadband for my laptop at a price that makes sense, a decent link from phone to computer without a heap more software dumped on it (oh... and yet ANOTHER bloody email address), they may have a chance.Welsh put forward best PR campaigns
David Williamson tells us that SWANSEA-BASED public relations agency MGB PR has notched up eight nominations in the PR industry's flagship awards.
This record number of possible prizes at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations awards is a first for Wales in the process as it now holds the title of the most-nominated PR company in the UK.
Brits lag in the blog race
Among Europeans Britons are the least switched on to web logs, an Ipsos MORI poll found.
The French are far more savvy.
The survey of 2,200 Europeans that 90 percent of French people surveyed said they were familiar with blogs, nearly twice as many as the number of Britons interviewed (50 percent).
But the rest of Europe is barely logged-on when it comes to online diaries either. The Spanish did only marginally better than Britons in recognising the term blog (51 percent), while in Germany, 55 percent were blog-aware, and in Italy, 58 percent had heard of the term reports Reuters.
Blogs - the new sellers medium?
Blogs are becoming a force to be reckoned with as a means of advertising products, according to an Ipsos MORI poll. It found that the Internet journals are a more trusted source of information than TV advertising or e-mail marketing.
Well! What a suprise! Here is more of the report from Reuters.
Ipsos MORI found a direct link between blogs, or user-generated content, and people's intentions to buy goods or services. Any company that fails to come up to standard should beware. The blog is replacing word of mouth for endorsing or condemning a product or service. About a third of those Europeans questioned said they had been put off making a purchase after reading negative comments on the Internet from customers or other web-users, while 52 percent said they had been persuaded to buy after a positive review on a blog. Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies and even save on their advertising and marketing budgets. Blogs, or weblogs, are a more trusted source of information (24 percent) than television advertising (17 percent) and email marketing (14 percent), the survey commissioned by Hotwire, a technology public relations consultancy, said.But they still lag behind newspapers (30 percent).
Well! What a suprise! Here is more of the report from Reuters.
Ipsos MORI found a direct link between blogs, or user-generated content, and people's intentions to buy goods or services. Any company that fails to come up to standard should beware. The blog is replacing word of mouth for endorsing or condemning a product or service. About a third of those Europeans questioned said they had been put off making a purchase after reading negative comments on the Internet from customers or other web-users, while 52 percent said they had been persuaded to buy after a positive review on a blog. Get it right, and blogs could be a boost to companies and even save on their advertising and marketing budgets. Blogs, or weblogs, are a more trusted source of information (24 percent) than television advertising (17 percent) and email marketing (14 percent), the survey commissioned by Hotwire, a technology public relations consultancy, said.But they still lag behind newspapers (30 percent).
Head in the Oven
The NewPR conference on Friday was, as always, great fun. The light bulbs that go on are especial fun and meeting Victoria Newlands (a student from Lincoln University who is really into social media) and having a good gossip with Simon Wakeman, Stuart Bruce, Neville Philip, Rob Skinner and Rob Skinner was an extra bonus.
Nicky and Andrew Wake from Don't Panic have a very friendly way of managing conferences which is a boon. I should say that Sam (from Bournemouth Uni was there too... Hi Sam! can't wait for you to blog about the conference too (and this is what we got up to while you trained it back for the Graduation Ball).
The conference closed with an overview of networking and a short but debate-provoking look at virtual environments but mostly Second Life.
One of the conference goers, said that she would rather out her head in the oven that go into SecondLife.
It struck me that this is where most of us really are.
We have our heads stuck, not in an oven but close to it, a computer screen. In there we play with a pretty clunky virtual environment (word processing, emailing, a bit of IM, cut, copy, save, drag, retype, look up phone number, tasks to do - all that sort of stuff). Its very boring. It is virtual environments with none of the fun. It is the equivalent of a smoky industrial town of the 19th century. It is a pretty smelly oven.
PR's, Journo's, marketers, CEO's all with their heads in the oven.
Perhaps it is time that decent virtual environment should be made available.
