May 25, 2009

Name Squatting

Did someone take your client’s Twitter name? Perhaps these WSJ tips can help straighten things out.

Posted by staff at 02:25 PM
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Cyberlife After Death

By Eden Litt

It’s a morbid topic, but an important one nonetheless. Given the boom in social media in recent years, think about all the accounts you’ve established: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, eBay and so on. What happens to your digital life after you die?

Companies have already started projects to address this quandary, from virtual graveyards and memorial pages to cyber lockers used to store digital assets. CNN investigates several posthumous Web 2.0 services here.

Posted by staff at 02:21 PM
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May 21, 2009

Got Questions?

By Don Martelli

Ever wanted to know the population of Wales, Wisconsin? What plant family a pea is from? How many single-spaced pages 35,000 words in Finnish equate to? How about the heart disease risk of 50-year-old men?

Ask no more, Wolfram|Alpha is here (from the Web site):

Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything. Our goal is to build on the achievements of science and other systematizations of knowledge to provide a single source that can be relied on by everyone for definitive answers to factual queries.

Wolfram|Alpha is a computational knowledge engine (read: not Google) that provides answers with real supporting data and facts. On the surface it sounds like a great concept, but the jury is still out on its use and whether or not it is a true Google (or Wikipedia for that matter) competitor.

One simple thing Wolfram|Alpha can help our teams with is answering those pesky (yet extremely important) metric questions. For example, what is the daily visitor total of Mashable.com? What about the circulation of Readers Digest vs. People Magazine?

Wolfram|Alpha is a good example of technological innovation colliding with discovery. It will be interesting to see how this service evolves and whether it will compete with (or as act as a supplement to) Google and Wikipedia as key information sources.

So, what do you want to know?

Posted by staff at 01:12 PM
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May 14, 2009

Ever Wonder What Your Mom is Doing Online?

By Nicole Burguess

A recent study by the Marketing to Moms Coalition identified the top activities for moms online by surveying 1,033 English-speaking moms.

It’s no surprise that e-mail is a very popular activity for moms online, even topping out TV as the most popular media habit in two of the three age groups. When it comes to spreading the word via e-mail, moms are most likely to share jokes and information about upcoming events. They also frequently share news clips and inspirational phrases. However, they are somewhat less likely to share videos and images. Young moms frequently share blog posts, whereas moms in the 25-44 and 45+ age ranges do not.

Overall, moms spend an average of three hours online each day. Aside from checking/sending e-mail, the other top online activities for moms include:
* Online banking
* Reading news
* Checking weather
* Product research and price comparisons
* Gaming
* Shopping for children and for themselves
* Planning travel
* Researching healthcare information

Sixteen percent of moms surveyed use formal networks for blogging, but mom bloggers skew young overall, with 22 percent of moms aged 18-24 years old blogging.

Click here for the MarketingCharts.com recap of the mom survey, or download the report from Marketing to Moms Coalition.

Posted by staff at 05:19 PM
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May 13, 2009

Traditional Media’s Increasing Presence in the Digital Space

By Nichole Mrasek

There has been a surge in traditional media adapting to social media trends, and Mashable’s Woody Lewis shares his thoughts on the ‘5 Ways Traditional Media is Going Social.’

Topics include:
* Widget TV: Verizon FiOS customers will soon be able to connect set-top boxes to the Web. Verizon is building widgets that integrate Facebook and Twitter. Lewis writes, “These are base cases, where the viewer can send messages from her set-top box to her social network while she watches programs. Verizon will offer the SDK to third-party developers.”

* Pitch the Editor-in-Chief: BusinessWeek’s Editor-In-Chief John Byrne has taken to Twitter. You can submit “What’s Your News Story Idea,” a link on his profile, where pitches are reviewed by Bryne, and at least one pitch is assigned to a BusinessWeek journalist.
* Newspapers on YouTube: With the increasing decline in subscriptions, newspapers are turning to online efforts to help promote stories and features. Newspapers like The New York Times want to feature more special-interest stories.
* Bookstore Trailers: Publishers are featuring trailers for books on YouTube. Check out Random House author Annie Burrows talking about her novel, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
* Literati as Twitterati: Publishing icon Harper Collins is experimenting in the social media landscape with a well-received HarperStudio presence on Twitter.

Read more from the Mashable feature.

Posted by staff at 10:03 AM
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May 07, 2009

$ocial Network$

Has Microsoft uncovered a way to monetize social networks? Just maybe. CNN Money’s got the details here.

Posted by staff at 05:25 PM
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May 04, 2009

Mashable’s Weekly Events

Looking for the latest social media event to attend? Make sure you’re paying attention to Mashable’s “Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide.” Check it out here.

Posted by staff at 05:22 PM
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April 25, 2009

Twitter Traffic Coming from an Older Crowd

ComScore posts recent data from Twitter. The social messaging giant neared 10 million visitors in February, up more than 700 percent compared to a year ago. It’s not the traditional 18-24 year olds leading the charge, either; it’s the 25-54 year old group. You can view full statistics here. BNet also reports Twitter grew by 76.8 percent in March, attracting 14,031,985 people, to break into the Top 100 sites, as calculated by the metrics service.

Posted by staff at 04:03 PM
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April 15, 2009

Twitter Provides Glimpse into “World’s Collective Brain”

By Marian Short

A New York Times feature on Twitter refutes the usual charge leveled against it —inanity – and said that Tweets collectively form “a surprisingly useful tool for solving problems and providing insights into the digital mood.” Companies including Starbucks, Dell and Amazon, are using it to “tap into the world’s collective brain” and alter marketing in real-time.

First conceived as a tool to connect people who already knew each other, Twitter has lent itself to citizen news reportage during natural disasters and doctors consulting with colleagues, in addition to client-public engagement. According to recent Compete.com stats, Twitter has become the third largest online social network, joining Facebook and Myspace.

Paul Saffo, Silicon Valley futurist, described Twitter’s take on social media in this way: “Twitter reverses the notion of the group. Instead of creating the group you want, you send it and the group self-assembles.”

Read the New York Times “Putting Twitter’s World to Use” here.

Posted by staff at 02:36 PM
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April 13, 2009

Your Face is on Candid Camera

By Eden Litt

You’re at an event. Click. Someone snaps a photo of you. You hope that one’s not going to end up on Facebook, but…did it?

Now perhaps you can find out. Face.com has recently launched “Photo Finder” a new application boasting to be “the fastest, most powerful and most accurate facial recognition outside of TV crime dramas.” The application’s features include the ability to auto tag your friends’ faces and search through “face galleries” for your own face and for your friends’ faces.

So far it appears the site has some issues with Facebook’s APIs. If it does become successful, the tool has the power to bring wonders and disasters to the web. Stephen Shankland from CNET was one of the first to review the new app, read more here.

Posted by staff at 10:21 AM
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April 10, 2009

Overwhelmed by Social Media?

Twitter, Tinker, Facebook, Leftos, Blogspot and on and on and on. We’re all learning it in the moment, but some lucky children may be required to develop fluency in social media as part of their formal education.

Posted by staff at 11:16 AM
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March 27, 2009

Babble Establishes Itself as the Magazine and Community for a New Generation of Parents

With celebrity backing from Cheryl Hines and Megan Mullally, Babble has created an online destination to "tell the truth about parenting, to bypass the clichés and dig into the magical and maddening reality. Our commitment to readers is to explore the world of parenting on a daily basis with ruthless honesty, and with the humor and lyricism natural to the subject." View more here.

Posted by staff at 05:22 PM
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March 22, 2009

Social Networking Popularity Grows, Changes Age Assumptions

By Alicia Dorset

MediaPost recently featured an insightful article focusing on the continuous growth of social networking in the social media landscape. According to The Nielsen Company’s “Global Faces and Network Places,” social networking, referred to as member communities, together comprise the fourth most popular online destination, just ahead of e-mail.

