Drew B's take on tech PR

Today's PR Week New Media conference

Today I've been out speaking at the annual PR Week New Media conference. I've been posting online from the audience about the event too, as some of the other speakers were really good. Most of them in fact. If you want, you can see my posts about the event over at my Twitter stream, here.

I'll be uploading photos and doing a full write-up a little later when I get a moment.

Digital habits

This week's been a little busy, with my colleagues Tom and Dom jet-setting around the world, in different directions respectively, back at base we've been doing blogger events at the Financial Times (who I work with), prepping for a speech at the PR Week conference (tomorrow) and kicking off some really fun and exciting client work of various shapes and sizes. Hopefully more of that to follow shortly when we can speak more about stuff that's in the pipeline.

Also this week through work things I got to meet some people I've followed online for a long time. My twitter subscriptions are expanding to keep up with my RSS feeds (it's a new thing that's started happening - adding people to my Twitter account after you realise in a meeting that you both use it). And Twitter is starting to replace RSS as my on-the-train news grazing habit at the start of the day. Something I find interesting and which I'll post more about next week again.

Robin Hamman leaves BBC for social media firm

Social computing company Headshift has snapped up one of the BBC's most web 2.0 journalists,
Robin Hamman.

A regular on the social media marketing conference circuit, Robin's departure has been covered by Paid Content and Journalism.co.uk.

All the best for your move Robin.

New look PR Week

PR Week magazine got a redesign today. Check out our man Ben Matthews' blog for a scan of the cover and a run down of what's new. It's a subtle tweak rather than a complete overhaul and I think it looks good.

I'd like to know if the section on the technology page where they take gossip from PR bloggers' sites and print it will stay. They very kindly quoted my AP story from last week, which now I look at it in the magazine is cringeworthily colloquial the way I wrote it. There's something about putting a blog in print that doesn't quite work... I'll dust off the Economist style guide next time.

Associated Press vs blogs. Who'll win?

The newswire Associated Press has launched an anti-blogger stance (or anti-social-media maybe) which seems a little bit strange and to be honest a bit thick in this day and age. It's saying you can't quote its stories on your blog. Hey guess what'll happen AP... bloggers won't link to you at all and they'll link elsewhere instead. Winning policy you've dusted off eh! They even serve take-down notices to bloggers who quote content from their site.

Neville Hobson has done some research on the topic and has the following to say. His review is worth reading if you're in PR or marketing:

"In a nutshell, the AP is trying to stop a blogger posting even small snippets of content from AP news items, something that happens day in and day out across the web under fair use and fair dealing practices..."

Phones you need for blogging and videocasting

Mental note, and a tip from the blogger and video journalist Robert Scoble. He carries three phones with him everywhere. Everywhere I look at the moment videocasters are using the N95.

If you want to know what the earliest of early adopters carries around in his pockets, here's his post:

"Everywhere I go I carry three phones now: 1. iPhone. 2. Nokia N95. 3. Nokia N82. I also have a Blackjack II Windows Mobile smartphone that I occassionally carry. I have three separate SIMs, er, three separate phone numbers..."

And some more from Scoble on mobile video. He's just written an article for TechCrunch on which of the different applications are best (from Kyte, Qik and FlixWagon). He says Kyte's the best, even though he's the #1 user of Qik. It's an interesting read.

Cracking information overload the easy way

For anyone who spends more time away from their email than they do on it, and if you're feeling the email overload, have a read of this article in the New York Times on how the big email providers are trying to help. I'm always looking for better ways to process more digital information - be it learning about new technolgy, managing emails, or getting through the 66,210 articles in my RSS feeds I currently need to read.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

A typical information worker who sits at a computer all day turns to his e-mail program more than 50 times and uses instant messaging 77 times, according to one measure by RescueTime, a company that analyzes computer habits. The company, which draws its data from 40,000 people who have tracking software on their computers, found that on average the worker also stops at 40 Web sites over the course of the day.

The fractured attention comes at a cost. In the United States, more than $650 billion a year in productivity is lost because of unnecessary interruptions, predominately mundane matters, according to Basex. The firm says that a big chunk of that cost comes from the time it takes people to recover from an interruption and get back to work.

And a bit more:

Some of the biggest technology firms, including Microsoft, Intel, Google and I.B.M., are banding together to fight information overload. Last week they formed a nonprofit group to study the problem, publicize it and devise ways to help workers — theirs and others — cope with the digital deluge.