Something and somewhere worth inhabiting. A place where work is not clunky, soulless, and populated by documents, pages and emails but populated with people, action and results.
We have had our heads in an oven.... Can we move on now please?
The conference closed with an overview of networking and a short but debate-provoking look at virtual environments but mostly Second Life.
One of the conference goers, said that she would rather out her head in the oven that go into SecondLife.
It struck me that this is where most of us really are.
We have our heads stuck, not in an oven but close to it, a computer screen. In there we play with a pretty clunky virtual environment (word processing, emailing, a bit of IM, cut, copy, save, drag, retype, look up phone number, tasks to do - all that sort of stuff). Its very boring. It is virtual environments with none of the fun. It is the equivalent of a smoky industrial town of the 19th century. It is a pretty smelly oven.
PR's, Journo's, marketers, CEO's all with their heads in the oven.
Perhaps it is time that decent virtual environment should be made available.
Something and somewhere worth inhabiting. A place where work is not clunky, soulless, and populated by documents, pages and emails but populated with people, action and results.
We have had our heads in an oven.... Can we move on now please?
Public Relations affects England soccer lin-up
t is assumed, probably correctly, that Beckham’s defenestration from the England set-up was a judgment based more on public relations than on Beckham’s apparently declining ability on the football pitch.The interesting part of this is a media comment that recognises a PR strategy into the management mix. The important part is that it shows how important it is, even for a Football star, to have a public relations strategy.A new manager who began the job tainted by his association with the discredited previous regime asserted his supposed independence by dropping the player most closely connected to Sven-Göran Eriksson — the player Sven would never drop, no matter how hopelessly he was performing. Steve McClaren seems not to have the slightest intention of picking Beckham, no matter how catastrophically his first-choice XI perform."
Voices for your podcast
After wading through the usual PR/marketing hype, this news from a press release may be useful.
Voices.com has added three new categories of voices including documentary voice over categories that you can use for you podcasts.
The abomination called a press release takes hundreds of words to say it but if you are really bored, the release was published at Newswire Today.
Voices.com has added three new categories of voices including documentary voice over categories that you can use for you podcasts.
The abomination called a press release takes hundreds of words to say it but if you are really bored, the release was published at Newswire Today.
Google dug up worms
Google has apologised to users of its Google Video Blog, some 50,000 of whom were exposed to an email worm after three postings were infected and sent out to mailing lists. No details of how the incident happened have emerged, and Google claims to be 'taking steps' to prevent such occurrences reports Virus Bulletin.
The blog (here) is used to keep readers informed of the latest and best additions to the YouTube-style Google Video system, and includes an email subscription system for updates. The postings, made on Tuesday night and since removed, were infected with 'W32/Kapser.a@mm', also commonly known as MyWife, Nyxem or Blackmal and referred to in the press as the Kama Sutra worm.
For PR people this sort of news is a problem. Where do you go to for advice, how can you tell if you have a virus and how can you be sure you are not passing one on.
Try the virus checking software people. They have really good information on these things.
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Telegraph.co.uk launches bloggers 'style' guide
Telegraph.co.uk, which has 14 bloggers, has published an editorial style guide for its bloggers.
Pause in rate of blog growth
Blog growth, which is down from an average of 160,000 new blogs per day in July to 100,000 new blogs at the end of September. Technorati’s latest State of the Blogosphere report shows continuing growth in the number of active blogs, with over 57 million blogs currently being tracked. Blog numbers has slowed slightly since the last quarter, something Technorati put down to more effective measures at limiting the number of spam blogs (aka 'splogs') listed.
English langauge now accounts for less than 40% of blogs, with Japanese and Chinese language blogs in second and third place (in terms of popularity).
English langauge now accounts for less than 40% of blogs, with Japanese and Chinese language blogs in second and third place (in terms of popularity).
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Monday, November 06, 2006
THE PR search engine
Contantin has done it again.
Here is his introduction:
If you want to search across all the PR blogs, wikis, and news feeds included in the PR & Communications Blogs List, you can use a custom search powered by Google Co-op:
BT slugging it out - again
Increasingly, broadband is allowing people to contribute back to the net rather than just being passive downloaders of content, reports the BBC. But, while uptake has helped the UK to the broadband fast track, lack of speed compared to other countries could still see it derailed.
