Public Relations Ramblings

Think I've sorted this out

2005-08-25T08:24:00.000-07:00

First off let me just say thank you to the many people who responded to me as I tried to sort out this whole blogging mess. Your input was greatly appreciated and did influence my thinking.

So here's what I've decided:

Movie Marketing Madness is staying where it is on Blogger. It's fine and the functionality of that platform meets my basic needs for it.
Nothing Good Will Come of This will be put out of its misery. Chalk it up as an experiment that did yield results, just not those that were intended.
Public Relations Ramblings, though, has found a new home. You can now find it hosted on Robert French's PRBlogs.org so update your bookmarks and RSS subscriptions because here's the new URL: http://prramble.prblogs.org/. The PRBlogs domain gives me what I was looking for for PRR - a bit more features while not costing much (or anything for that matter). I'm not going to delete this Blogspot URL but will not be updating it further. It will remain - and be linked to off the new site eventually - as an archive.

Special shout-outs to Blake and Constantin for their leading me in that direction.

--Chris

Getting restless: Part II

2005-08-24T11:32:00.000-07:00

First off, thanks to those of you have have commented or dropped me an email. Believe me, I'm taking them into consideration. I did want, though, to clear up exactly what I'm looking for and what my concerns are.

GOALS
Combine, not eliminate, the content from Movie Marketing Madness and Public Relations Ramblings (can you tell I have a thing for three-word alliteration?) under one blog.
Do so on a blogging platform that supports categories.
Do so on a blog that would allow me to put AdSense listings and other affiliate links like I have on MMM. That means HTML editing is needed.

CONCERNS
Would the PRR content bore MMM readers and vice versa?
In my quest for one home for this stuff am I organizing myself right out of an audience?
TypePad only allows HTML editing for their Pro-level users, which I can't afford right now.

So there you have it, my intents and question marks. Thanks again for listening to me ramble on about this.

--Chris

Quick Takes: 8/24/05

2005-08-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

It's vitally important that everyone realize that, no matter what Microsoft or Google might want to call it, that influencers use RSS. That's why it's so frustrating whenever I come across a website that doesn't offer it - it's like they're willfully ignoring an important segment, which is not a great way to do business.
"Blogger block" has probably affected us all from time to time (unless you're Steve Rubel).
Jeff Jarvis really lets us know what he thinks of the arguement that power lies in content ownership. I tend to agree with him that it's the creation of that content that's the important part. That's especially true since Mark Cuban decided to pull away the curtain and give us the unedited text of a recent interview.
I'll definitely downloading Google Talk tonight.
MediaPost is podcasting. See my points below about the L.A. Times podcast and insert "MediaPost" where I write "L.A. Times". Oh, and I poked around on the MediaPost site and couldn't find the link so without Steve Rubel's announcement I wouldn't have known about this. Good job, guys.
Click through for one perspective on what PR should do.

Getting restless

2005-08-23T11:51:00.000-07:00

I've so far been very happy with Blogger's functionality. Sure there's some room for improvement but overall it's worked rather well for me. The thing is I am, as I said to someone earlier, an organizational drifter. I always think there's a better way to do stuff, a prettier way to present it.

Right now I have two primary blogs that I run myself, not counting the outside ones I write for. So I got it in my head to bring those two under one roof, preferrably one that has categories. As an experiment I've created a blog over at TypePad called Nothing Good Will Come of This. It's purpose would be to see if it's practical to combine my MMM content with that of Public Relations Ramblings along with whatever else I felt like writing.

If you'd like to surf on over there and let me know what you think it would be greatly appreciated. I'd be very interested in getting some feedback on this experiment since TypePad does cost some $$$ as opposed to Blogger's free service.

Thanks,
--Chris

Quick Takes: 8/22/05

2005-08-22T07:08:00.000-07:00

I'd be more excited about the L.A. Times move toward podcasting, but the fact is the podcast is the only part of the website there's an RSS feed for. As my grandma used to say, come in or stay out but shut the damn door already.
Even more rational for Microsoft's proposed shift away from the "RSS" moniker even as it finally embraces the technology. I never thought the term "internet" was all that explanatory but it surely didn't make me afraid of it or hesitant to use it. Make no mistake that this is all about Gates & Co. trying to brand the technology as their own and not out of any philanthropic goal of pleasing the consumer.
Oh, and Google doesn't really like the name RSS either.
I could not agree with Mike Manuel's call for a mash-up of PR, Marketing and Advertising sensibilites if I tried. Without a fully rounded perspective of how to create and disseminate a message you're lost.
Sometimes I too suffer from Irritable Male Syndrome.
Jeremy Pepper revisits his "Can Blogs Be Sued For Libel?" musings.
What is the future of podcasting?
Speaking of which, the Oxford English Dictionary has added "podcast"
Always an important rule of thumb: Engage brain before hitting "Send", especially if you're trying to pitch something to an e-mail weary blogger.

Wikipedia's place in marketing

2005-08-18T07:05:00.000-07:00

As some of you know in addition to PRR I also write the Movie Marketing Madness blog. Well the other day I posted by thoughts on the use of the Wikipedia and other communal information outlets for outright marketing. Since it might also be of interest to this audience (all five of you) I thought I'd repost it here.

Before I do that, though, I wanted to call out Eric Tatro, who posted something similar here. His PR Nerve Center blog is a great read and you should definitely check it out. Anyway, on with the post...

Using and abusing the Wikipedia

I've been sitting on this one for a while but still wanted to address it. Chris Abraham wondered whether the Wikipedia would be the next front for promoting new TV shows, movies or other popular culture. For anyone who may have read Abraham's post and thought it sounded like a good idea I have one word: DON"T!!

The Wikipedia is supposed to be a community effort where people can go for unbiased and factual information untouched by spin and promotion. In fact, the guidelines for submission specifically state this. There's a difference between viral marketing, where you plant something that gets passed around via word-of-mouth and grassroots marketing, where there's a popular groundswell over an issue. The difference is who's in control. With viral campaigns the guiding hand is still those "officials" who created or are overseeing the campaign. Grassroots efforts are firmly controlled by the general citizenry. It's best to make sure official sources don't interfere with grassroots efforts since often they do nothing but muck them up.

If someone starts a Wikipedia entry, a fan-blog or any other sort of communal or citizen effort because they enjoy your TV show, movie, record or anything else you should reach out to them and acknowledge their support and hard work - even link to them off of an official site. But don't get involved in creating them. It reeks of the old days where movie marketers would leave breathless praise for a movie on a message board, only to be outed and discredited within days (or hours) and have whatever good will the movie may have engendered smashed to bits. Let the ordinary folk have their tools for spreading enthusiasm and fan excitement.

Quick Takes: 8/16/05

2005-08-16T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a while but thought I would try and relaunch this feature.

Of course Microsoft wants to rename RSS: They didn't invent it but they need - I mean need - to make it their own in order to claim ownership and get everyone to use it. If people who aren't using it now think it's a non-MS technology they might be scared of it.
Mark Cuban thinks people using Blogger's Blogspot domain (such as myself) run the risk of eventually being banned. The reason is the ease of creating spam blogs designed to skew search engine results. I don't think this is likely to happen for reasons I may get to later.
IBM will help make the Firefox browser easy to use for people with disabilities.
More surveys to ignore on blog/RSS market penetration.

Google hops on the RSS bandwagon

2005-08-09T08:13:00.000-07:00

Google News is now offering content in both RSS and Atom flavors. For some reason I have the image from Die Hard of John McClane screaming "Welcome to the party pal!" as a terrorist falls on the police car.

[Via Blog Herald]

Ignoring the surveys

2005-08-09T07:35:00.000-07:00

Let's not make too much of the latest study by Forrester Research stating only 6% of Americans have read blogs and only 2% use RSS. Give it two weeks and someone else will come out saying 25% of Americans have created their own podcast or that 70% of the state of Rhode Island subscribes to Steve Rubel's RSS feed. These are meaningless if you are a decision maker or communications professional.

What's important isn't the percentage of the population is reading a blog, it's what share of your audience is reading your blog. More than that, it's what share of your audience is looking for information on your company or client. When you know those numbers you can plan how to better reach them with the message you want them to see. You know how you do that? By engaging in a conversation.

If they're looking for RSS feeds, figure out how you can provide them. If they're looking for e-mail notifications, talk to them about what they want in those e-mails? Make a variety of delivery methods available so each person can get the information they want in a way that suits their needs. Just like not all journalists want to be contacted in the same manner, not all the members of any group are going to have a one-size fits all universal preference.

PR and communications professionals would do well to stop wringing their hands over the habits of the many and concentrate on, as Shel Holtz put it, "skating to where the puck will be", meaning being ahead of the curve. Holtz uses the analogy when talking about RSS but it's a concept that has broader application potential. Where the puck will be is where your customers or other stake holders are. Look there, and figure out where they're going, and you'll be much more effective in your communciations efforts.

UPDATE

See, this is why I stopped paying attention to surveys. ComScore reports roughly 1 in 6 Americans have visited blogs in the first quarter of 2005. That's about 16.5% which - and I'm not even a math wizard - is more than Forrester's reported 6%.

Back in the game

2005-08-08T10:14:00.000-07:00

When I was on the yearbook staff in high school I had a postcard taped to my staff mailbox that said "So I haven't written much lately. Neither has Shakespeare." Public Relations Ramblings has kind of been the red-headed stepchild when it's come to attention paid to it by me lately but I'm going to try and rectify that as the weeks go on. Just to be on the safe side I don't think any of you should hold your breath.

--Chris

The editorial process

2005-07-22T05:09:00.000-07:00

Tremendous piece here at Blogspotting on the differences in preparing a blog post versus a story for the print edition of BusinessWeek. Everyone - I mean everyone - who has ever written a blog sanctioned by a media outlet or tried to get a story into one should read this.