The full report cites numerous factoids, but the latest on ages and social networking is particularly interesting: “The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “Member Community” Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group.”

The article then goes on to discuss the growing 35-49 demographic within social networks. When working with projects that have social networking components, it’s important to remember sites like Facebook now host millions of members ABOVE college age. How you reach out to that audience is definitely different that you would the 18-24 age. Take a look at the full article here.

Posted by staff at 04:56 PM
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March 13, 2009

Everyone’s A Twitter

By Nichole Mrasek

We aren’t surprised at the amount of buzz Twitter has been receiving, or the number of brands that continue to have a presence on the microblogging service each week. Trend Central has compiled a cheat sheet for Twitter to help you navigate the Twitter landscape if you are unfamiliar to the service.

* You don’t have a to pick up People mag to get your celebrity fix. Check out Celebrity Twitter Streams, “Of course there is always the chance you're following an imposter, but the blog Valebrity verifies the genuine high-profile users.”

* Get the brand buzz from Twitter Tracker, which “compiles real-time updates from companies using the service, such as Whole Foods, JetBlue, and Starbucks.“

* Prevent ‘epic fails’ by staying up-to-date on the latest lingo for tweets. Read all about Twitter Slang.

Posted by staff at 05:44 PM
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March 11, 2009

Digital Mom: A Growing Segment

By Charlie Kondek

"The Today Show" revisited the topic of digitally connected moms, an oft-covered trend that is by no means fading away. Thanks to technology and the connections made through technology, Digital is more online than ever. "My iPhone is attached to the hip at all times," says Chastity, a mother and community manager for popular mom social network Cafe Mom. "I never leave home without it."

She’s not alone, as the segment points out: an estimated 30 million moms with children under the age of 18 are online. At least half of them are on social networks like Cafe Mom, according to a study by Cafe Mom and Razorfish.

And they’re blogging in ever increasing numbers, according to Heather "Dooce" Armstrong, who says moms like her like to blog "because we’ve sort of lost that village that used to help us raise children, and we’re recreating that village with our readers and our friends and our social networks."

To see the segment in its entirety, click here.

Posted by staff at 04:36 PM
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March 10, 2009

Absnickerlutely Nuts!

By Eden Litt

Snaxi. Snaxophone. Nutilligence. Nutopia. Nougetaboutit…huh?

Snickers is officially speaking in its own language: Snacklish. During these hard economic times, Snickers has launched this lighthearted campaign, which includes outdoor advertisements, commercials, a feature on snickers.com and a Facebook Fan Page. In an effort to humorously dominate cybertext entirely, an online Snacklish translator is also in the works.

Read more about the iconic candy brand’s campaign featured on “The Nougat York Times” here.

Posted by staff at 04:29 PM
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March 05, 2009

MTV Twitter-Style Celebrity Death Match

MTV’s Celebrity Deathmatch has been revived. The animated clay show was comically referenced on a recent Twtpoll . The question up for debate, “Who would you like to see in a good 'ol MTV Twitter-style celebrity death match?”

So, which social media gurus would you want to see duke it out? Vote below .

Posted by staff at 03:56 PM
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March 02, 2009

Congress Caught Tweeting In Front of the Boss

Congressional members were a-tweet last week during President Obama’s national address. Check out some of their tweets, including one from Rep. Jeff Flake, "One tele-prompter appears broken. Still 1.5 hours to go but I bet they are nervous,” and other thoughts from the evening here.

Posted by staff at 02:07 PM
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March 01, 2009

Promotions Influence Online Impulse Buying in Slow Economy

By Ann Stofflet

According to a recent JupiterResearch Consumer study, online consumers have changed their research and shopping habits to weather the difficult economy, and they are frequenting opinion and recommendation sites more often to help save cash. The study reviews how economic conditions affected consumer spending, and tracks changes observed in consumer online purchase behavior.

Due to the slowing economy, 48 percent of online consumers have stated they will reduce their spending on a variety of products in both online and traditional stores. That includes everything from automotive to travel, and from consumer electronics to health care.

This money-saving mindset provides retailers with an interesting opportunity to influence consumer purchase decisions. The number of online shoppers, who have purchased items that were not on their shopping list when offered a promotion has risen since 2004.

It appears that when consumers are in this frugal mindset, the offers become more appealing and they are more easily influenced. The study also shows that online shoppers have become more comfortable shopping online. Here are some of the study results:

* 42 percent who plan to reduce spending researched their purchase on three or more sites
* 33 percent decide in advance on a max price they are willing to pay for an item.
* 31 percent performed advance research and decided on the item they would purchase
* 16 percent knew where they would make their purchase and 13 percent knew when they would make their purchase
* 89 percent use Web sites to find their items
* 86 percent rely on search engines to find their items
* 78 percent use manufacturer sites to find their items
* 77 percent depend on ratings and reviews

Based on these statistics, the majority of consumers are not planning their purchases in advance, so retailers have an increased opportunity to influence purchase decisions. Read more here.

Posted by staff at 12:51 PM
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February 14, 2009

Would Marketers Pay for Twitter?

Twitter has indicated that it might start charging companies that use the micro-blogging site for marketing. How will Twitter define “commercial use” and will businesses be willing to pay? Read the full story from TechCrunch here.

Posted by staff at 01:08 PM
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February 07, 2009

Twitter Bowl

New York Times has a detailed timeline of Tweets during the Super Bowl. The map also outlines the locale and frequency of the catch phrases used in big game messages. View the play-by-play here.

Posted by staff at 09:26 AM
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February 06, 2009

Happy Birthday Facebook!

The social network turned five this month. See just how far Facebook has come here.

Posted by staff at 09:23 AM
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February 01, 2009

White House Online Revamp

By Nichole Mrasek

President Barack Obama ushered in his term with an overhaul to WhiteHouse.gov, the official Web site for the White House and the President. To better engage the masses, the new site was designed to focus on communication, transparency and participation.

WhiteHouse.gov, now offers a greater focus on new media and the ability for users to receive current updates from the administration in Washington, D.C.

The Briefing Room: View the President’s latest events and public statements. Check out photos, video, and blogs, as well as proclamations, executive orders, and press releases.

The Agenda: Find out more about the administration’s positions on everything, from health care and the economy, to alternative energy and foreign policy.

Many are buzzing about the blog, although some seem to be scratching their heads over the lack of an open comment function on the blog, or elsewhere. To post a question or comment, users must enter their submissions via a contact page.

"Citizen participation will be a priority for the administration, and the Internet will play an important role in that," the site says. "One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the president: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the president signs it."

Read more “Obama Debuts News WhiteHouse.gov” site from PC World here.

Posted by staff at 12:12 PM
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January 26, 2009

Uncle Sam Wants YOU to Play Video Games

By Eden Litt

What would it take to get you to join the U.S. Army? Would a sweet video game that lets you fly around in a Black Hawk helicopter shooting at enemies aid in your decision-making process?

The U.S. Army recently unveiled a brand-new facility in the Franklin Mills shopping mall in Philadelphia, PA featuring 60 personal computers and 19 Xboxes loaded with military video games and banging rock music. While the goal of the facility, which opened in August, is to bring about awareness and expel army myths, this digitalized facility has become a means for recruitment and has proven to be enticingly more powerful than the five traditional recruiting centers it replaced.

For more on the Army Experience Center, click here.

Posted by staff at 01:35 AM
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January 24, 2009

Anonymous Product Reviewers Gain Even More Cred

By Ann Stofflet

With online shopping increasingly popular, consumers make it a practice of checking the feedback and opinions of anonymous consumers more than ever. Advertisers realize that there is a trusted bond between members of online social communities, and that retailers are taking action by using consumer reviews in their marketing campaigns, with links to top-ranked products, and even making reviews accessible via cell phone in their stores.