Experts warn the UK is falling behind its European counterparts when it comes to speed. In the UK the fastest speed currently on offer is 24Mbps (megabits per second) although typically the fastest people will get is about 8Mbps. French surfers are enjoying around 24Mbps as standard. BT does not plan to roll out its next-generation broadband until the middle of 2007.
Broadband is certainly holding our attention - with high-speed surfers spending around six hours more online each week than those still using dial-up.
Experts warn the UK is falling behind its European counterparts when it comes to speed. In the UK the fastest speed currently on offer is 24Mbps (megabits per second) although typically the fastest people will get is about 8Mbps. French surfers are enjoying around 24Mbps as standard. BT does not plan to roll out its next-generation broadband until the middle of 2007.
Broadband is certainly holding our attention - with high-speed surfers spending around six hours more online each week than those still using dial-up.
Keeping up with like minded people - marketers note
BL Ochman reports that most big brand sims in Second Life are empty or have little traffic despite massive MSM media coverage, and many events are poorly attended. "That's because brands aren't creating or joining groups -- the most fundamental aspect of the metaverse's social structure, says Linda Zimmer in Business Communicators of Second Life."
At the same time she has reported on how Penguine, the publishers and others are opening a new presence, a virtual one, in SL.
It goes without saying that there is no point in moving in and then not joining the community. Its just like moving house. Some people just don't know how to get out and become a member of the community - I wonder how the marcom executives get a life if they can't get one in a virtual community?
At the same time she has reported on how Penguine, the publishers and others are opening a new presence, a virtual one, in SL.
It goes without saying that there is no point in moving in and then not joining the community. Its just like moving house. Some people just don't know how to get out and become a member of the community - I wonder how the marcom executives get a life if they can't get one in a virtual community?
Why blogging matters - six expert views
Dan Greenfield - VP Corporate Communications - EarthLink – Bernaisesource
Invites you to join a converastion with:
David Armano - Creative VP - Digitas – Logic + Emotion
Peter Blackshaw - CMO - Nielsen Buzz Metrics – Consumer Generated Media
David Churbuck - VP Global Web Marketing - Lenovo – Churbuck
Dan Greenfield - VP Corporate Communications - EarthLink – Bernaisesource
Eric Kintz – VP Global Marketing Strategy - Hewlett-Packard – Marketing Excellence
Will Waugh – Senior Director, Communications - ANA – Marketing Maestros
Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space.
Invites you to join a converastion with:
David Armano - Creative VP - Digitas – Logic + Emotion
Peter Blackshaw - CMO - Nielsen Buzz Metrics – Consumer Generated Media
David Churbuck - VP Global Web Marketing - Lenovo – Churbuck
Dan Greenfield - VP Corporate Communications - EarthLink – Bernaisesource
Eric Kintz – VP Global Marketing Strategy - Hewlett-Packard – Marketing Excellence
Will Waugh – Senior Director, Communications - ANA – Marketing Maestros
Technology has enabled customers to dramatically change their attitude towards marketing. As a result, they are tuning out in increasing numbers and talking back. Customers are shifting massively their entertainment and information consumption away from traditional media to the new web space.
How to influence nespapers 'social media' experiments
The moves by some publications into 'social medi' was examined last Saturday by Erick Schonfeld. He posted about how people can influence some of the ideas currently being tried by some publishers and how they can be influenced.
He writes:
Watch out for some people in the publicity industry using these idea - and comming to grief.
He writes:
Gannett newspapers are turning to their readers to help research and write stories in a new "crowdsourcing" initiative. The idea is to tap into the knowledge, and even investigative zeal, of readers to help cover stories for the papers. It sounds like USA Today wants to look more like Digg.
But figuring out how to tap into the culture of participation without abandoning journalistic objectivity is going to be tricky. Once people figure out that they can influence what goes on the front pages of Gannett's 90 local papers across the country, they will try to game the system. As Digg is finding out, giving the crowd a voice comes with its own set of issues.