--Chris

Blacklisting PR pros

2005-07-22T04:47:00.000-07:00

There's an ongoing meme about creating a blacklist of irresponsible PR folks, the gist of which is nicely summarized here by Shel Holtz. Basically some bloggers are beginning to complain that PR practitioners are sending out these horrendous blast emails that contain gushing prose, overembelashed copy and most importantly a lack of understanding as to what the blogger writes about.

It's a legitimate complaint. There's nothing worse than a useless email. I'm not exactly a household name in the PR or movie industry and yet I've gotten a few unsolicited pitches that have made me shake my head in wonder. Just what these people hope to accomplish with this kind of tactic is beyond me. Not only is the blog community too savvy for this kind of tactic the general audience is as well.

So here's a little tip for pitching bloggers, take directly from the "Introduction to Blogs" white paper I wrote for Bacon's Information:

1. Expose all potential conflicts of interest or corporate ties right off the bat. If these relationships are not admitted initially, the blogger will find them. By being upfront, you have inoculated yourself to some extent against a potential backlash that could cause negative publicity for your company.

2. Be familiar not only with the blog you are pitching but also with other blogs linked from that site that cover the same topic. Remember that blogs thrive on a sense of community. Bloggers want information to be shared and are not as concerned with exclusives as traditional media outlets.

3. Personalize your pitch. Don’t just include their email in a blast mailing of a press release. Bloggers like to feel special and a generic email is likely to fall on deaf ears.

4. Remember that blog writers, in order to stay relevant in the eyes of their readers, need to be honest above all else. They will publish their unvarnished opinion of a product - warts and all. Keep in mind that the risks associated with blogs need to be accepted along with their potential benefits.

5. Like traditional media outlets, the more popular blogs are the often the most
difficult to break into. Find a mid-tier blog for that first impression and let the story work its way out from there. Because there is a good deal of cross-linking among blogs within a niche, if one picks it up there is a good chance others will report on the story or do their own investigation. By incorporating some form of blog monitoring, you will be able to see how effectively this works and react
appropriately.

To that I'd now add your company or agency should make RSS feeds available for releases and other announcement. If a blog writer covers your industry they'll subscribe to the feed and get the important information that way.

Google takes over the moon

2005-07-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

Not really but this is pretty cool.

--Chris

The PR tool set

2005-07-14T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking about this for a while now. What tools should a public relations practitioner have at their fingertips? I'm not talking about basics like the ability to write. I'm talking about actual tools to use.

The press release. I don't care what Steve Rubel or others think, the press release - or at least the release format - is here for a while. What I think most people are missing when they get caught in this arguement is the distinction between the tool and the delivery method. Speaking of which...
Multiple mechanisms for delivery. Editors, beat writers and now blog writers are increasingly savvy in terms of separating the wheat from the chaff. And they want to do that on their own terms. If someone prefers e-mails you should be able to deliver information via e-mail. If someone is really digging the functionality of RSS aggregators then you should be able to deliver information in an RSS feed.
Audio/visual content. This is especially important for those products or services that look cool but are hard to explain. An online press room should be fully stocked with video of anything that translates well visually. As far as audio, podcasting is of course the latest trend in this area. It really doesn't matter, though, if you're producing regular installments of an audio program or just have a couple interviews with your CEO available online. As long as they are downloadable and not just streaming. Streaming audio/video ties the end user to their computer and eats into their valuable time. By allowing the files to downloaded and transferred to someones MP3 player you are respecting their busy schedules. It's called time-shifting. Learn about it.
Knowledge of a company's operations. I'm not talking about strategic overviews and corporate philosophies. I mean the nitty-gritty of what goes on in the bowels of a company. Spend at least one day every other week or so listening in on phone calls with clients. Learn what sales people go through to close a sale. Learn what client services has to do to save a contract. If you don't know what goes on in the trenches then the message you're crafting will only represent the executive perspective and that's about 5% of what a company actually is. Without people making and taking phone calls, driving out to massage the ego of a honked-off client or hearing what the people on a loading dock are saying about the company you're missing out on points that could be useful.

There are more and I'll get to them at a later date.

--Chris

My one and only post on the Plame case

2005-07-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

I'm going to address this once because I feel I finally have something substantive to add to the conversation.

Prosecuter Peter Fitzgerald is not a loose cannon. He is not dangerous. He does indeed have brakes. He also knows what he wants and will not stop no matter what ideological impediments there might be. For years he operated here in Chicago as almost the only man in Northern Illinois willing to look deeply at the goings-on in and around City Hall. If he thinks something is wrong and someone broke the law then I'm willing to give him the keys and let him drive.

Fitzgerald was appointed by Rep. Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) to be independent. Peter Fitz was not beholden to the bi-partisan combine that runs the state and built a reputation here as a fair and truth-speaking individual.

As far as my take on the legal issues at play here, I think Miller and Cooper should be applauded for keeping silent. I also think they should go to jail for not revealing their sources. Privilege is broken when one party commits or admits to commiting a felony in my mind. And that's exactly what happened. Someone outed Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent. That act is a crime. Amplifying that is what the journalists who printed that information is a crime. Yes, I also think Robert Novak should be called on the carpet for this. (Actually I just think Novak should be run out of town on a rail because he's a partisan jackass, but that's a different issue)

Time, Inc. needs to think about repairing their image now that they've taken such a drubbing over handing over Cooper's notes without his consent. What they did was the right thing but it didn't play well and they never told their side of the story effectively. They relied too much on legal issues and didn't pull on enough emotional heartstrings to build the rational for their actions.

--Chris

Great minds think alike

2005-07-08T06:28:00.000-07:00

This past Monday's edition of For Immediate Release included a comment by Sebastion Keil. Sebastian is a blogger/PR practitioner who was looking for input on launching a blog for a car rental agency he works for. The idea had been floated in a meeting of the CEO blogging as well as including posts from the cars. More accurately, an in-house writer would make up a story about where one of the agency's cars had been and include pictures. Sebastian knew Shel and Neville had voiced strong opinions on character blogs in the past so was interested in their feedback.

Not only did he get their opinions but also thoughts from others, including yours truly. Here is my response in full which I left in the FIR comments section.

I had some thoughts on the story of the car rental agency that wanted to start a blog not only including CEO content but also stories from the cars. I think think there’s a nugget of a good idea here.

First, though, I completely agree that this should NOT be mixed within the CEO’s content. Two seperate things, two seperate blogs. Instead of being from the car, though, give customers cameras and allow them to start a travel blog. Then the company can take the photos and upload them to a photo gallery. Of course highlight what car was used on the trip and what office(s) the car was rented/returned from.

Doing this gives the customer some sort of control and begins a conversation. The customer then will say to their friends “Check out my blog! It’s at www.(name of the agency).com/myblog.” It seems this doesn’t cross the line into fictional content but instead gives the customers a cool point to start talking about the company.

Now what's interesting about this, and Shel mentions this in today's show, is that three or four other people dropped similar comments as well. They all focused around giving the customers a voice (and a photo gallery) and play up the viral/buzz effect this could have for the company. When you give people a modicum of control or a voice they will tell their friends about it.

Sebastian replied that while this was a great idea but his client was very conservative and would never consider giving customers any outlet to voice their opinions. Shel brings up the inherent possibilites of some customers not having great things to say about their experience and what that would mean in terms of cherry-picking which blogs would actually see the light of day and which would be resigned to the garbage heap.

So I leave it to you as a discussion question: Which is more important to you or your client - Offering customers an open forum for engagement or ensuring the corporate voice is the only voice of communication?

--Chris

RSS issues

2005-07-05T05:45:00.000-07:00

When I logged into my Bloglines RSS subscription folder this morning I saw 996 posts since I checked it last on Friday. There's no way I'm sorting through all those. I'm going to skim some but for all I know I might skip over an announcement that Microsoft challenged Mozilla to a cage match for browser dominance, Google has annexed Austria or that Steve Rubel has been nominated for the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court. If any of those things happened you won't read about them here today.

Part of this has to do, I suspect, with Six Apart's updating of their servers. Apparently this move includes them republishing everything on their servers. While seamless for the services users, it's not for the readers of blogs hosted on SA's system. It means everything is going to be seen in my reader as NEW. Did they know about this?

--Chris

The lesson...

2005-06-30T08:28:00.000-07:00

..as always: I'm an idiot. It was indeed the fact that I needed to install the latest iPod update soft/firmware. After doing that, which took about five minutes, all the music I had previously transferred appeared on my player. I still maintain this should be part of the software bundle and included in any iTunes updates. Just my opinion.

--Chris

I'm doing the iPod dance right now...

2005-06-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

Actually, no I'm not? Want to know why?

First a brief digression: I just got my iPod (60GB) about 2 1/2 weeks ago and absolutely love it. Almost all my free time at home now includes ripping CSs to iTunes for eventual transfer. I bring it to work and listen to it there. I'm listening to albums I own but haven't heard in years because moving CDs from home to work to listen to is just too clunky a process.

Last night the first thing I did when I fired up the computer was download and install iTunes 4.9 since I was excited about the support for podcasts. Immediately after installation I subscribed to For Immediate Release and downloaded the show. After ripping a dozen more CDs I plugged in my iPod as I was about to hit the sack to let it sync with iTunes overnight.

Imagine my frustration when I woke up this morning, came down to grab the iPod and saw ABSOLUTELY NO MUSIC ON THE THING!!!! I plugged it in again and iTunes quickly told me that my iPod was updated and I could unplug it. There should have been 16GB of music and podcasts on there. But there wasn't. Want to know why?

I didn't think that since this was new iTunes software I might have to also download and install a new version of iPod Updater. This didn't occur to me until I was walking to work, but it also does not appear on the Apple website. Shouldn't this be included in the software and not a seperate component that people can overlook and forget? I'm not saying it wasn't dumb of me not to think about this when I was doing it but some sort of note should be on the site at the very least alerting people they should do this immediately after downloading the new iTunes software.

Did this happen to anyone else?

[Cross posted at Movie Marketing Madness.]