Their effort comes as statistical and anecdotal evidence mounts that the same technology tools that have led to improvements in productivity can be counterproductive if overused.

The big chip maker Intel found in an eight-month internal study that some employees who were encouraged to limit digital interruptions said they were more productive and creative as a result.

Intel and other companies are already experimenting with solutions. Small units at some companies are encouraging workers to check e-mail messages less frequently, to send group messages more judiciously and to avoid letting the drumbeat of digital missives constantly shake up and reorder to-do lists.

So the easy way to crack information overload? Google have an app that turns your email off every now and again forcing you to do something else insted. Neat! (I think they'd say).

A Google software engineer last week introduced E-Mail Addict, an experimental feature for the company’s e-mail service that lets people cut themselves off from their in-boxes for 15 minutes. The E-Mail Addict feature in Gmail is more of a blunt instrument. Clicking the “Take a break” link turns the screen gray, and a message reads: “Take a walk, get some real work done, or have a snack. We’ll be back in 15 minutes!”

Conservatives' social media dedication

I have been looking through the Conservatives web presence. Did you know that Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and Bebo are the biggest brands on the Conservative website? Not in a corner or buried in a link. Twitter and Facebook slap bang in there on their main website.

That's a pretty fundamental dedication to social media for any political party. Let alone the Conservatives. You can see it here. "Show your support on these social networks," it says.

Thanks to Dominic Campbell on Twitter for the tip.

UK to ban product placement and contemplates digital media inclusion

The UK is to ban product placement in a blow to the advertising industry, this morning's FT has reported.

In the article, by Ben Fenton, the media correspondent, it says that we could see UK laws policing product placement across digital media too, such as in YouTube videos. But whereas a TV programme has a beginning, middle and and end (and this is how UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham split out the acceptible places to advertise - namely during the breaks) the web is not so easily segmentable. Video, photo, audio and text media blurr. Products and brands are everywhere, and sponsorship is common for the highly trafficked sites. How could you split out advertising vs product placement?

Andy Burnham said he's going to begin a consultation on this topic. The digital PR and advertising industries must get involved.

Here's the background, from the BBC:

"The EU recently ruled that member states could choose to allow product placement in commercial TV programmes and films as a revenue source for product companies.

"Under the rules, the practice would remain banned in children's programmes, news and documentaries.

"Mr Burnham said he would begin a consultation shortly on product placement and was ready to listen to the arguments.

"But here and now I do want to signal that I think there are some lines that we should not cross - one of which is that you can buy the space between the programmes on commercial channels, but not the space within them," he said.

"British programming has an integrity that is revered around the world and I don't think we should put that hard-won reputation up for sale."

the iPhone and a blogger's new tools

This afternoon, or this morning US time, Apple launched some new products at their launch event in San Francisco. One of the products is the iPhone 3G. What a massive buzz it has created online. Not like anything I've ever seen before.

The Twitter search engine Summize.com says over 30 posts are going up on Twitter about the iPhone launch every minute. That's almost 2,000 articles on Twitter in an hour. Google says there were 2,232 blog articles about the launch in the last hour. And there were 1,150 news articles about it according to Google news. This is one big online event and Apple has one huge geek following.

Now I bought the iPod Touch the day it was announced (like iPhone, but just for music, web and video). I pre-ordered it so that I had it before it was available in the shops even. The sheer sexiness of this gadget was too much to resist. So I'm now also seeing what happens to one of these gizmos once you've had it a few months. Here's what happens... It turns itself off. It runs out of power very quickly. It doesnt feel you pressing the buttons on its touch screen, so it just doesn't work. And that's just the iPod Touch. Add phone features and you also get the fact that you can't hear or speak properly (I know people that use it whose first words when they pick up are often "call me on the house phone").

And once, I dropped it. Only the once. But the ground gouged a jagged corner out of what used to be a nice smooth frame. That really annoys me and rips every pocket I put the phone into. I've read it's made out of some kind of substance that can't ever come into contact with anything like the floor or it breaks.

Don't get me wrong, I think the new iPhone looks great. And even though it will go a bit glitchy, it's a nice gadget. But I think that to be an online reporter / blogger / that kind of person, for the online social content creator, you need things it doesn't have. Reuters' mobile journalism toolkit is worth reading up on if you're a mobile reporter of some kind, and if you need things like video.