"Online reviews have changed everything. It sounds so perfect. Anyone and everyone can share their experience with a product or service. It is as if all online shoppers have an instant community of friends, recommending the good and warning about the bad,” said Michal Ann Strahilevitz, a marketing professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. “Generally, the greater the number of reviews, the more likely the average is to be accurate. Comments also help. If extensive comments are made, and the writing style varies, that is a good sign."

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos explained to BusinessWeek, "When we first did it, we got letters from publishers saying, ’Maybe you don’t understand your business. You make money when you sell things.’ Our point of view is, no, we make money when we help customers make purchase decisions."
To read more, check out the full article “More online shoppers take the word of anonymous product reviewers” here.

Posted by staff at 11:24 AM
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January 22, 2009

Obama Gets Hacked

By Eden Litt

When creating a password, you may find it rather annoying when you need to have a certain number of characters that include both letters and numbers, and sometimes even symbols. But, you should probably take that time to choose your passwords wisely, or you may become a victim of password theft.

Wired’s Threat Level recently interviewed an 18-year-old who launched a dictionary attack to hack into the account of a Twitter staffer whose password was “Happiness”. Gaining access to this administrative account allowed him to reset the password of ANY Twitter account. He then buoyantly hijacked the official accounts of Barack Obama, Britney Spears, CBS News, Fox News—just to name a few.

It’s a hard lesson to learn, but easy to prevent. When in the blogosphere (or any sphere for that matter), take the time to pick your passwords wisely.

Posted by staff at 01:30 PM
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January 21, 2009

YouTube Gets Political

'

The government finally caved into the demands of the 21st century by officially launching its very own YouTube channels for the House and Senate. Catch the full buzz from Yahoo!.

Posted by staff at 12:37 PM
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January 18, 2009

The Best Job in the World

By Eden Litt

Tourism Queensland just launched its first online media campaign to boost tourism to the Great Barrier Reef, and they are looking for someone to fill the position of “The Best Job in the World”.

Let’s start with the salary: $105,000. The job? Explore the islands, spas and bushwalk of the Great Barrier Reef, feed the fish, clean the pool and collect the mail. Oh, and you have to blog about it from your three-bedroom villa nestled on the beautiful beaches of Hamilton Island.

Want more details? [For work-related purposes obviously …] click here.

Posted by staff at 03:12 PM
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January 13, 2009

NBA All-Star Hopefuls Slam Dunk with Social Media

Mashable’s Adam Ostrow reports on NBA players looking to gain votes from fans for this year’s All-Star game by tapping into various social media sites, including YouTube and Twitter. Phoenix Suns’ Amare Stoudemire is receiving attention for his social media participation and personal Web site, Vote4Amare.com. Players now know where their fans are online and hope that creating sites, Facebook/MySpace pages and badges, it will help drive All-Star votes. Read more “NBA Superstars Turn to Social Media Marketing for All-Star Game Votes” here.

The Detroit Pistons took the social media nod and created “Posting Up,” the official social media network of the NBA team. The site has a wealth of tools for fans to interact with, including photos, games, groups, forums and a blog that features fan postings. Tom Wilson, CEO of the Detroit Pistons, discusses the creation for the site: “We have had great success in getting information to our fans. But the future is a place where fans can have two-way communication – with us as an organization and with each other – and really express their fanaticism about the team and the players.”

Check out “Posting Up” here.

Posted by staff at 04:29 PM
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January 10, 2009

Coming Soon to a Web Site Near You

By Nichole Mrasek

The British secretary of state for culture, media, and sports, Andy Burnham, recently suggested giving sites cinema-style ratings (PG, PG-13, R, etc.) to help prevent children from stumbling upon inappropriate material. In response to Burnham’s comment, the Digital Home’s Don Reisinger blogged about the absurdity of instituting such ratings.

Reisinger says, “But what about the comments? What about some of the hate-filled, vituperation readers place on different stories across the site? Sure, the article itself is fine for children, but calling others names, cursing, or using other generally unaccepted language probably isn’t rated PG, right?”

He goes on to explain that movies are "controlled" content and Web sites are populated with various sources of content. We know there are already programs out there designed to help police the sites children navigate, and introducing a new system seems an unnecessary hassle. Consider the significant amount of time it would require to decide on how a site’s rating is qualified.

Read more from Reisinger’s “Applying movie ratings to Web sites is a dumb idea” here.

Posted by staff at 02:03 AM
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January 07, 2009

War and Public Relations: Israel Defense Forces Conduct News Conference Via Twitter

In what some consider an outrageous communications platform for an exceedingly complicated conflict, the Israel Defense Forces held a Q & A, over Twitter, complete with abbreviations commonly used in text messaging. The New York Times quoted David Saranga, media relations head for the Israeli consulate in New York, who said: "Since the definition of war has changed, the definition of public diplomacy has to change as well.” Check out the story to see selected tweets here.

Posted by staff at 10:35 AM
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December 15, 2008

Study Shows Many Would Rather Forgo Sex than Give Up Internet Access

In their study “Internet Reliance in Today’s Economy,” Harris Interactive and Intel wanted to know just how far consumers would be willing to go to have the Internet. New York Times reports, “According to the study, 46% of women and 30% of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks instead of giving up access to their precious Internet for the same period.”

Read more from the report, here.

Posted by staff at 02:50 AM
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December 06, 2008

Facebook Video Upgrade

The Facebook Blog reports on higher video quality for uploads now available on Facebook . Additionally Facebook states, “You’ll also be able to take videos you’ve added to Facebook and embed them on other websites. If you have a blog, personal or business website, you’ll be able to display any of your Facebook videos on that site as well.” With 100,000 videos added a day, more than 45 million to date, this updated format is sure to please fans and enhance consumer viewing experience.

Posted by staff at 12:58 PM
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December 04, 2008

Millenial Marketing Data

EMarketer reviews the latest statistics released on Millenials, an audience of 18 – 24 year-olds. Accenture recently released data focusing on young adult technology preferences, as well as their feelings on work and school.

“If their employers don’t support their preferred technologies, Millennials will acquire and use them anyway,” said Gary Curtis, managing director of Accenture Technology Consulting.

Not surprising, 51 percent of Millenials responded that mobile phones were their preferred mode of communication, while only 20 percent of baby boomers preferred mobile.

Additional survey results from Pew Internet & American Life Project and Resource Interactive are discussed. Read more here.

Posted by staff at 03:22 AM
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November 30, 2008

Retailers E-mail Coupon Alerts

Be on the lookout this season for direct marketing efforts from major stores. USA Today reports on retailer e-mails sent to consumers: “They’re cheaper and quicker than print inserts or direct mail for reaching millions of shoppers. E-mail messages’ average cost is about $7 per consumer response, vs. $48 per response for traditional direct mail. And retailers can craft and send a promotion in about half the time it would take to print and distribute traditional messages.”

Opt-ins and e-mails that play holiday jingles are some of the ways companies like Home Depot, Gap and Saks Fifth Avenue are looking to boost shopping this holiday. Read the full USA Today feature ‘Retailers use (cheaper) e-mail to send shoppers coupons’ here.

Posted by staff at 01:46 AM
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November 28, 2008

Giving Thanks for the ‘Rickroll’

Millions tuned in to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, but some may have wondered why Rick Astley was performing his old hit “Never Gonna Give You Up” aboard a Cartoon Network float. Those of us in on the Rickroll were genuinely and pleasantly caught off-guard. Read the full story over on CNET.

Posted by staff at 10:25 AM
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November 19, 2008

iPhone, Google Phone and Now ‘Facebook Phone’

UK mobile company 3 is launching a new phone, INQ¹. Pronounced, “ink one,” the phone has combined Facebook, Skype, Windows Live Messenger and Last.fm, all now accessible in the palm of your hand.