Microsoft blah, blah, RSS, blah blah, Longhorn...

2005-06-24T12:52:00.000-07:00

So everyone's atwitter with news Microsoft's IE 7 or Longhorn or whatever this is called will integrate support for RSS. You'll please excuse me if I'm underwhelmed by this. After all it's been at least six months since I started using RSS and I'm not exactly what you'd call an early adopter. Since then I've embraced the delivery format completely and use it for 98% of my web-surfing.

Why is anyone caring what Microsoft does these days to begin with? Here are some of the areas they have lagged in over the last few years:

Search (got smoked by Google and Yahoo)
RSS (got smoked by BlogLines, Newsgator and just about everyone else)
Music (got smoked by Apple, which just has to sting)
Browser (got smoked by Mozilla's Firefox)

So why is everyone still tracking what comes out of Redmond? Because they still dominate the operating system. Windows complete reign of the OS market is unquestioned and, despite some companies moving to Linux and such, is unthreatened for the foreseeable future. If it weren't for that we would have relagated Microsoft to the dustbin along with other companies whose monolithic status has hurt their agility.

Sorry, but I just don't get it. Time to cut the cord, people. Or at least ease up on the rhetoric. That might get Gates and Co.'s attention.

Quick Takes: 6/22/05

2005-06-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Is the press release dead?: No, but it is on life-support. In an age of communication directly with the consumer - be they individuals or companies - feeling the need to go through established media should be lessened. Media are looking for stories that will be of interest to current/new readers/viewers. If you have an effective communications tool that bypasses the gatekeepers (blogs,RSS etc) you don't need to worry about how many times your press release was picked up.
Marketers make a stand for marketing!: How does your company define the differences between advertising, marketing and public relations?
PRSA goes RSS. Improvements needed :): Cool. Now all they need to do is take Constantin's suggestions as well as but general information out there for those not looking for media-centric information.

Quick Takes: 6/21/05

2005-06-21T09:34:00.000-07:00

Companies Need to Have RSS Even Without a Blog Strategy: Makes sense to me. RSS ain't just for blogs. All information on a site can be pushed into a feed.
Is brand that important to invest in?: Of course it is. Your brand is your repuation is your company is your key to success. Without adequately positioning yourself by marketing and reinforcing your brand you're going to be dead in the water. Maybe not now but soon.
Six NFL, Two NHL Teams Offer Private-Label RSS Readers: I've long maintained this is the wave of the future. A way to extend brand loyalty with an easy-to-use application that keeps images/logos/copy points in front of users for an extended period of time.
Ketchum dissected: Ketuchum's really getting beaten about the head for their seeming lack of vision on blogs and personal or consumer-generated media.

Trust is a good thing

2005-06-21T05:20:00.000-07:00

Beyond PR points us to this survey on journalism and trust.

I think it's good that journalists have a healthy distrust of blogs and corporations. We need more of that skepticism to be brought to all aspects of reporting, especially on TV, in order to see the king has no clothes. Reporters and writers should be the first ones to call "bulls***" when it's shown to them. That helps the entire citizenry.

It's also something that PR folks should remember when dealing with the media. Assume that the reporter is going to question everything you tell them. If you're paranoid about giving them a half-truth and them finding out about it later you should be less likely to give them that half-truth. It's all part of building a relationship. Being honest and open about things helps both parties.

--Chris

Quick Takes: 6/17/05

2005-06-17T13:02:00.000-07:00

Instead of doing the Stories of the Day posts I decided to do some actual, you know, writing on this blog. I still want to link to stories I found interesting but don't have a ton to add to. So welcome to Quick Takes.

Word-of-mouth marketing gets people buzzing: Does word-of-mouth affect B2B marketing? Of course it does and will do so more and more as blogs are begun by B2B industry folks. I disagree with the conclusion that WOM is only effective in support of a strong official message. Companies have lived or dies based on word-of-mouth and now that blogs and podcasts broadcast that across the internet the affect will only increase. [Via Brian Carroll]
The End of the World for Fake News: Remember, broadcasters and publishers: If it's not true don't release it. I don't care how slow a news day it's been there's always something better to put out to your consumers than manufactured half-truths and outright lies. News is different than advertising and you're in the news business. Act like it.
Just Follow the Long Tail: Of course using niche media is going to return better results than broad-net messaging.
10 Commandments for The Era of Participatory Public Relations: Just read the whole thing.
Search Engines Lead Top Online Brands: It's not surprising these days that search engines are more recognizable than ever before. They play a bigger part in our lives than just about anything else.

Using blogs for corporate PR

2005-06-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

There is nothing scary about a blog. Blogs are not a super-virus that will destroy everything on the planet. They're not like the engine of a 747 where all anyone lacking years of education and on the job experience can do is stand back and jiggle the wires. Blogs are just another tool.

So why are so many companies afraid of starting blogs viewable by the general public? As a recent Fortune article pointed out, not one of the Fortune 1000 CEOs or chairpeople are blogging right now. Is it that they just don't get it or are they afraid of the legal and business ramifications of what they might say?

So here are some (admittedly off-the-cuff) tips for corporate blogging that anyone can use.

Do not copy and paste press releases. Do you really think people want to read self-congratulatory spin? I don't. If you've got a new product/service then post an item about it in the same way you would in an e-mail to your wife/husband/girlfriend/boyfriend.
Have someone lower down the corporate food-chain also write for that blog or a sister blog. The CEO is rightfully the voice of the company but a worker bee can contribute a valuable and unique perspective, especially if he or she has been in on the development of a specific product.
Building on that point, invite others from within the company to post occasionally. Launching a new web application? Have the IT director write something. Working on a new, more efficient air conditioner? Bring in an engineer who has had their hands in the guts of the machine for a post or two.
Don't say anything on a blog you wouldn't to a reporter. That includes keeping in mind any and all Securities and Exchanges Commission guidelines on financial disclosures and such. There's nothing wrong with a free exchange of information but don't be stupid about it.
Allow comments. Yes, what some people say about you won't be nice. It's been a long time since grade school, though, and we all should have thicker skins than we did then. If someone is openly being insulting, research how to have them banned from commenting. There's nothing wrong with that and is, in general, not seen as overt censorship. It's seen as content management. But be aware of what people are saying about you and use it to make sure your company is treating customers in a way that ensures they'll stick around for a while.
Use trackbacks. A great deal of the conversation you start or engage in on your blog will continue on other blogs. Hopefully those blogs will link back to yours, either to the main blog or to a specific post. Make sure you track that so you're aware of the entire conversation. You know how you feel when you chime in at a meeting with an opinion you think is great but which was discussed by two people who forgot to include you on an email? That's how silly you'll look if you blog about something you don't know the whole story on.
Enable RSS syndication in a variety of easily clickable formats. There are a number of sites I use to visit regularly in the pre-RSS days that, honestly, I only visit about once every two weeks now. Why? They don't have RSS available. 98% of my web-surfing now involves reading my RSS subscriptions. If you don't have RSS you're missing my traffic and who nows how much more.
Track your visitor traffic. It's relatively easy to do and there a number of free services out there that can at least give you some rough numbers. If your IT department is worth it's salt they should be able to give you a better picture of who is visiting your site, how they got there, what pages they visited and how long they stuck around. Use this data to enhance the experience of visitors.
Make a blog part of your regular website. If people don't know about it how exactly are you thinking you'll get visitors?
Direct new customers there. In fact, direct all customers there on a regular basis. Have employees make a link to it part of their company e-mail signature. That way when they're answering a question from a client that client is also seeing the blog address as a way to get additional information.
Get input from people interacting with clients. If the people working the phones are seeing an issue come up time and time again than it's a perfect issue to address on a blog. That way there's one corporate message going out and any confusion can be cleared up.

Any more anyone can think of? I may be back with more later if something occurs to me.

--Chris

Thanks to Blake

2005-06-10T06:45:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to take a moment and give a special shout-out to Blake Barbera, who writes the great Wet Feet PR blog. Without Blake linking to PRR I think even the feeble site traffic we get here would be cut in half. If you're not reading Wet Feet you should.

--Chris

The future of RSS feeds

2005-06-10T06:24:00.000-07:00

WARNING: There's going to be an extraordinary amount of hubris in this post. You've been warned.

I think Steve Rubel is wrong in his prediction regarding RSS feeds. Rubel thinks publishers should hide full-text RSS feeds behind a registration wall for paying subscribers and make partial-text feeds freely available. But I have to ask what the point of that is? If the content of the source site already requires registration to access (like the New York Times, for instance) you are already essentially putting the content behind that wall.

It all comes down to how intrusive you think RSS advertising is. There's also the question (in my non-technical mind) of how to keep those full-text feeds private? What's to stop me from emailing the full-text RSS feed link to someone who wants it? Maybe I'm not seeing something but I think Rubel's tilting at windmills here. As long as publications/bloggers depend on advertising revenue then the issue of full-text w/ ads vs. partial-text w/out ads is moot. The advertising will get before the eyeballs of readers in some way shape or form. It's inevitable.

--Chris

Craigslist founder wants to fund journalism

2005-06-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

What does this revelation that Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, wouldn't mind funding journalism mean? It means, quite frankly that the mainstream media's paranoia about blog writers needs to be kicked up a notch. BAM!

If someone with big enough pockets who is not beholden to the current media oligarchy actually financed investigative journalism it officially begins the deathwatch for big media. Right now media conglomerates can't really push boundries. They need to answer to shareholders, they can't offend advertisers and they can't offend their readers. That means no one takes chances. If someone like Newmark of Mark Cuban were to really empower people the term "citizen media" would cease to be vaporware and really mean something.

[Via Online News Squared]

--Chris

Stories of the Day: 6/9/05

2005-06-09T05:17:00.000-07:00

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report Show #40

The Blog Herald: Bloglines Tracks Half a Billion Blog Articles
"...each day Bloglines adds 2 million to 2.7 million new blog and news feed articles to the database, drawn from a diverse range of sources in many languages."

