Drew B's take on tech PR

links for 2007-01-27

• Vecosys - Is Google building the Attention Economy?
  Sam Sethi does a great, thorough overview of the growing attention economy

ROI from blogging

Clients are always wary to commit too much time or budget to unproven marketing and PR strategies, so the more of this we see, the better. Good old Forrester leading the way with social media analysis. General Motors, for example, generated $578,000 in value on an investment of $291,000. From Forrester:

Many large companies stand on the brink of blogging, yet they are unwilling to take the plunge. Others, having dove in early, now face the challenge of managing existing blogs without the ability to show that they effectively support business goals. While blogging's value can't be measured precisely, marketers will find that calculating the ROI is easier than it looks. Following a three-step process, marketers can create a concrete picture of the key benefits, costs, and risks that blogging presents and understand how they are likely to impact business goals. This, in turn, enables marketers to answer the key questions, such as whether to blog or not to blog, or to make smart choices about an existing blog.

links for 2007-01-21

• The benefits of a relaxed blogging policy | Internet Marketing News and Blog | E-consultancy.com
  One of the main fears of corporate blogging is the risk to reputation and the damage that employee bloggers can do to their own company.
• How blogging can galvanize China
  A week ago, Rui Chenggang wrote a post on his blog about an issue that had been bothering him for years: a Starbucks cafe sitting inside China's Forbidden City in Beijing...
• Q&A with Joost: Content Details, Technology Used, Name Explained
  "I'm bringing you new details about the Joost application: screenshots with Linux install and some interesting answers kindly provided to me by Jillian Alexander about the possible selling of Joost and the technology used."

UK PR site to be launched by Sam Sethi - PressMeme

According to a comment on a blog post about social media press releases on Robert Scoble's blog, Sam Sethi, former editor of TechCrunch UK has announced that he has written a new website called Pressmeme.com. Sam says that although the site is not public yet, it will be launched shortly.

The soon to be launched site will use tagging to enable PRs to have releases that they post appear aggregated on the Pressmeme.com site. It will therefore allow companies to post press releases aggregated by category. Readers of Pressmeme.com could then RSS subscribe either to a category, company or country. If all press releases were tagged with the companies mentioned, this new site could become a technorati of the media world. If it takes off it could become massively useful.

New UK PR blogs

Here are a few new PR blogs I'm adding to my RSS reader:

The PR place - "Day to day PR discussion, with a splatter of sarcasm, a whiff of ignorance and a sprinkle of self-promotion." By Richard Millington, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire. A 21 year old PR Account Executive at apt marketing & pr. Richard never wanted to be rich and famous, fortunately he isn't.

The last man in Europe - "I’m Justin Westcott. A London based PR professional with a passion for technology, social media and anything to do with where we’ve been and where we’re going…"

The Jiveman: 20 minutes into the future of Marcomms - "I am a Marcomms vet who is currently a media relations consultant in London. You can call it PR and you would not be far wrong."

On the face - "Stuff about PR and communication that matters to me." Tim Callington is a PR consultant and keen rock climber who lives and works in London. He's not necessarily a good rock climber, or a good PR consultant for that matter, but he enjoys both nonetheless. He currently works for Edelman.

links for 2007-01-20

• David Card - The Role of Blogs in the Media Universe, Part XIII
  "Ah, now it's clear. Instead of lazy mainstream media reporters calling up a "man in the street," (usually a pal), even lazier ones can now source "bloggers" as authorities on everything. That'll sure shake up journalism.&

Jade was briefed by Davina's PR

Did you know Jade was briefed about what to expect tonight on Big Brother? Or that her PR is the same as Davina's Russell Brand's and Dermot O'Leary's? That might explain why blogs are saying that her exit tonight was closely managed... not just to help save her career, but to keep her from harm.

This post titled 'Big Brother is a con' tells us more about how Jade actually shares the same PR rep as all the Big Brother presenters. It makes a strong case for a show desparate to protect one of its contestants:

 

You have to ask a few questions here, the first one being who manages Jade Goody, Russell Brand, Davina McCall and Dermot O’Leary?
That’s right it’s the same person, a John Noel

 

Address: 10a Belmont Street, London, NW1 8HH
Tel: 020 7428 8400
Fax: 020 7428 8401
Email: john@john-noel.demon.co.uk

 

Now John Doesn’t have Russell Brand showing on his website yet but wikipedia links them together.

 

The next question is why do both Dermot O’Leary and Russell Brand shy away from making any judgement calls on the programmes they present, and at times moving discussion away from the outright calls of racism? And why did Craig Phillips shy away from that charge when he was interviewed? That’s right Craig Phillips is managed by John Noel as well.

 

The next question is why Big Brother gave Jade Goody a big hint about what might have been seen as racist language?

 

The next question is when did they give that hint, when did Jade make that apology to Shilpa Shetty, and when did Shilpa make that “statement”  that there has been no racism?

 

Next question, why has Big Brother ditched the idea of having people waiting outside for the person who is being evicted? This has never happened before, even when there have been charges of bullying in the past. Nasty Nick from the first series had to go through it…

First look at Joost (not by me)

Sam Sethi over at Vecosys seems to have gotten his hands on a beta invite of Joost.com, the lucky man, and is trying it out. He says on Twitter that the web TV service hooks up with third party apps like Gmail and integrates with RSS feeds too. Maybe RSS is going to change TV like it did the web? Inevitably.

Web video is too clunky for the living room right now but Joost will change all that. If you had Joost.com rigged up in your living room and you subscribed to a bunch of niche channels on YouTube and the like, straight away you've got the long tail of broadcasting.

Sam says:

Imagine being able to watch TV and chat about the program maybe with the cast of the program or with other viewers in the forum. For a more personal experience you can use the Jabber/GTalk plugin to start a IM or VoIP conversation. I was pleasantly surprised that the IM client was not Skype but was in fact XMPP based.

 

How much begging do I have to do before I get let into the private members' Joost club though? Too much.

links for 2007-01-19

• Some Bling for Your Blog - New York Times
  An article about bloggers' fixation on widgets
• Traditonal PR with a touch of social media
  "Launching a social media marketing campaign in concert with a traditional media campaign, such as press releases, is a great idea."
• NBAs Dallas Mavs Ask Fans to Wiki Every Game
  "The Dallas Mavericks have broken new ground with a wiki that allows fans to catalog every single game.

links for 2007-01-16

• Blogger activist wins one over NHS Trust
  Mick Pilling's electronic broadsides over the future of Bridlington Hospital have proved so successful they now elicit a response from the chief executive of the NHS trust which runs it.
• The Surge of Blogging Iraqi Women | BlogHer
• Bebo London poaches Google EMEA exec
  Social networking site Bebo has appointed Google's ex-managing director of strategic partnerships Joanna Shields to head up its international expansion.
• Desicritics.org: Will PR 2.0 Become A Reality In India In 2007?
  Corporate blogging and PR 2.0 is a much discussed topic elsewhere. However in India, will we get to see PR professionals offering consultancy on such topics to their clients this year - in reality, rather than only a mention on the credentials?