According to INQ¹’s Web site, “You can have Facebook on your mobile like never before. You get Facebook alerts direct to your mobile. Status updates straight to your contacts and loads more.”
The ‘more’ includes free IM, RSS feeds and Skype-to-Skype calls. Check out the buzz surrounding the phone and plans for INQ² here.

Posted by staff at 10:04 AM
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November 18, 2008

Tell Obama What You Want from Our Chief Technology Officer

Visit ObamaCTO and vote for what you feel should be the newly appointed position’s top priorities, or suggest a topic of your own. Topics range from ‘ensure the Internet is widely accessible & network neutral’ to ‘allow the public to comment on all legislation.’

Posted by staff at 12:29 PM
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November 16, 2008

MySpace Undergoes Redesign

Ready to bring in a new year and a new look, MySpace is boasting the biggest upgrade in its 5-year history. Hoping to appeal to more than the teen crowd, MySpace executives are looking to make the social network more “suitable” for families, employees and other target audiences. The company is even looking to reach 50 and 60-year-old crowds.

USA Today reports, “The ongoing changes can’t help but expand MySpace’s appeal to an older crowd and, by extension, more advertisers in the fiercely competitive multibillion-dollar online-ad market. A cleaner interface and functions underscore the maturing of the site to further appeal to an older demographic.”

Look for increased promotion around the new changes early next year. Read more on MySpace changes here.

Posted by staff at 10:24 AM
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November 13, 2008

Barack Obama’s Win with Online Campaigning

Political campaigns, such as Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential run and Ron Paul’s stint this year, have certainly used the Internet as a communications medium, however Barack Obama’s campaign capitalized on a variety of online facets, taking his online campaign to the next level. “By bolting together social-networking applications under the banner of a movement, they created an unforeseen force to raise money, organize locally, fight smear campaigns and get out the vote that helped them topple the Clinton machine and then the Republicans,” says David Carr of the International Herald Tribune.

Analysts attribute social media to the transformation of a once unknown political player into the President-elect. Online conversations with potential supporters and voters carried through to offline activities. For many who once signed up for Obama e-mail alerts, even if was simply because they had never heard of them before, are now in a database that will foster a continued relationship with Obama.

The multilogue is in action, "People will continue to expect a conversation, a two-way relationship that is a give and take," said Thomas Gensemer, managing partner of Blue State Digital, the company that aided in Obama's digital outreach. "People who were part of the campaign will opt-in to political or governing tracks and those relationships will continue in some form."

Read the full feature “Electoral triumph built on a Web revolution” here.

Posted by staff at 12:40 PM
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October 23, 2008

Twitter, A Cheaper Way to Connect with Enthusiasts

By Nichole Mrasek

If Britney Spears can try to transform her image using social media, there’s hope for clients, too. CNET’s Caroline McCarthy reports that BritneySpears.com debuted Ms. Spears on a social level. “You can "Friend Britney" on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Britney’s own "VIP" social network, and Twitter,” McCarthy said.. “For obvious reasons, it’s not actually Spears doing the Twittering. But you can still get updates like: ‘OMG!! 7 hours until Womanizer premieres!’”

Twitter’s effect on news goes beyond pop-culture and gossip sites. Technology, politics and mainstream news sectors are all using Twitter to deliver breaking updates and insider news to their followers. McCarthy makes the excellent point that, ”PR teams behind many celebrities, particularly bands and singers, have built ways for fans to subscribe to text-message updates and announcements for quite some time now. A Twitter account is a cheaper and easier way of doing pretty much the same thing.”

The article suggests that, as Twitter becomes more mainstream, we should continue to encourage our clients to understand and utilize it as a valuable social media tool. Read the full CNET feature here.

Posted by staff at 06:06 AM
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October 21, 2008

Personal Information Sharing in Web 3.0

Internet users are currently sharing their information with various social media, banking, shopping sites, as well as hundreds of others across the Web. According to the Web 3.0 Conference and Expo held last week, educating consumers about what and who controls their private information will be essential to expanding future Web 3.0 opportunities.

Read Write Web editor Lidija Davis says, “The basic requirements would be a clear, robust and simple-as-possible model that is based on consensus rights and responsibilities, making everything predictable for all parties, and gives shared control to the originating parties.”

Developing more effective targeted ads will help Web 3.0 connect with users on a repeated basis. The article also discusses how vendors will handle data portability and the monetization of consumer information in the Web 3.0 environment.

View the full article and learn more about the advantages and risks associated with Web 3.0 here.

Posted by staff at 02:31 AM
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October 19, 2008

How Companies Like Twitter Make Money

Twitter’s boom in popularity and the speculation that it could someday be worth more than $1 billion has industry experts anxious for the company to finally unveil its business model. Silicon Alley Insider reports we’ll have to wait until early next year to see what Twitter has planned for their financial future.

Posted by staff at 11:52 AM
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October 13, 2008

Google Gives Voice to YouTube

Google continues to launch new features, one of latest being the audio preview capability on YouTube comments. A text-to-speech button provides users with the ability to hear their posted video comments before they are published. This audio tool was created to help improve the quality of comments featured on YouTube. Read more here.

Posted by staff at 10:17 AM
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October 07, 2008

Google, The New Phone

Google is finally ready to compete with BlackBerry and iPhone heavyweights by introducing the new Google Phone. The much anticipated T-Mobile G1 finally makes its debut in the United States on October 22. CNN reports, “Android, the free software powering the G1, is a crucial building block in Google’s efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers. The company believes it eventually might make more money selling ads that get shown on mobile devices than on PCs, a channel that will generate about $20 billion in revenue this year.”

Posted by staff at 02:05 AM
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October 05, 2008

MySpace Working Toward A Cure

As October begins, so does Breast Cancer Awareness Month. MySpace is helping the cause with a special Pink Together profile, showcasing survivor stories, ways to get involved and even a Pink Together store, with 100 percent of the profits going to the Susan G. Komen For The Cure organization.

Posted by staff at 09:32 AM
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October 01, 2008

General Mills Partnering with Univision

By Nichole Mrasek

General Mills recently announced a one-year partnership with the Univision Network to complement the third year of their "Qué Rica Vida" ("What a Good Life") campaign. Univision, the nation’s largest Spanish language television network, will feature 30-second “Que Rica Vida” vignettes, hosted by popular Univision’s Wake Up America host Karla Martinez.

Martinez will showcase cooking and lifestyle tips through the spots, which are hosted by Qué Rica Vida. General Mills has also populated the site with blogs and podcasts.

The site and campaign are another extension of General Mills’ efforts to target a growing, important demographic. Kimberley Bow Sundy, manager of PR and multicultural marketing for General Mills, said, “Some of our brands are not available in many countries of origin. When Latina consumers come to the US, they are not familiar with our product, so we needed to make [our products] emotionally relevant."

View the full PR Week profile story here.

Posted by staff at 09:17 AM
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September 30, 2008

MySpace Music Offers Possibilities for Marketers

By Alicia Dorset

EMarketer has an informative Q&A on the recent MySpace Music deal with leading music labels last week. The deal will allow MySpace users to listen to entire songs for free on the site. Take a look at the eMarketer review and see how some of the already-secured promotions work.

Posted by staff at 10:57 AM
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September 27, 2008

Study Shows Companies Should Have Social Media Capabilities

According the 2008 Cone Business in Social Media Study, “Almost 60 percent of Americans interact with companies on a social media Web site, and one in four interact more than once per week.” Industries are learning the value of incorporating social media into business plans and the Cone research results justify the need to stay ahead of social trends.

Forty-three percent of those surveyed stated that companies should rely on social networks to solve consumers’ problems. Views on social media are changing and no longer is the medium looked at for only marketing to young adults. Consumers are growing their brand connections online and are more open to receiving information via social media platforms.