Corporate Engagement: Over 100 official corporate blogs
"An article from the Canadian Press (CP) reports that there are now over 100 official corporate blogs and this number is growing."

Desirable Roasted Coffee: Warren Bickford Asks for Insight on the Top 5 Communication Trends
"Warren Bickford, bartender at the IABC Café wants to know what 10 communications trends we face."

Media Insider: One Blogger's Thoughts on the Evolution of Press Releases
"When John Cass of Backbone Media visited PR Newswire's Boston bureau recently, he came away with two blog postings."

MediaDailyNews: Invertising: The Future of Advertising When Consumers Control the Media
"Contrary to popular wisdom, consumers do not hate advertising per se."

MicroPersuasion: Blogs Don't Need Opinion (Oops, That is One!)
"Good blogs don't need to have opinions to become well read. They do need links; it's their air supply."

MicroPersuasion: Wired Tries to Adapt to the Blog Age
"All I can say is, thank God Wired has a progressive editor. What about the countless other media brands that face huge challenges and may not even see them clearly."

MicroPersuasion: My Prediction: Publishers Will Launch Premium RSS Feeds
" I think publishers should make the full text of their complete print and online content available as RSS feeds to paying subscribers."

Nevon: The days are numbered for 'gatekeeper' journalism
"I think it's just a matter of time before a truly mega news event makes massive headlines, either in one country or globally, because of a disclosure by a blogger."

Online Journalism Review: When Web print stories disappear, the meaning of 'archives' fades
"When an editor pulls stories due to reader complaints or fears of spreading teen suicides or helping the competition, is the site still the record of the newspaper? Ethicists and editors decry the practice."

Online Public Relations Thoughts: The Limits of Metrics
"How does one measure word of mouth accurately? You don't, at least not yet..."

Pomo Blog: Waiting to be rescued is the wrong place to be
"Diane Mermigas continues to sound the trumpet in such a way that broadcasters need to be paying attention."

PR Opinions: Off (PR) topic: The final word on full or partial RSS feeds...
"OK, enough already with the navel gazing on whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of full or partial RSS feeds."

PR Opinions: How can PR measure up?
"No single topic causes as much fear, panic and argument among the PR profession as measurement."

Stories of the Day: 6/7/05

2005-06-07T05:47:00.000-07:00

Washington Post (via Andrew Lark) : Corporatings Entering World of Blogs
"A growing number of companies are stepping softly into the blogosphere, following a path blazed by Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and others in the technology field."

Beyond PR: Young web users turn up the heat on MSM
"It is an interesting era where the success of self-published news is driven by an increased distrust in established media.."

Blog Herald: Blogs Can Boost Your Career
"Blogs can boost your career by demonstrating your knowledge of a chosen industry, according to a report from AP."

Jeremy Pepper: Building Rock Star PR Teams
"One of the most interesting things that I encounter in public relations is team building. Not the touchy-feely stuff that you go on goofy retreats for, the team camaraderie building stuff, but on how you build a great team."

Corporate Engagement: Employee engagement study
"A new study from Northwestern university has confirmed the links between employee engagement and financial performance."

Corporate Engagement: What's lies ahead for PR?
"Ronald C Hanser, president of Pinnacle Worldwide, reports on a survey of future PR trends conducted amongst principals of Pinnacle public relations firms worldwide."

MediaPost: Experts: Branded Content Must Resonate, Avoid Being Gratuitous
"Branded entertainment is hot, but in order to be successful, programs need to have an emotional resonance with their target audiences and offer non-gratuitous experiences and interactions."

CyberJournalist: Waldman to Publishers: RSS, or Possibly Perish
"Simon Waldman of the Guardian offers a sober overview of RSS and news aggregators..."

Online Public Relations Thoughts: Agnosticism
"What would PR be like if we objectively recommended the medium that best fits any target audience, whether or not we got to do the work?"

Strategic Public Relations: Blog Elevator Speech
"We need to position blogs correctly, now more than ever, as businesses realize their potential."

Stories of the Day: 6/3/05 - Part 2

2005-06-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

PR Machine: Podcast: Blogs and Brands
"Are they a fad, or an important trend? Are they a bane or a boon to marketers?"

Podcasting News: NPR: Papers Turn to Podcasting
"NPR is reporting that newspapers are "desperate to reach a more mobile audience", and that they are turning to podcasting."

PaidContent: Podcast Roundup: Rush Gets Into The Act And More
Title says it all.

Nevon: MSM: 'Bloggers are here to stay'
"In his column, Naughton argues that "Blogging won't wipe out journalism, for the simple reason that journalism requires skills and resources that bloggers will never have."

MediaWeek: Infinity To Podcast 9 News Stations
"Infinity moves even deeper into the fledgling medium by announcing it will offer free daily podcasts from its nine news stations, with flagship WINS (1010 Wins) New York set to lead the way in July."

Stories of the Day: 6/3/05

2005-06-03T05:48:00.000-07:00

Business Week (via my brother-in-law): 2005 Guide to Podcasts
"Right now it's a lot easier to listen than it is to send your own audio programs into cyberspace."

For Immediate Release: Show #38

WebProNews: Blogs Away: Why Blogs Are Important To Market Strategy
"When blue chip behemoths begin to recognize the power of the blog, those who were barely aware of its existence begin to sit up and take notice."

Desirable Roasted Coffee: How to Use Comments to Win Friends and Influence People (in 10 Easy Lessons)
"I find it distressing, but instructive, to realize my blogging peer group -- the people who write about professional communication and technology -- can be divided into two groups."

The Long Tail: Trolling
"Six reasons why I prefer good blogs to most traditional journalism in the niche domains where my interests are greatest:"

Nevon: EPIC update 2015
"Is this a vision of the very near future?"

Nevon: Where to get your podcast listed
"If you're a podcaster, you'll know about some of the places to get your show listed."

Stories of the Day: 6/2/05

2005-06-02T06:09:00.000-07:00

Shel Holtz: How to undermine your own PR efforts
"Recent statements by US President George W. Bush and some of his top staff members makes you wonder if they’re getting or ignoring advice from people who understand the principles of public relations."

Corporate Engagement: Volvo sponsored podcast downloaded 20,000 times in 4 months
"Volvo paid Weblogs Inc. $60,000 to sponsor the Autoblog.com Web log and podcast for six months, BusinessWeek Online reported."

CyberJournalist: What drives users online?
"The Online Publishers Association and the Media Management Center at Northwestern University identified 22 experiences that "describe and define of how people interact with and relate to digital media..."

OJR: Companies subvert search results to squelch criticism
"It's not illegal, but it's SEO gone bad. Companies such as Quixtar are using Google-bombing, link farms and Web spam pages to place positive sites in the top search results -- which pushes the negative ones down."

Lubetkin's Other Blog: Posting only selected comments hurts blogs
"Most commentators in the blogosphere have railed against sanitized blogs as being inauthentic. It's my turn to join that chorus."

Online Public Relations Thoughts: Another Positive Development for PR
"The idea of citizen journalists is a positive for PR practitioners because it will give more entree into the news media."

Wet Feet PR: Pitching a profitable company
"It seemed like a good idea at first, but as we started exploring the consequences I changed my mind."

Stories of the Day: 5/31/05 - Part 2

2005-05-31T09:23:00.000-07:00

Shel Holtz: Hired for blogging
"that a “small but growing” number of businesses are hiring writers specifically to author corporate blogs."

Lost Remote: Do podcasts make sense for TV stations?
"Local TV stations that produce audio podcasts before producing web-exclusive video are missing the boat, in my opinion."

The MediaDrop: Bye bye, bigtime column inches
"The adoption of tabloid format is one that would make most newspaper editors cringe - and not just because of the change in column inches, either."

TVNewser: "Squawk Blog" Connects Viewers & Talent
"All the hosts ave blogged -- and talked it up on the TV show afterwards.."

MicroPersuasion: TV Guide is Podcasting
"TV Guide has launched a weekly podcast on TV shows, movies and celebrities."

ForImmediateRelease: Show #37

Stories of the Day: 5/31/05

2005-05-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

Shel Holtz: Blacklisting blogs
"Spam is a problem, to be sure. It’s one of the reasons RSS is growing some popular."

Shel Holtz: Blogs and insider trading
"Don’t dismiss press releases just yet. Blogs are great, but they can’t do everything."

The Blog Herald: French media companies launch RSS reader
"15 leading French media companies have united to launch a co-branded RSS reader."

The Blog Herald: Bloglines to take on My Yahoo, email next?
"Bloglines is aiming to challenge My Yahoo! 'as the homepage of the 21st century.'"

WebProNews: Arguments For Getting Rid of Blog Comments
"..rather than have the conversation on your own blog - not allowing comments forces people to take it to theirs with links back to you."

CyberJournalist: Online news story life short
"A team of U.S. and Hungarian scientists say the majority of online news stories have a lifetime of just 36 hours."

The Flack: A Tale of Two Cities
"So what is good PR: the ability to command and control the message? Or a fresh openness and honesty that embraces those whose lives your decisions affect?"

The Long Tail: Being a cliché is a *good* thing, right?
"By letting Long Tail producers plug into Long Tail content aggregators, these brokers help populate the tail..."

Always-On (Via MicroPersuasion): Why smart companies don't use corporate weblogs
"Weblog publishing is blind to the values and intentions of those very viewers it serves."

PR. Differently: My Prediction
"The second half of 2007 is when we will witness the death of the first "big" newspaper from the convergence of blogs, podcasts, and the like."

Nevon: Boeing takes second step with 777 blog
"Aircraft maker Boeing launched a new blog ten days ago - Flight Test Journal..."

Online Marketing Blog: Press Release RSS Feeds
"Steve Rubel notes that Google now offers a atom format feed of its press releases."

PaidContent: Google Print Goes Live
"Google had begun working with University of Michigan, Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities, and the New York City Public Library to digitize public-domain books in their collections."