Watch out for some people in the publicity industry using these idea - and comming to grief.
Who is offering homes for your content
By Erick Schonfeld, Business 2.0 Magazine has an interesting view about file sharing start-ups.
I list them here but he has some excellent comments.
I list them here but he has some excellent comments.
| Sharing Made Simple | |||
| Several new services hope to profit from letting people exchange big digital files. | |||
| SERVICE | HOW IT WORKS | COST | BUSINESS MODEL |
| AllPeers | Transfers files to your buddies through a BitTorrent-based add-on to Firefox. | Free | Content delivery fees, peer-produced media sales |
| Glide | Stores and shares digital media via browser-based "desktop" or smartphone | 300MB free; $5/month for 1GB; $10/month for 4GB | Subscription fees, software licensing |
| MediaMax | Stores digital photos, movies, and other files on the Web | 25GB free; $5-$30/month for 100-1,000GB | Subscription fees; software licensing; advertising |
| Myfabrik | Sends links to shared files stored on the Web or a Maxtor Fusion hard drive | 1GB free; 49 cents/month for each additional GB | Subscription fees, software licensing |
| Pando | E-mail attachments initiates BitTorrent-based P2P transfer backed by server | Free | Content delivery fees, advertising |
| YouSendIt | Sends links to uploaded files good for 14 days; designed for business use | 100MB free; $5-$30/month for more | Subscription fees |
| Zapr | Turns any file or folder on your PC into a shareable Web link | Free | Advertising |
The future of blogging
We'll know more about blogs next week, when Technorati publishes its quarterly review of the 'sphere. I suspect we'll see some shakeout in terms of bloggers who have begun posting less frequently.
Frank suggests that the novelty of blogging must be wearing off, if not for the writers, then for the readers.
Well I disagree.
There will be churn. There is a limit to the total number which will be limited by population/broadband penetration of the internet.
Mostly there will be new widgets (video on my blog - woweeee!), there will be more excitement in new areas of blogging - politics this week, economics next.
Most of all will be the realisation by organisations that they need digital footprint.
The loss of competitive edge for today's sales and long term sales growth will be tied to the number of comments and hyperlinks that add to the on-line property.
Its an asset, stupid!
It delivers people to your online store who will buy your fastest and slowest moving stock on-line and at minimal cost.
Companies need web pages that link to their site - economic fact.
Blogs are good at creating loads of such pages - Internet fact.
Shakeout, maybe, diminution? only if the facts of economic life pass organisations by.
Frank suggests that the novelty of blogging must be wearing off, if not for the writers, then for the readers.
Well I disagree.
There will be churn. There is a limit to the total number which will be limited by population/broadband penetration of the internet.
Mostly there will be new widgets (video on my blog - woweeee!), there will be more excitement in new areas of blogging - politics this week, economics next.
Most of all will be the realisation by organisations that they need digital footprint.
The loss of competitive edge for today's sales and long term sales growth will be tied to the number of comments and hyperlinks that add to the on-line property.
Its an asset, stupid!
It delivers people to your online store who will buy your fastest and slowest moving stock on-line and at minimal cost.
Companies need web pages that link to their site - economic fact.
Blogs are good at creating loads of such pages - Internet fact.
Shakeout, maybe, diminution? only if the facts of economic life pass organisations by.
Is PR ready for the video revolution?
This is getting to be boring. Every day, it seems, I tell of a new video news medium.
I wonder how the PR industry is coping?
Friday, it wasn't just Dow Jones who launched a bunch of online video channels (see "Dow Jones TV: Can Print Guys Do Video?), so did CNNMoney.com.
So did 60 local newspapers in the UK.....
So now we need to find the capabilities that turn us into video experts....
I wonder how the PR industry is coping?
Friday, it wasn't just Dow Jones who launched a bunch of online video channels (see "Dow Jones TV: Can Print Guys Do Video?), so did CNNMoney.com.
So did 60 local newspapers in the UK.....
So now we need to find the capabilities that turn us into video experts....
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