Read additional information on the study findings here.

Posted by staff at 05:10 PM
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September 09, 2008

Mobile social networking getting ready for growth spurt

Last week, eMarketer reported findings from ABI Research on the proposed 140 million mobile subscribers who will be using social networks on their smartphones by 2013. eMarketer also predicts, “More than 800 million registered site members will use their mobile phones to access social networks by 2012.”

While growth will be steady for the next three years, according to the study, it’s expected to jump dramatically after that time period. Take a look at the eMarketer article for the full report.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:58 PM
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August 06, 2008

High-end bling on MySpace

By Ann Stofflet

How does a company market high-priced luxury items to consumers who make their money by baby-sitting and mowing lawns? Cartier is one of the first luxury brands to hang its shingle on MySpace.

Many expensive brands have been slow to move to the Internet generally, let alone social networks. Most luxury brands, worried about the company they keep, have been reluctant to become involved with social networking. Cartier took the risk, because it was a “different way to talk to a young audience.”

Make sure to read the New York Times feature on Cartier’s MySpace connection.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:49 PM
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July 22, 2008

E-Mail, the new snail mail?

By Daniel DeMoss

I came across an article by Rachel Leibrock in the Post-Bulletin talking about how younger generations seem to now view e-mail as a formal medium of communication. Recent studies have predicted a decline, or possible demise, of e-mail. According to a 2007 study by Pew Internet & American Life Project, 92 percent of adults regularly use e-mail versus 6 percent of teens. However, 36 percent of teens use text messaging.

I‘m intrigued that Leibrock doesn'‘t seem to think that e-mail will ever go away. Instead, she seems to think that it will be used for more formal communications, such as invitations, messages to old friends, etc. — services that were once sent by post.

Current and forthcoming generations are definitely not as dependent on e-mail on as their older counterparts. Many of my college friends don’t read their e-mail for a couple of days. When I ask them why they haven’t responded, they tell me to text message them in the future.

With a vast rise in the popularity of text messaging, micro-blogging, social network messaging and other short message systems, it seems possible that e-mail may have already seen its heyday. Check out the article and see what you think.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:29 PM
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July 14, 2008

Viral videos, something you want to catch

By Nichole Mrasek

To have a client’s video go viral, are you working hard or hardly working? Gatorade’s latest video gone viral has founder of BuzzFeed.com Jonah Peretti talking with NPR about how videos can turn into Internet phenoms, “Behind the Viral Video: What’s Fake, What’s Real.”

Right from the start, Peretti isn’t afraid to tell a company with megabucks to spend that they can’t just make a video viral. Additionally, companies that pay for the video’s promotion via advertising shouldn’t call it viral. Peretti feels, “It’s about creating a meaningful piece of content that snowballs conversations online.”

With all the advances in technology, today’s consumers are wiser and are searching for something that is authentic versus a hoax or an advertisement. Peretti’s conversation with NPR is definitely worth the listen and is a great educational piece on how to better service our clients.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 12:16 PM
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July 01, 2008

Hockey fans turn to Twitter

By Mark Harvey

If you think it's only the early adopters and techies who are in on this "Twitter thing," you're incorrect. Sports fans have found out this Twitter thing, too.

July 1 is Christmas morning for hockey fans. It's the day free agents can be signed; new, freshly signed players who are now competing for your fair city, unwrapped and ready to go. But if you're a serious hockey fan, are you simply going to sit around and wait for the 11:00 p.m. news to find out who your team has signed or is in talks with? Heavens no.

Instead, turn to the many hockey bloggers and news sites with Twitter feeds. The most famous hockey blogger, and hockey fan, Eklund is going to be sending out Tweets all day long on rumors and signings to his thousands of subscribers. Hockey fans can also keep up to date with the CBC Twitter feed. And since our office is located in the greater Detroit area, Stanley Cup Champions Red Wing fans are informed via their own Twitter-meister.

Does having sports fans using Twitter for player signing news mean Twitter has become mainstream? You think on that for two minutes while you head to the penalty box for a Twitter misconduct.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:05 AM
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February 26, 2008

Brides decide for 2008

By Alicia Dorset

Thanks to my co-worker Nichole Woodcock, I've been fascinated with Brides Decide this morning, a site brought to us by super-big wedding giants the knot, the nest and Wedding Channel.com. And if you're wondering what this site's all about, the title sums it up:

When it comes to electing the 44th president, it's savvy women like us who are going to make history. That's why we created BridesDecide.com, a front-row ticket to the 2008 presidential election. Get informed, take our survey, and check out the candidates' real wedding photos (we couldn't resist!).

Thanks to the site, I now know that Ron Paul was married at age 21 back in 1957 and still wears the same tux size he did back in the late '50s. Would this help me make a decision on who to vote for this fall? Probably not. But for some of my friends whose poor brains are mushed with everything wedding right now... I bet it might.

What is useful for the site are the quick links up top on key issues, such as abortion, education, the war in Iraq and more. Clicking on a topic gives you a quick rundown of who's for it and who's against it. There are also links on where to register to vote and forums on the various wedding web sites that are currently talking politics.

While you might initially laugh at the thought of someone spending time looking through Hilary Clinton's wedding photos, Brides Decide is on to something- they realized their target audience has one BIG non-election topic on their minds this year, and if they want those brides to get out and vote, they need to reach them the best way they can.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:10 AM
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February 25, 2008

Techy notes from the Academy Awards

By Alicia Dorset

I couldn't help but notice last night the amount of "techy goodness" sprinkled in during the 80th Academy Awards ceremony. Here's what I caught:

• After a retrospective on some of cinema's greatest hits during the past 80 years, host Jon Stewart is seen watching Lawrence of Arabia on his iPhone. He remarks that this is how movies were always meant to be watched, then flips the iPhone horizontally and says, "Oh, that's better. Widescreen!"
• Coming back from a break, Stewart and 11-year-old Jamia Simone Nash (who performed earlier in the night for Best Original Song, Raise it Up, from August Rush), are found playing Wii tennis on the main stage's projection screen.
• Making a reference to Nicole Kidman's upcoming movie roles, Stewart uses the Internet Movie Database as his source for her "upcoming unnamed project."
• And of course, let's not forget about blogger-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody taking home the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Juno.

I'm not the only one noticed some prime tech product placement. Check out ZDNet and Engadget for Oscar tech coverage, too.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:53 AM
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February 20, 2008

Review: OurChart

By Kim Huston

The Writers Guild of America strike and Michigan’s lovely winter weather had me craving television that wasn’t of the reality variety. I consulted my trusty friend Netflix, and that’s how I started watching The L Word.

One of the characters, Alice, is mildly obsessed with the connectivity of the lesbian community (think Six Degrees of Separation). She keeps a chart of the various known hook-ups of her friends and the Los Angeles lesbian community. In the second season, Alice pitches a radio show based on the idea. In the fourth season “The Chart.” as it's called. becomes a social networking site that allows women to list people they’ve dated, creating “Constellations” and “Solar Systems” of connectivity. A funny plot point includes a woman named Papi uploading her hookup list, which was so long that it crashes the server of the site.

As it turns out, the creators of the show capitalized on the fictional social networking site to create the very real OurChart. Here’s what the creators have to say about the site:

Pretty much every group of friends has its own ‘chart,’ right? Whether it's written down or not, we all know who's slept with whom, who's part of whose serial monogamy, and who's part of everyone else's serial non-monogamy. It's part of the glue that holds all forms of social networks together.

We were first introduced to Alice's chart of hookups in season one, episode one of The L Word. Since then, it's been the connecting thread throughout all of the relationships on the show. Whether or not the characters have slept together, they're all together on Alice's wall. The underlying friendships in the group are the real foundation of all these connections, and that's where OurChart comes in. Until now, there's never been a central meeting place just for us — lesbians, dykes, queer girls, gay women, high femmes, butches, drag kings, bois, transwomen and transmen — however we define ourselves. On OurChart, you can connect yourself via friendships and relationships to the wide world encompassing all these people and more.