Podcasting News: JupiterResearch Announces Analyst Podcast
"JupiterResearch has announced a new podcasting service called JupiterResearch Conversations."

Podcasting News: Radio Use Plummeting Among Young MP3 Player Owners
"In the critical 12-18 group, though, the time spent with radio dropped precipitously for the length of the study."

PR Opinions: Blogs and press rooms...
"The main reason for moving to a blog was that we didn't already use a content management system and as a result any press releases, events, awards etc. had to be posted manually."

Strategic Public Relations: Hungry for the Web? Dig into RSS.
"Once I can explain this to my four-year-old I will have THE definition."

View From the Isle: Blogging won't wipe out journalism
"...journalists and bloggers can--and should--work together; help each other improve both crafts."

View From the Isle: Blog you must for your business!
"I thought I'd do business blogging by Yoda."

View From the Isle: Why MSN Spaces and Yahoo360! won't dominate the blogosphere
"Many would fear that MSN and Yahoo will swamp the blogosphere and the likes of Six Apart will be forced out or--worse--assimilated."

Stories of the Day: 5/27/05

2005-05-27T06:01:00.000-07:00

WebProNews: Microsoft Blogger Claims Netscape Breaks IE
"The recommended workaround had conspiracy theorists and Microsoft foes buzzing with excitement: uninstall Netscape 8."

WebProNews: O-de-o, oh oh. Odeo To Simplify Podcasting
"While the real future of podcasting is unknown, it is taking off exponentially faster than blogging did in its beginnings."

CyberJournalist: To charge or not to charge
"The Washington Post looks at the ongoing free-vs.-pay debate online."

Poynter: Investigative blogging
"Bloggers often get tarred with the same feathers. They don't report anything new, the criticism goes, they just riff on what other people have done. And while that's true for many blogs, there clearly is plenty of original journalism being done by bloggers as well."

Online Journalism Review: Latimes.com introduces blogs, with more changes on the way
"Sporting an airy new look and free access to previously walled-off CalendarLive, Latimes.com stands poised to offer original and user-generated content.."

View From the Isle: Moving blogs beyond the hype
"But what about the hype-o-meter? Isn't it starting to edge into the yellow, maybe even the red, zone as far as blogs are concerned? Yep, it is."

For Immediate Release: Show #36

Stories of the Day: 5/26/05

2005-05-26T06:31:00.000-07:00

The Blog Herald: 30% of Americans have read a blog: poll"The poll, which sought out the opinions of 2,537 American adults, a half decent sample unlike those from Pew Internet, also found that among those who regularly read blogs, 38 per cent said they visited blogs at least once a week."

CyberJournalist: Students blog after high school shuts paper
"After a Georgia high school eliminated its student newspaper and journalism class because the paper highlighted negative stories, the student staff responded by posting their opinions and copies of the newspaper on a blog, Speaking Underground."

JaffeJuice: Churchnstate ala Frankenstein
"Church and State are no more. Editorial and Sales are truly one and the same, are they not?"

MicroPersuasion: Behind the Blogosphere Numbers
"The fact that the media keep debating these numbers and citing blogs shows they are important."

Stories of the Day: 5/25/05

2005-05-25T06:46:00.000-07:00

Shel Holtz: NPR covers employee blogging
"So far, I haven’t heard much new, but hearing people talk about the issues provides a somewhat different perspective than reading about it."

CyberJournalist: Crosbie: Unmoderated online discussions naturally degrade
"Consultant Vin Crosbie says what happened at VenturaCountyStar.com, which had to disable comments on stories because they became abusive, wasn't surprising..."

LostRemote: NBC to launch podcasts later this month
"Now NBC News announced it will offer hourly podcast updates later this month."

MicroPersuasion: Blogs are Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary
"Consumer generated media will become part of the fabric of the entire media landscape."

Online Journalism Review: Future of magazines: Net could empower readers
"While the "print is dead" meme has been hashed out countless times in the media world since the advent of the Net, few experts would predict that print magazines will become dinosaurs anytime soon."

Online Marketing Blog: Does your business really need a blog?
"The back and forth between blog pundits and critics reminds me of all the noise people used to make in the mid nineties about web sites. There were as many critics on the need for a web site then as there are about blogs now."

New Blogs and Podcasts

2005-05-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

PR. Differently has a new URL. Update bookmarks.
BusinessWeek has launched a new podcast.
The Chicago Tribune has assimilated the ONSQUARED blog.
ABCNews offers podcasts of a bunch of their programming and more.

Stories of the Day: 5/24/05 - Part 2

2005-05-24T08:51:00.000-07:00

Told you.

BusinessWeek: His Mission: Simplify Podcasting
"Enter Evan Williams. He's the pioneer who started the blog-hosting site Blogger that helped to kick-start the Web-logging movement."

Matt McAlister (via MicroPersuasion): What is the future for Web sites in a world of RSS?
"Just as the Web ultimately created more opportunity rather than less, RSS will open up some new doors for the media business."

MicroPersuasion: Pepsi Exec Faces a Challenge from Bloggers
"Kudos to Pepsi for listening and reacting appropriately and quickly."

Stories of the Day: 5/24/05

2005-05-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Slow day today. May be back with a Round Two later if things come up.

WebProNews: White Paper -- The Corporate Blogosphere
"Management communications, business best practices, technology best practices and internal customer support are examples of what internal blogging could be used for."

Corporate Engagement: US PR on the upswing

MediaPost comments on shoddy blog date

2005-05-23T06:46:00.000-07:00

The main problem with this commentary by George Simpson is that it relies on the Pew survey showing blogs had no real influence in the 2004 presidential election. The incredibly low number of blogs used in the survey has already been picked apart. In addition to that, some of the "blogs" used in the survey reportedly weren't blogs, but newspapers and forums.

Simpson needs to be checking a few of the blogs he seems to dismiss off-hand before commenting on such shoddy results. Also, everyone who relies on Pew numbers at this point after their podcast report was torn apart so vehemently needs to recheck their sources. That survey said a third of people who own an MP3 player had listened to podcasts. It was then revealed that when they said "podcast" they also meant streaming audio on the web, which is not the same thing.

Stories of the Day: 5/23/05

2005-05-23T06:28:00.000-07:00

Blog Business World: Whole business marketing: Reinvention of the process
"Little if any consideration is given to the front line people carrying out these wonderful plans."

Newsweek: The Future of Television (by Conan O'Brien)
"Super-TiVos will arrange marriages between like-minded viewers and will persuade mismatched couples to throw in the towel and start seeing other people."

Lost Remote: ABCNews.com to launch a podcast
"The network will be the first major news media organization to offer a podcast."

MicroPersuasion: Google May Turn Home Page Into RSS Reader

MicroPersuasion: Clips vs. Bits
"Young PR jedi knight Blake Barbera is asking what agency clients prefer - a print hit or a blog hit? It's a darn tootin' good question."

Nevon: A business model for podcasting
"And it doesn't really matter if you have 10 listeners or 1,000 - the barriers to entry are so low that it's feasible to do no matter how many or how few listeners you have."

New York Times (via NewMediaMusings): Believe It: The Media's Credibility Headache Gets Worse
"Almost like clockwork, each new month seems to usher in a new controversy over journalistic competence or integrity"

PodcastingNews: BBC Says Podcasting Could be a Revolution
"According to technology analyst Bill Thompson, 'It is easy to claim the revolution is just around the corner, but there might just be something in podcasting.'"

View From the Isle: Interesting take on the value proposition of the professional blogger
"A ProBlogger, though, will make sure that you have new content each and every week."

Stories of the Day: 5/20/05

2005-05-20T06:36:00.000-07:00

Beyond PR: Hill & Knowlton releases blogging guidelines
"In connection with any blogging, please be mindful of the following:"

Blog Business World: Bloggers as event speakers
"Bloggers have a powerful inner knowledge of the workings of blogs. That is only logical. What we bloggers often tend to forget is not everyone knows as much about blogs and blogging as we do."

The Blog Herald: Microsoft experimenting with DIY blogging
"Microsoft has released an updated suite of tools for hosting providers that provides a Microsoft approved blogging platform."

The Blog Herald: Its time to boycott Pew Internet
"What I won’t accept is that any sort of serious findings can be made by only looking at 40 blogs."

RSS Weblog: Steve Ballmer Q&A: RSS not huge, but important Next MS office to have blogging tools
"We believe RSS is important and will be around for a while but it is not going to change the world."

Lost Remote: Google moves to challenge web portals
"Google is launching a new personalization feature called "Fusion" that allows users to customize their Google home page."

View From the Isle: Finally people are getting the power of RSS
"Here's the gist, large companies are finally realizing that RSS isn't blogs and blogs aren't RSS."

Wet Feet PR: Print hit vs. Blog hit
"I have been struggling to find the ‘right’ answer to this question because there are different circumstances for each hit, but I believe a client would prefer a print hit to a blog hit, basically because of the control issues of blog coverage."

Stories of the Day: 5/19/05

2005-05-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so this is turning out to be "Stories of the Every Other Day" but I'm trying.

Anyway,

Shel Holtz: The CEO's job
"Imagine a CEO who rejected the telephone as a means of talking with investors just because it was new and different!"

Shel Holtz: Internal uses of blogs
"As is always the case, this new medium will be additive. The best companies will apply them where they improve communication."

AdFreak: Jeff Zucker vs. a full-page CBS ad
"CBS got some added value with its full-page ad in Monday’s business section of The New York Times—at NBC’s expense."

Adrants: RSS For Mobile Phones Introduced
"Further insuring the cell phone's position is the center of the universe, FreeRange Communications today introduced FreeNews, an RSS news and weblog reader for mobile devices, phones and PDAs."

Andrew Lark: Pitching Bloggers...
"My simple rule is don't waste your time unless it is carefully tailored to what we write about and you genuinely think we might be interested."