You can invite your friends, make new ones, and share your favorite stuff, your innermost thoughts, and your most superficial leanings. That's pretty standard. But on OurChart, your network of connections will also form a visual ‘chart’ a lot like Alice's — only this one is dynamic and interactive. And it's yours.

The site includes blogs, content about The L Word, and allows you to watch episodes from the current season. When you sign up, you have the ability to upload photos, manage your own blog, and allows you to manage friends and “friends plus,” which can include ex-significant others and anybody you may have gotten romantic with. And it’s not just for women; there are men on the site, too. The most interesting part of the site is that you can launch your own chart where you can see how you’re connected to everyone on the chart.

The L Word creators built a truly fun, interactive social networking site that not only promotes their program, but gives groups that might feel left out by traditional social networking a chance to share their voice and meet new friends.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:21 PM
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February 19, 2008

Twitter talks a "big game"

By Nichole Woodcock

Each year, millions of dollars are thrown into advertising for the “big game,” otherwise known as the Super Bowl, and the day after everyone seems to have an opinion about their favorites. With a little help from social networking, this year people were talking in real time.

“TwitterBowl” was introduced to the masses this year as a “real-time social experiment” in which viewers at home get to chime in on ads. The tweeting was in hopes to spark interesting conversation and see how popular the online network has become.

The little trial was dubbed a success with more than 2,500 people participating, about 625 messages an hour. I’m sure their comments are a marketer’s dream, no matter how good or bad. Take a look at what people were saying about Dell.

No word if Twitter will be making this an annual event, but it really sparks intrigue into how social networks are adapting to become part of mainstream events. Tweaking this concept for the upcoming elections would make for some interesting fodder.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:07 AM
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January 28, 2008

boingboing sorts out Ford Mustang Club social media confusion

By Charlie Kondek

boingboing's Cory Doctorow has an insightful take on a recent kerfuffle between a Ford Mustang fan club, Ford Motor Company, and Cafe Press. In a nutshell: CafePress told the car club they could not use images of Mustangs in their fan materials. But then Ford let CafePress and the fan club know that this was, in fact, allowable, and a misunderstanding involving the legal wing of Ford. Doctorow's conclusion:

There's a couple of interesting lessons for Ford and CafePress to take away from this. For Ford (and companies like it), the lesson is surely to tighten the reins on your legal department. When they send stern letters to online service providers that threaten legal action, the natural outcome is that OSPs are going to get gun-shy — and they'll tell your fans that they can't do anything and blame it all on you. The usual overkill approach from corporate counsel will come back and bite you on the ass.

For CafePress, the lesson is to take your customers' side when the law is with them. Even if Ford did tell CafePress to kill the BMC calendar, they'd have been wrong. The BMC calendar is legal — even without Ford's blessing — and when you protect yourself from legal liability by shutting it down, you incur PR liability by seeming like a bunch of candy-asses who can be bullied into submission by a memo from some white-shoe legal goon from a Fortune 100. Word gets around.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:00 AM
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January 25, 2008

Judging a MySpace page by its cover

By Nichole Woodcock

It seems like every client is working to create the next great application on Facebook or a page on MySpace. Let’s all welcome Harper Collins to the game. Recently, the publishing company launched their very own page on MySpace, MySpace/HarperTeen, in hopes to tap into the elusive teen demographic.

With blogs and chats by authors, book release information, videos, contests and polls, MySpace/HarperTeen is hoping to encourage young bookworms to interact and invite other teens to the site.

The MySpace/HarperTeen page is filled with featured authors and books, illustrated on a bulletin board filled with various sticky notes and news. I was personally a fan of the forums they host on the site. Teens have a chance to share their writings amongst their peers, and hopefully have Harper Collins add their reviews of the works.

To keep the fan base in the know, MySpace/HarperTeen distributes various updates for book recommendations and the latest releases, encouraging members to discuss books on message boards.

The latest push on MySpace/HarperTeen was to promote “Create and Share,” a creative writing contest where teens submitted original works of poems, songs and short stories. A panel of HarperTeen judges selected the finalists for the $5,000-grand-cash-prize. From there, the MySpace/HarperTeen community voted contestants on. However, the promotion didn’t receive a lot of mainstream coverage and the number of entries is unclear.

Regardless, Harper Collins is making an effort in the educational direction. But, after spending time on the site, I found that underneath the message of supporting teens to read and write, the corporate shadow looms, pointing teens to read books they publish. It’s probably only a matter of time before competing publishers jump on board these types of social networking initiatives, too.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:44 AM
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January 24, 2008

Mark your calendars and delete your MySpace?

By Alicia Dorset

You’ve got just one week to say goodbye to all 800 of your MySpace friends if you’re planning on participating in International Delete Your MySpace Account Day on Jan. 30.

Constant band friend requests, spam comments and inappropriate inbox messages have driven blogger Simon Owens to present the reasons why he hates the still-No.1 social networking site. Check out his post for all 10, but my favorite has to be No. 3:

“You’re a girl who constantly gets marriage proposals from random men in the middle east.”

I’ve definitely had my fair share of date offers, but I don’t think I’d delete four years of my social networking life because of it. I agree with Mark Hopkins on his take on the idea:

“Personally, even though I experience most of the same things that Simon says he goes through with MySpace, many of the folks in my less tech savvy circles of friends use MySpace exclusively. For me to nuke that account would be the same as deleting my contact database. I don’t know that I could personally join Simon in his campaign to end his MySpace involvement, but I can definitely see the motivation.”

Owens disgust with MySpace reflects a growing trend from many users on the site. People are tired of the spam, obnoxious layouts and numerous 18-year-old girls named “Theresa” asking to be their friends. But while Owens’ wish to delete his account is representative of many MySpacers’ feelings, it’s in no way the majority.

Yesterday’s post from eMarketer reports that MySpace is still the No. 1 social networking site, taking 72% of all social networking visits in 2007, according to Hitwise. And while Facebook continues to constantly gain traffic and members, the site received only 16% of all social networking visits last year.

So if you plan on deleting your MySpace account next week, or in the big picture, advising your clients not to get involved with the site, remember this- for every hot(t) spring break ’05 picture “Theresa” wants you to look at, there are two people out there who genuinely want to be your friend or hear your message.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:39 PM
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January 22, 2008

Go red with this community

Campbell's has teamed up with the American Heart Association to help spread the word about Go Red for Women, an annual campaign aimed at promoting heart disease awareness for women.

The Red Dress Community allows users to create their own red dress, complete with accessories, and share the things they love most in life while providing a statement on why they love their own heart and how they keep it healthy. I made my own dress, seen above.

I really enjoy the site and the ability to make a dress, but I think Campbell's missed the boat on the full social networking benefits this idea could have provided. With more than 1,110 dresses to look at , the search function is a little clunky, and there are no options to embed the dress you make on your own blog, Flickr account, Facebook profile, etc. We all saw the viral benefits of the Simpsons avatars from last summer, and with a little more thought, Campbell's could have had a winner just like that, too.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:32 PM
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January 18, 2008

Scrabble, You're Making A Mistake

By Charlie Kondek

A year and a half ago, two entrepreneurs from India made an online version of Scrabble called Scrabulous. It's become a wildly popular Facebook application, and toymakers Hasbro and Mattel, who own the game, are now demanding that the game be removed from the internet. In my opinion that's a mistake, particularly on Facebook, where Scrabulous lives and breathes to the tune of half a million users per day.