The Blog Herald: Bloglines to launch new blog search engine
"...Bloglines will lead users to the relevant blogs, and then help them organize all the feeds pouring onto their desktop and has a go at the existing sites..."

The Blog Herald: Google News takes in more blogs
"...either Google has lost the plot or its playing favourites with blogs and bloggers..."

WebProNews: Blog Coaching - A Holistic Approach
"Blogs are one solution for some businesses - they are definitely suitable for many businesses needs - however I try to encourage potential clients to really identify their current needs and goals before making any sort of recommendation."

WebProNews: The Wiki Backlash
"Any medium-whether it's a traditional channel like print or a new one like blogs and wikis-is a tool, a tactic."

Corporate Engagement: Rosen doesn't understand public relations
"Sure PR suffers from its share of unethical practitioners but so does every occupation, and its stupid to characterise us all on the basis of the crimes of the worst performers."

MarketingVox: WSJ.com to Give Away Content to Bloggers
"The move has generated momentum, and now WSJ will be trying a targeted approach, by offering specific content areas to bloggers who are interested in various categories of content."

Media Insider: Highlights from PR Newswire/Chicago Headline Club Media Education Series
Just read the whole thing.

Media Relations Blog: Subliminal Advertising
"If ever there was an example of subliminal advertising, this is it."

MicroPersuasion: In Bloggers We Trust
"People now put the same degree of trust in me (and other reputable bloggers) that they might normally only reserve for analysts and journalists."

Nevon: RSS as the self-contained information experience
"RSS aggregation means that you capture content from a wide range of different online resources (blogs or traditional websites) into your preferred RSS reader which, in effect, becomes your web browser and your single view on that aggregated information."

NewMediaMusings: Roundup of Syndicate conference
"..there are other interesting things happening here at IDG's Syndicate conference that are worth highlighting.."

NewMediaMusings: Blogosphere blows a gasket over the NY Times
"At Projo, Sheila Lennon has a good roundup of the blogosphere blowing a fuse over the New York Times' decision to put its columnists behind a pay firewall come September."

GapingVoid: Why Corporate Blogging Works
"The other day somebody asked me to explain why corporate blogging works. So I drew the diagram above."

PR Communications: Crisis Communications and Story Package Websites
"To respond quickly to a developing story opportunity or a crisis communication incident, first you have to know the event is happening, second you have to have the resources and plans in place to be able to respond to those incidents."

PR Opinions: 2005 PR Opinions Survey Results Released
"The second annual PR Opinions survey report is now live."

Adam Curry: oracle is podcasting
Title says it all.

Stories Of The Day 5/17/05

2005-05-17T06:39:00.000-07:00

The Blog Herald: Blogs Political Influence Questioned: guess how big the Pew sample was?
"No, not 10,000….1,000 wouldn’t be close either. 100? close but not cigar."

KDPaine: This is not the end, its the beginning
"Measurement is about to get a lot more accurate. And despite On The Media's "End of the world as we know it" advanced blurbs for their show on the topic, I would argue that "It's not the end, its the beginning" to quote a line from Pat Donohue's song."

Media Relations Blog: What Happened to..."The Customer Is Always Right"?
"Many companies use their excellent customer service as a unique selling point. However, I am personally finding that the statement "the customer is always right" is quickly becoming extinct."

MicroPersuasion: Rush Limbaugh to Podcast
"Subscribers to Rush Limbaugh’s “Rush 24/7” service will soon be able to download his daily shows to a portable MP3 player."

Online Marketing Blog: MSN revives RSS aggregator and bookmarking tools
"The urls have been dead for a while but are now back online."

Online Public Relations Thoughts: PR Problem
"Before we get too excited and go on about the wonders of blogs, we should remember that every medium has two sides -- one for good and one for ill. Both develop at roughly the same pace."

PaidContent: Tribune Brings Free Classifieds to 12 Markets
"Tribune last week expanded its Los Angeles-based free classifieds provider Recycler.com into six cities where it owns local TV stations."

MicroPersuasion: Newspapers as Conversation
Click for the whole story.

New Blogs

2005-05-17T06:06:00.000-07:00

Deborah Schultz, Marketing Director at Six Apart
English PR Student Stephen Davies.
Toronto Star reporter Antonia Zerbisias.

By the way, you're welcome Steve.

MarketingSherpa Misses the point on RSS

2005-05-17T05:52:00.000-07:00

First off, let me state I'm a big fan of MarketingSherpa so no offence is intended toward the work they do. That being said, their latest report on RSS is all wrong.

One of the reasons they state for companies not to embrace RSS as a communications tool is it's lack of market penetration. They state 91% of Americans use email vs. 4% (or so) that use RSS. Fair point. Remember 1991? How many people had even heard of email? I myself didn't fully embrace email until about 1997 and then only grudgingly. Seemed clunky, I couldn't make it look like I wanted it to and it was slow. It wasn't until I started working full time and literally had to communicate via email that I finally got into a groove with it. Like every other communications tool in the history of the world there is an adoption curve to RSS that will have one of two possible outcomes: Mass adoption or abandonment in the face of a better alternative.

They say that a number of those people who do have RSS feeds coming into an aggregator don't check their feeds daily, whereas email is checked regularly. Fair point. My rebuttal to this is the same as the above point on market penetration.

I'm not going to rebut the entire report point by point. Suffice it to say that I don't believe it's immensly important to track the number of subscribers to an RSS feed. Where's the value in that? What I do think is important is that trackback technology be available on whatever feed is available. That way when a corporate announcement is published the publisher will be able to see, easily and quickly, where that message has been picked up and commented on. That's the important measurement since that is going to play into brand and reputation management.

Stories of the Day: 5/16/05

2005-05-16T12:20:00.000-07:00

Adam Curry: Forrester report on podcasting
"Forrester Research Defines The Future Of Digital Audio."

Andrew Lark: International Blogging Machines...
"One of the key things I advise companies to consider as they look at blogging is how their company's behavioral norms will manifest themselves in the blogosphere."

Blog Business World: Blogs:Theme relevant content and links
"Blogs are becoming an important component in many business owners’ toolboxes for marketing, public relations, and search engine optimization."

BlogHerald: Winer and Curry fall out
"It appears that Winer has taken deep offence to an interview Curry gave to Wired in which he took much of the credit for the creation of Podcasting."

WebProNews: Getting More From Your RSS Feed
"If you want to read what 20 different bloggers or websites write about, you could go and visit each of those blogs or websites. So that's 20 different places to visit. Or, you could sign up to get each of these RSS feeds and automatically receive what they write, every time they publish something, in your RSS reader."

WebProNews: No RSS Feed? It's a Genetic Marker For "Lame Site"
"So, marketers, if you are being compensated for building lame sites, keep on building sites without RSS feeds."

Corporate Engagement: General Electric uses podcasting for results announcement
"GE is another company to add podcasting to its pr mix."

Crossroad Dispatches: Align This: Reversing the Company-Centric Blog Trend
"Call me jaded, but mostly it's the Internal Conversation trying damn hard to influence (ahem, "align") the External Conversation that I'm witnessing in business blogs."

LostRemote: 'Today Show' launches a blog
"Now MSNBC.com has launched a Today Show blog called "Your Window on Our World" with posts from Matt Lauer and Al Roker."

MicroPersuasion: Circuit City Blogs E3
"Unfortunately, it's not a true blog because it lacks certain structures."

Washington Post (Via MicroPersuasion): Feed Simple
"After discovering that the little orange buttons labeled with the cryptic message "XML" wouldn't provide a one-click solution, I realized I couldn't surf through this without reading the instructions."

Nevon: Play Blogpoly
You just have to check this out.

PaidContent: How Not To Program A Radio Station With Podcasting
"Infinity station KYOU in San Francisco launched its podcast format at 6 a.m. today with 445 shows in the bank and a proces that almost dares people to listen."

MarketingVox: Pew: Blogs Weren't as Influential as Some Supposed
"A new Pew study done together with BuzzMetrics failed to find inordinate agenda influence by bloggers in the 2004 presidential campaign."

Stories of the Day: 5/13/05

2005-05-13T07:48:00.000-07:00

Wired: Put Smut in Its Place
"(Reavill) objects strenuously to having smut flung in our faces when we're not looking for it, not consenting to it or not old enough to understand it."

WebProNews: Let the Blog Bashing Begin
"OK, so all eMarketer really did here is regurgitate a lot of existing numbers that are already out there and confirm that there is a lot of fear in corporate America. Wow, what insight."

WebProNews: Podcasting: Adding the human and informal touch
"So what, exactly, is it, and what's its relevance to organizational communication?"

TheMediaDrop: WSJ adds RSS for free content
"The Wall Street Journal announced today that an RSS feed for 30 days worth of their free content was now available."

AdRants: Durex Condoms Makes Podcast Buy
"The deal with the PodcastAlley number 2 ranked podcast involves "unscripted X-rated banter" as reported by Ad Age."

Center For Media Research: Online Broadcast, Television and Radio Sites, Ads and Technology

Stories of the Day 5/12/05

2005-05-12T07:10:00.000-07:00

WebProNews: GM Blog Continues To Push The Envelope
"Yet another example of how GM is really pushing the envelope with this blog. It confirms my view that GM is indeed the poster child for corporate blogging."

WebProNews: Blog Talk: Conversation Does NOT Need Comments
"My point is that the basis of conversation is linking. Links are the primary tool for us to talk."

WebProNews: Wikipedia Is The Second Most Popular Reference Site
Title says it all.

WebProNews: Corporate Blogs -- Instrument For Conversation Alignment
"If there's anything missing it is the fact that there are other types of corporate blogs that works as well, blogs that not are primarily written to strengthen or "align" conversations."

CyberJournalist: Online newspaper readership rising
"The data, which takes into account both home and work Internet usage, shows a 3.1 percent increase in unique audience in March to Newspaper Web sites, compared with the same period a year ago."

Creating Passionate Users: They Want to Believe
"If users want to believe in something more... something bigger, what are you doing to support that?"

MediaPost: 'NewsHour' Makes News, Licenses TV Clips For Online Video Search
"...a major producer of public TV news programming has agreed to license its clips for use on an emerging online video search platform."

MarketingVox: imc2 Rushes into RSS with Dispatch
"The agency is apparently betting that consumers will broadly adopt RSS as an alternative to email subscriptions, and marketers will therefore use the technology to reach them."

MediaDrop: The Deal's new Tech Confidential
" It's a bi-monthly publication, and will feature tech-specific content, Deal-style."

NewMediaMusings: The ins and outs of podcasting
"There's a brief mention in the article about the $500 in annual licensing fees paid to ASCAP and BMI by podcasters who play music on their shows. "

NewMediaMusings: Bloggers as 'TV ass clowns'
"See Why Blogs Make Bad TV."

PR Opinions: Hell hath no fury like a PR agency scorned....
"My advice to everyone is to think long and hard about what you are trying to achieve with Public Relations."

PR Machine: PR & Mass-Media's Meltdown
"Should PR folks listen to what the Podhoretz says and change the way they are approaching the media?"

LostRemote: Paris disses bloggers, reporters
"I don't like people who sit on computers all day long and write about people they don't know anything about."

LostRemote: 50 years old? You're too old for TV
"For TV marketers, the 18-49 demographic is all that matters."

AdRants: LA Times Website Redesigns, Still No RSS
"Granted, everyone doesn't consume media through an RSS reader but the ones that do are the ones that can dramatically influence traffic, hence, salable page views for the paper."

Center For Media Research: Online Ad Budgets Stolen from Traditional
"According to a new five-year forecast from Forrester Research, online marketing and advertising will represent 8 percent of total advertising spending in 2010, rivaling ad spending on cable/satellite TV and radio."

Jupiter: One Third of Online Young Adults Prefer Internet for News
"Currently, over 26% of online adults prefer the Internet for national and international news, compared to 19% in 2001."

Stories of the Day 5/9/05

2005-05-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

MediaPost: Google Launches Blogs on the Go
"GOOGLE FRIDAY ANNOUNCED A NEW feature that enables people to use their cell phones to blog."

Related: Read the official announcement here.

MediaPost: BusinessWeek To Launch Media Column
"Jon Fine has joined McGraw-Hill's BusinessWeek magazine where he will write a weekly column about media."

New York Times: A Blog Revolution? Get a Grip
"A blog, (Nick Denton) says, is much better at tearing things down - people, careers, brands - than it is at building them up."

WebProNews: 64% of Marketers are Interested in Advertising on Blogs
"Buczaczer expects a handful of blogs will develop an audience large enough to secure more substantial ad dollars this year. A wave of companies will also start blogs to create more immediate links to consumers in the near term, he said. "

CyberJournalist: Spokesman-Review's 'Transparent Newsroom' blog and Webcast
"The point of the blog is to help involve readers in the daily editorial decision making process."

Blogaholics: Blogaholics- Which side of the divide are you on?
"I think a new (digital) divide has opened up, one that is based far more on choice than on circumstance."

New Blogs and Podcasts

2005-05-06T08:03:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek has announced they're going to get into the podcasting game soon.
Likewise, Forbes has launched their first podcast.
PR professional Ken Kerrigan has started blogging his experiences.
Peter Himler (unfortunate last name but, according to his bio, a great person to sit next to on the airplane) now blogs.
Lubetkin & Co managing partner Steve Lubetkin has picked up the blogging bug.
Who is writing the new analyst relations blog ARmegeddon?

Stories of the Day: 5/6/05

2005-05-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

Been a while so this is going to be a long one.

MediaPost: Factiva Adds RSS Feeds
"The service, called "Enterprise RSS," is available through NewsGator's RSS product, and will be made available to Factiva subscribers on May 19."

Forbes: Podcasting: Making Waves
"Just when we grasped what blogging was all about, along came podcasting, which in some ways is even more disruptive and exciting than blogging."

WebProNews: Blogs Now Part of the Marketing Strategy
"And to truly connect to the important influencers you have to open up. For real. "

WebProNews: Blog Talk: News Embargoes Are More Important Than Ever
"...exclusives and embargoes are even more valuable currency nowadays. That's because of the competitive pressures journalists are feeling from the blogopshere."

WebProNews: Content Blogs Versus Syndicate Blogs?
"It is a good question that is well worth thinking through for each of your blogs."

PaidContent: More Reg Woes For NY Post
"The NY Daily News reports that rival NY Post reversed efforts to collect "a mother lode of highly personal information, including name, age, home address, home telephone number and even income""

MarketingVox: Study: Email Should Target Consumer Behavior
"Jupiter's "Promotional Email: Driving Sales Through Behavioral Targeting" suggests that factors such as pages viewed, time spent per page, and shopping cart abandonment be used."

Rocky Mountain News (Via NewMediaMusings): Journalism exists in the message, not the medium
"You'd think journalists would recognize journalism no matter who is doing it and in what media, but that's by no means a universal reaction."

Nevon: Integrating blogs with PR and marketing
"And there you have the key - the blogs form an integral part of an overall communication strategy."

Andrew Lark: What Is The Blogosphere?
"Steve Rubel and I have never met in person but we exchange views via our blogs and trackbacks. "

Online Marketing Blog: Business Blog Marketing
"Not only are small businesses considering blogs in their marketing strategy, but BtoB publishers are pondering it over at American Business Media's Spring Meeting."

BtoB: As digital dollars grow, b-to-b publishers debate impact of blogs
"The "blogosphere" throws all sorts of old patterns into disarray..."

The Blog Herald: Is RSS advertising for you?
"RSS advertising, particularly if done wrong has the ability to stifle RSS use. However, the provision of full RSS feeds does not make economic sense by those seeking to make a living from the creation of content."

AdJab: CastFire launches advertising platform for podcasts
"It was only a matter of time before someone tried to grab hold of the advertising possibilities therein."

NPR: When Those Pesky Blogs Undermine NPR News
"...the blogosphere has proven once again to be an amoral place with few rules. The consequences for misbehavior are still vague. The possibility of civic responsibility remains remote."

Related: Jeff Jarvis says, "NPR screwed up but when that's discovered it's the bloggers who are amoral?"

Stories of the Day: 5/2/05

2005-05-02T07:12:00.000-07:00

Contentious: Journalism’s Blind Spot
"As a journalist with many MSM colleagues and connections, and as a blogger, it seems to me that many MSM professionals have an odd blind spot when it comes to blogs."

PaidContent: NYT: Curry Brings Podcasting To Sirius
"Curry will draw material for "Adam Curry's PodShow" from other podcasters; the show will air on "Talk Central" and will include advertising."

The Media Drop: Chicago Tribune makes entertainment a priority
"The Chicago Tribune is looking to keep its readers "in the know" about lifestyle and entertainment events with new sections appearing Thursday and Friday along with a daily Metromix Planner feature. "

Corporate Engagement: The decline of newspapers
"There is much being written at the moment about the decline of newspaper readership, particularly since the emergence of blogs as a legitimate force in reporting, shaping public opinion and affecting outcomes."

Boston Globe (via LostRemote): Online ads moving beyond pop-ups
"Consumers are spending more time on the Internet -- hours that tend to be stolen from television -- and they're increasingly connected at high speed. "

LostRemote: Drudge: MSNBC to become 'NBC News Channel'
"How important is it for an on-air brand to match its off-air counterpart?"

MicroPersuasion: Disneyland is Podcasting

AFP (via Micropersuasion): Traditional media eagerly eying blogs to boost revenues, profile
"With daily newspaper circulation in decline, the highly critical and at-times irreverent world of the personal online journal with its potential to attract millions of readers is looking more and more attractive."

Online Marketing Blog: Internet news readership grows at expense of TV, print
"There's a huge opportunity within News Search. In my experience most public relations firms are not incorporating Internet News Search into their clients PR and media relations programs."

AdJab: Magazines, newspapers want to stay ad-relevant
"The basic idea behind these efforts is to promote those media as viable opportunities for companies who are beginning to put more and more dollars into online-only ventures."

BtoB: Thinking out loud about blogs
"But will blogs-or Web logs, for the uninitiated-fundamentally, radically change business communications?"

Stories of the Day: 4/29/05

2005-04-29T07:05:00.000-07:00

MediaPost: Internet Ad Spending Soars To $9.6 Billion
"'It's all very good news," said Greg Stuart, president of the Interactive Advertising Bureau. "In the past, growth was led by search and classified," he said."

MediaPost: Yahoo! News Director Foresees Friendly Coexistence With Media Companies
"'...the relationship between publisher, advertiser, and reader will never be the same.'"

AdAge: P&G MARKETS CHILDREN'S DEODORANT WITH BLOGS AND iPODS
"P&G is using Secret Sparkle Body Spray and its range of teeny-bopper-oriented scents to lure entry-level consumers for the segment-leading women’s deodorant."

WebProNews: Will Paris' Podcast Have Character?
"Yet as the podcast's protagonist is a real person, ie, Paris (according to the blurb on the site), it can't be a character. But if the real person is playing the role of the character, maybe it could. "

Related: I listened to it so you don't have to. See my Movie Marketing Madness review here.

OJR: Time for a change: The Associated Press as Napsterized news
"The Associated Press is planting the seeds of its own demise."

PaidContent: Earnings: TheStreet.com Losses Narrow; Plans Opening Up Site
"CEO Thomas Clarke said in conference call that the company's planning to open up more content, to capitalize on advertising upturn."

Corporate Engagement: A word on word of mouth
"It has been estimated that consumers are bombarded by no less than 4,000 separate messages a day, and cutting through this data haze has become marketers’ biggest challenge."

Fast Company (via Nevon): Blog Meets Pod
"Now radio is falling into the crosshairs of a potent nascent technology: "podcasting." "

Business 2.0 (via Micro Persuasion): Can Blogging Ever Become Big Business?
"At the moment, blogging is a small business enterprise, not a speculative venture."