I learned about Scrabulous recently from a client who plays five games at a time with friends on Facebook. I became eager to join in but soon learned the Scrabulous application was the subject of a cease and desist action. I also learned soon after of the Facebook-based effort to Save Scrabulous, currently at 30,000 members and climbing. There's also a fan group for Scrabulous, which has more than 36,000 members.

The makers of Scrabble should come to some kind of agreement that keeps the Scrabulous train rolling, for several reasons. In the first place, you can't buy the kind of publicity Scrabulous has gotten on Facebook. Well, you can, but it would be really expensive.

The point is, Hasbro and Mattel haven't had to spend a dime to make Scrabulous as popular as it is. Certainly, you can also argue that the developers of Scrabulous haven’t spent a dime developing the awesome game they’re now profiting from, so they should be willing to deal.

In an age when marketers are working to engage online audiences on a grassroots level, you have to recognize when it happens all by itself and cultivate it, not squash it. I'm sure there are commercial entities that would kill for 500,000 opt-ins on Facebook. Along with the coveted new media buzz, Google juice and all that goes with it, Hasbro should realize that Scrabulous is introducing an entire new generation of people to the game of Scrabble. To prove this point, some Facebook members have created a group themed I Got into Scrabble BECAUSE of Scrabulous, (currently at 43 members, but it's a start).

What this all adds up to is free advertising for Scrabble you can't get anywhere else. People get to actually play the game, enjoy it, and are more likely to want to play it OFF line. That's got to convert to some kind of cash flow for the makers of tabletop Scrabble. At a time when Hasbro has updated numerous games to keep them relevant, this online extension of classic Scrabble seems too good to be crushed by the legal department.

Perhaps Scrabulous can cut the makers of Scrabble a piece of the online ad revenue in exchange for some kind of brand-license agreement. Perhaps that's what Hasbro and Mattel have had in mind all along. Regardless, there is an opportunity here, and in Scrabble that's an 18-point word.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:13 AM
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January 17, 2008

I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who…

...nevermind

By Daniel DeMoss

I’m an avid Facebook user and I’ve grown to really appreciate their “groups” feature. I’m not one of those people that have 127 groups on his page. I have only 28, but I appreciate them, nonetheless.

There are all kinds of Facebook groups, ranging from the “Six Degrees Of Separation - The Experiment” group, which has almost 4 million members, to the “Brian is The Scariest Guy I Ever Met” group, which currently has 13 members. These groups seem to do a good job of bringing people with common interests or goals together and their subject matter and number of members vary widely.

Lately, I’ve noticed an interesting, and some might say disturbing, phenomenon with the naming of new groups. It seems like everyday I read in the news feed about another group whose name contains the number 1 million in it. A few examples of these are 1,000,000 Bears Fans, I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who want FacebookIM, and I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who hate cancer, just to name a few. This would be fine, except for the fact that none of these groups has 1 million people in it. In fact, these groups don’t even have 100,000 members.

In my opinion, if you create a group with the number 1 million in it, or any number larger than 10,000 for that matter, you can count on not getting enough members for it to live up to the lofty title. Why? Some people won’t join because they don’t see the point, others may not join just to spite you. Or, simply, people won’t join just because it seems impersonal to be lost in a group among 999,999 other members.

Of course, regardless of why people don’t join, having five people in a group with 1 million in the name is just so ironic that it’s bound to happen.

So what’s my recommendation? Don’t put numbers in the name of your group. It’s much less embarrassing to have 63,573 members in a group named Bears Fans. The exception to this rule of course is the wildly popular 1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert, which currently has 1,455,477 members. This is one of the few groups that I’ve come across that has met or exceeded the goal given in its title.

Bravo, creators of the Stephen Colbert group. To the rest of you, next time, leave the numbers out.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 01:59 PM
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December 19, 2007

Facebook friend lists are here

In case you haven't logged into your Facebook account today, take some time to do so right away. Grouped friend lists are here, and they're very helpful.

You now have the ability to categorize your contact list however you'd like, whether it's by clients, family members or college classmates. The friend lists allow you to send mass mailings to each list and see their recent updates quickly, to name just a few of the uses.

Little things like friend lists make me hopeful that Facebook is listening to their users and providing us with the tools we want to make social networking even more beneficial, whether it's for work or personal use.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 12:00 PM
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October 24, 2007

Reporting web traffic

By Chris Poterala

The Monday edition of The New York Times has an interesting article about a struggle between web site publishers and the companies that track and report web traffic.

Companies such as ComScore or Nielsen rely on sampling panels to guesstimate web traffic for sites, extrapolating traffic numbers based upon feedback from their panels. This method is analogous to calculating television ratings, where "Nielsen families" have a device hooked up to their televisions that "phones home" viewing data.

These traffic numbers are critically important because they are used to help price and sell advertising on web sites. Just like print and television; more eyeballs on a site = more charged for ads on the site.

Publishers argue the traffic numbers reported for their sites are low and sometimes differ greatly from their own reported traffic numbers. The example from the article uses Forbes.com. The site reported 11.6 million visitors for September 2007. ComScore reported 5.8 million visitors, a 50 percent difference, and Nielsen reported 7.5 million visitors, a 35 percent difference.

Who does the advertiser believe?

Site publishers have raw traffic logs available and do not need to rely on any multipliers or sampling in order to come up with accurate traffic statistics. Programs exist that can crunch the logs and spit out a myriad of visitor statistics. Are there still issues with these logs? Absolutely. A company with 10,000 employees may show up as a single user in the logs, underreporting some statistics, but the logs will still accurately reflect other data points.

Sampling is "old school" and needs to go away. Yes, advertisers and publishers are comfortable with it from the print and television spaces, but that does not make it right.

There needs to be a new standard developed for measuring web traffic, with both publishers and advertisers having a hand in developing it.

Define a visit, define page views, define session length. Maybe it's third-party auditing of traffic logs provided by the publishers.

In this age of every bit and byte being recorded, isn't it time to move away from the analog world of sampling and guesstimating?

What do you think?

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 12:09 PM
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October 16, 2007

Wal-Mart launches free Facebook gift

Did you give your friend the free Facebook gift from Wal-Mart yet? Better hurry -- as I post this, only 56,493 were left.

But the big debate is... Did Wal-Mart post the gift to poke fun at itself, or did they really think a ghost trapped in cellophane with "WAL-MART" written across it would be a hit in the social networking world?

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:14 PM
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October 05, 2007

Flickr Famous

You may have read the story in the New York Times this week about the high school student in Dallas who sued Virgin Mobile after it plastered her photo on a billboard in Australia.

The billboard did credit the Flickr photographer who took the photo, Justin Wong. He had originally posted the photo with a Creative Commons license allowing any use of the photo, as long as the work was attributed to him. (Since then, Wong has changed the Creative Commons license on his photos to “All Rights Reserved.”)

But neither Virgin Mobile nor Wong had obtained a model release from the student, Alison Chang, or -- since she’s only 15 –- from her parents. Nor did Virgin Mobile tell the photographer they were using his photo. He found out when a Flickr member in Adelaide, Brenton Cleeland, snapped a photo of the bus shelter billboard, which said “Dump Your Pen Friend!” and posted it on Flickr. Alison saw Cleeland's photo and wrote, “hey that’s me! no joke. i think i’m being insulted.”

The next message was from Wong, who wrote: “where was this? do you think virgin mobile will give me stuff?” The photo and the very interesting message thread are still on Cleeland’s Flickr site. In one of the 244 messages there, Alison’s brother writes that he has consulted lawyers about the matter.

The family is suing Virgin Mobile USA and Creative Commons in federal district court in Dallas.

What this should make Flickr users think of:

• Think hard about whether you want to allow commercial use of your photos. Creative Commons gives a list of “Things to Think About” before choosing your license.
  
• You may want to add language to your profile noting that you have not obtained model releases for your photos.
  