Blog Business World: Business blogs: Business growth made fun and easy
"There are so many benefits to be gained from a business blog, that having one as part of a website, will soon be standard operating procedure."

Blog Herald: MSNBC jumps on the Blogs are bad for kiddies bandwagon
"The luddites behind the blogs are bad campaign starting to emerge in middle America have managed to enlist the services of MSNBC with a new article targeting blogs titled “Kids, blogs and too much information“."

Corante: BrandShift Brand Death
"What happens to a brand when the underlying business model goes away?"

Corante: Many-to-Many Infoworld goes tagalicious
"A high-traffic site that lives and dies by content is trusting the looser bonds of tagging."

PR Meets the WWW: Notes and audio from Les Blogs
"I just uploaded a bunch of links to notes and audio recordings from Les Blogs."

Stories of the Day: 4/28/05

2005-04-28T04:54:00.000-07:00

Cinematical: Weblogs Inc Becomes First Publisher To Run Google AdSense in RSS
"Weblogs, Inc, the network that Cinematical is a part of, has become the first publisher to insert Google AdSense into our RSS feeds."

Related - Dave Winer takes issue with Google's move into the RSS sandbox.

Wired: Ads That Know What You Want
"...advertisers are betting you're far more likely to click on the car dealer's ad than a random banner for a dating site or DVD rentals."

WebProNews: How the Most Highly Visited Blogs Earn Money
"Today I was surfing through the top 30 of these blogs and I started to keep track of how many of them have some sort of income stream.."

CyberJournalist: Number of adults who prefer online news over TV and newspapers grows
"The number of online adults who prefer the Internet as their main source of news has grown over 35% in the last four years."

MediaPost: Madison Ave: Google's Branded Advertising Ambitions Likely To Face Resistance From Top Marketers, Publishers
"While the announcement generated a lot of buzz within the industry... advertising executives and other industry observers weren't nearly as optimistic."

OJR: Search engines, startup media sites dream of becoming video hubs
"Grassroots sites Ourmedia.org and Brightcove and search engines like Singingfish and Google try to bring order to online video chaos -- but big broadcasters are torn between Napsterization and 'The Long Tail.'"

Blog Herald: Frontpage to include blogging tools: insider
"Microsoft is currently developing blogging-related tools to be included in the next version of MS Frontpage.."

Stories of the Day II: 4/27/05

2005-04-27T13:00:00.000-07:00

Wired: Podcasting Killed The Radio Star
"Infinity plans to convert San Francisco's 1550 KYCY, an AM station, to listener-submitted content. The station, previously devoted to a talk-radio format, will be renamed KYOURadio."

Hollywood Reporter: TBS set to play with GameTap subscription package
"Turner's lifeblood is creating branded networks, and we are excited about the opportunity to create an immersive environment for games..."

Media Relations: Managing Client Expectations
"In order to avoid circumstances in which the client demands more than your contract states, be sure to clearly outline roles, strategies, tactics and objectives at the beginning of the relationship before initiating the program."

AdJab: What's next for viral marketing?
"(Has viral marketing) crossed some invisible boundary, lumping it, effectively, with the other forms of advertising and marketing previously established(?)"

Print, Email or Blog

2005-04-27T09:21:00.000-07:00

Not sure if anyone else has noticed this but Sys-Con, publisher of trade pubs like Power Builder Developer's Journal, LinuxWorld Magazine and others, has included a "Blog" link on their stories (click to a story here to see an example). This icon is on the main toolbar at the top of each story next to the now ubiquitous "Print" and "Email" buttons.

Clicking the "Blog" link gives the reader some HTML code they can cut and paste into their own blog that provides the meta-data for that story, including a link to the original, the headline and writer.

It's great to see a publisher not just tacitly but overtly recognize their content is going to get reposted on blogs and give those bloggers such an easy tool.

Stories of the Day: 4/27/05

2005-04-27T07:01:00.000-07:00

Moonwatcher (via Venture Chronicles): Adoption: Tracking and Countering Rumors with RSS
"These days, people just post rumors on their blogs, which are then broadcast to the world via RSS. This is a scary thing for marketers."

Internet Retailer: E-Mail Marketing Survey
"The overwhelming majority online merchants--71% to be exact--attribute less than 10% of their retail web sales to the e-mail marketing they do."

WebProNews: Press Releases: Getting Media Coverage
"By being the subject of a news story, your site and business receive an implicit endorsement, that no amount of money spent on advertising can match. "

WebProNews: Stop Defining Blogs
"I'm getting tired of people insisting that blogs are one thing but definitely cannot be another."

WebProNews: Podcasting, A New Fix For Info Junkies
"It's interesting to experience how podcasting and blogs can work hand-in-hand to both inform and entertain..."

PaidContent: NYPost.com Going Registration
Starting May 3rd.

MediaPost: Google Starts Pilot Program to Serve RSS Ads
"...AdSense publishers could expect to see a wider-reaching public beta within the next few weeks."

NPR (via PR Opinions): Freud's Nephew and the Origins of Public Relations
"He took Freud's complex ideas on people's unconscious, psychological motivations and applied them to the new field of public relations."

PR Opinions: Don't use technology just because it's there...
"The widespread adoption of e-mail caused a lot of people to get lazy."

a shel of my former self: RSS keeps on trucking
"DM News, the online news site for direct marketers, reports that RSS lets companies with smaller advertising and marketing budgets get content to targeted audiences that otherwise would be prohibitively expensive."

Nevon: 'Social' goes hand in hand with 'network'
"It isn't so much the photos themselves that's caught my attention, though. What did that is an amazing number - 1,200. That's how many photos there now are in Flickr that are tagged as 'lesblogs.'"

Stories of the Day: 4/26/05

2005-04-26T07:52:00.000-07:00

WebProNews: PR, Advertising Proves Information Technology's Historical Shortcomings
"If the shoemaker had the option, back in 1855, to start a blog he would have done so. And we would never have invented mass marketing."

WebProNews: Most Abandoned Blogs Probably Freebies
"People who are paying $100+ a year to blog probably have a serious passion. This doesn't make them more truthful or credible. Still, I take these bloggers more seriously because they are putting their money where there mouth is."

PaidContent: FT.com For Sale?
"Vultures are circling as speculation mounts over the future of the prestigious but troubled Financial Times."

MarketingVox: AD:TECH Blog Out of Hibernation
"MarketingVOX and Adrants are again covering AD:TECH with its own blog."

PR Opinions: Defending the PR religion from bozos............
"In a world where consumers are educated on the media, PR starts to get back to what it is actually about: good communication. PR practitioners must begin to realize that the illusion of control is just that, an illusion. The Internet has created an environment where information flows freely."

PR Machine: Darwin Magazine: "Enough With Blogging"
"While BusinessWeek claims blogs will change business. Darwin wants us to stop jabbering about blogs going so far as to say: "Business is like so not interested." "

AdRants: RSS Nascent Medium With Powerful Potential
"The session concentrated of the definition and technologies behind RSS and the ease, according to panelists, with which marketers can very quickly set up and use RSS to distribute opt in information, such as, coupons, specials, special events, news, to customers. "

Micro Persuasion: Getting Started Reading RSS Feeds in Bloglines
"If you're not using an RSS aggregator yet, go read Preetam Rai's tutorial on how to use Bloglines."

For Immediate Release: Podcast #27

Stories of the Day: 4/25/05

2005-04-25T08:38:00.000-07:00

WebProNews: Relationship Marketing: Business Blogs Are The Key
"Relationship marketing is based on the idea that people prefer to do business with people who they know and like. After all, it's easier to buy from a friend, than from someone you've never heard of before. It's a matter of building trust. "

WebProNews: Why Every Company Should Blog
"Blogging is the best connection tool ever invented."

PaidContent: Billboard Adapts to New Era
"The magazine will now incorporate a more glossy, consumer-oriented sensibility, as well as heavier coverage of digital and brand marketing. "

Paul Conley (via PaidContent): 'Stand Alone' Journalism and the New Trade Press
"Traditional B2B publishers need to be aware of the competitive threat posed by their readers. Thousands of people in the B2B audience already have the tools to launch a competitive product -- expertise, sources and publishing software."

Editor & Publisher: The Article Page: The New Kingpen of Online News?
"The home page -- where Web designers and editors have for so long poured so much of their effort -- is no longer the be-all, end-all. You have to pay serious attention to the home page, of course, but equally important these days is the template used for article pages."

MediaPost: Newsweek To Post New Articles Daily
"IN AN EFFORT TO GENERATE more consistent and sustained weekly traffic levels, Newsweek.com today plans to announce editorial and design changes to its site."

Media Relations Blog: The Marriage of PR & Search
"Managed as an integrated package, search enhances PR offerings through tactics such as keyword optimization and a collaboration of print and online marketing. "

NewMediaMusing: Newspaper Bloggers Can Be Trusted
"If you trust your editorial staffers to get it right for your print publication, why can't you trust them to get it right for your website?"

BusinessWeek: Blogs Will Change Your Business
"Ideas circulate as fast as scandal. Potential customers are out there, sniffing around for deals and partners. While you may be putting it off, you can bet that your competitors are exploring ways to harvest new ideas from blogs, sprinkle ads into them, and yes, find out what you and other competitors are up to."

Washington Post (via LostRemote): Do You Have Blackberry Thumb?
"Orthopedists say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with similar symptoms, a condition known as "overuse syndrome" or "BlackBerry thumb."

Online Public Relations Thoughts: Marketers Vs. Practitioners
"The essay examines a difference in view that causes friction between PR practitioners and marketers."

StarTrek.com Podcasts: "In a Mirror, Darkly" Commentary Podcast
"STARTREK.COM makes its first foray into podcasting with our exclusive "In a Mirror, Darkly" audio commentary featuring episode writer Mike Sussman and the site's editorial director Tim Gaskill. "