• If you’re an advertiser, just because a Flickr photographer has given permission for use of his/her photos doesn’t mean the subjects of the photo will allow you to use their likenesses in advertising.
  
• And if you think a teenager in Dallas will never see her face on an ad in Australia, think about the global social network, and think again.

P.S. Thanks to Paula Amunategui for the link to the Flickr discussion.

Posted by Laurie Mayers at 01:16 PM
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The Heartbreak Kid makes its mark on Facebook

I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed this week with the social networking promotion for today's release "The Heartbreak Kid," a new comedy from Ben Stiller.

Since Monday, my Facebook profile pages have been littered with "Heartbreak" flyers and banner ads. But this morning, when I logged in to see what was new with my friends, I was told I had one free Facebook gift to give: a "Heartbreak" sombrero, of course. Naturally, I gave it to myself.

The sombrero is the first free gift I've seen since Facebook launched the gifts this year, and is the first "sponsored" gift as well.

The sponsored group on Facebook features a different "freebie" every day, ranging from contest entries to special online-only content. And if you're wondering why you should join this group, as many of my friends do when I send them group invitation after group invitation, the "Heartbreak" group tells you why:

Why join? Because love blows and you’ll have a chance to… see the movie for free! Win a trip to Mexico! And many more great prizes!

As of this post, there were more than 2,000 members in the group, 12 videos posted, 32 photos uploaded and 273 wall posts stating either how great or terrible the movie is. Combined, I can only imagine that the Facebook outreach dollar amount has to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Will the Facebook group, free gifts and the ability to post why you think love blows make more people go see this movie? Who knows. But do all these components reflect how someone at DreamWorks Pictures got the memo that Facebook is just as important as MySpace when it comes to creating your digital marketing package? You bet. Trust me, "The Heartbreak Kid" isn't going to be the last movie we see all over our social networking profile pages.

And now, I'm off to admire my digital sombrero.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 09:13 AM
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October 03, 2007

Joost in time

By Melanie Seasons

Last night instead of getting my eight hours of beauty sleep, I stayed up way too late to play with Joost, the newish P2P-TV streaming program. There’s been a fair amount of buzz around Joost since it launched last year, mainly because of their hard-to-come-by invitations to the beta program. But as of Monday, Joost opened their digital doors to everyone - and I mean everyone. I was just barely able to get on to the site yesterday to download it. Once I did, it was quite evident how many people were doing the same thing. The load times were pretty slow and some channels weren’t “available.” Even so, I was able to put a few thoughts together on the program and its possible impact on digital PR.

The good:

• The design of the program is incredible. There’s a side bar of categories to choose from. Once you choose a category, these transparent widget-like objects of all the available shows come up. They’re fairly easy to navigate and upon first glance do seem to be appropriately categorized.
  
• Searching for something to watch is a snap, as is changing channels. The transparent widgets allow you to still see through to the program you’re watching while searching for other channels. Think of it as a very sleek picture-in-picture.
  
• You can’t beat 15,000+ shows. With Joost there is no excuse for saying “there’s nothing on.”

The not-so-good:

• Load times are ok. Joost is incredibly popular right now, so I’m sure much of the lag is due to that. However, it’s something to keep an eye on. There’s nothing more annoying than getting into a show and having it time out on you.
  
• Joost is really heavy on the advertising. Many sites with streaming capabilities make you sit through a 30-second spot before taking you to the goods. Joost has short commercial breaks just like traditional TV, but takes it a step further by having random logos pop up in the margins while you’re watching a show. They were annoying and incredibly distracting. They also didn’t seem to be related to the content of the show or targeted to me as a user. Advertisers take note: Joost ads need to be modeled more after Facebook’s targeted advertising.

The undetermined:

I see potential for PR involvement with Joost, but not in the way you might think. While the blogosphere is abuzz with what the program could mean for online PR, I say that Joost is still just TV. Just because it lives online doesn’t mean it’s 100 percent in our realm. Traditional agencies have always dealt more with broadcast, so I see Joost as falling under their umbrella. This doesn’t mean that online PRs shouldn’t be involved in working with Joost, but I see this as being more of an opportunity for collaboration between traditional and digital rather than an either/or situation.

Having only been open to the public for two days, I’m sure they’re getting a lot of feedback. You can bet I’ll be keeping a close eye on future Joost developments

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:40 PM
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October 01, 2007

The virtual velvet rope

By Britany Larsen

Social networking is built around the idea that everyone is welcome. Sites like MySpace and Facebook are places for every “average Joe” to put themselves on display and enjoy some sort of notoriety and fame.

However some new social networks are changing that.

Built around exclusivity, and providing a safe haven for its rich, beautiful, or famous users, sites like Diamond Lounge, ModelsHotel, and ASMALLWORLD require lengthy application and verification processes (at ModelsHotel, would-be members need to provide agent phone numbers and recent bookings), and charges of up to $60 per month. Every applicant is personally reviewed and many are denied.

ASMALLWORLD has grown to about 150,000 registered users in its four-year existence. The crowd of young jetsetters is 60 percent European and 20 percent American, and the average age is 32. The founder of ModelsHotel is only 25, already seeking 1.5 million in venture capital and commanding $10,000 for a banner ad. Diamond lounge is still in launch mode, but is hoping to attract only the upper echelon of society.

The sites are too exclusive to receive the attention necessary for an advertising-based business model, and are instead attracting luxury marketers who utilize their high-profile members as sponsors.

According to the Wall Street Journal, pricey-denim makers Diesel worked with ModelsHotel during Fashion Week by giving out free “skinny” jeans to models so that they would be seen around town in the brand while on auditions.

These exclusive social networks have changed the way that luxury brands traditionally connect with "the beautiful people," and have created a virtual velvet rope for the rest of us.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:05 PM
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September 25, 2007

Are you ready for Google’s Second Earth?

By Kai Blum

Rumor has it that Google plans to populate a 3D version of Google Earth with a new kind of Second Life.

That means a digital version of our planet would be completely repopulated and new countries and societies could be created.

My dream of owning an island and calling it Kailand may finally come true. Its digital economy will be based on Google Advertising, of course.

But wait, isn’t that Google’s goal for our real world as well? Things may become a bit blurry…

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:25 PM
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September 24, 2007

Animoto ends photo slideshows

If you haven't had a chance to check out Animoto yet, put it on your list of things to do today. Your Flickr photo stream will thank you later for the end of boring slideshows.

I've been very impressed with the beta version of this site so far. The idea is this: upload your photos or pull them in from another hosting service, add music, and Animoto will create a unique video customized to both your photos and your song. And the great part is, there are no two videos that are alike.

So far I've already been sent a few videos from friends obsessed with the site, so it appears that the idea is catching on. I'm excited to see what happens next for the Animoto kids. Keep updated by reading their blog.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:40 PM
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September 21, 2007

MySpace know-how = $1 million

It pays to spend time on MySpace. Well, it does for 17-year-old Ashley Qualls, a young Detroit entrepeneur who recently turned a small MySpace design business, whateverlife, into a $1 million venture.

Not bad for an $8 investment from your mom.

TECH. BLORGE reports:

Whateverlife.com targets teenage girls and offers MySpace layouts, as well as a magazine section. Her site ranks well above other websites produced by large corporations that target teenage girls, such as Seventeen and Cosmo Girl, as you can see in this Alexa chart.

She's had countless offers for the site, but has turned them all down so far. Kudos to Ashley for being a smart business woman and putting her MySpace skills to work. Ashley is just another example of the countless business opportunities the blogosphere offers.

I wonder if she'll help me pimp my MySpace profile...

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:41 PM
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September 20, 2007

Check out this crazy link...

Have you been Rick Roll'd yet?

The next time you receive a YouTube link from a co-worker or "supposed" loved one, think twice. You might be setting yourself up to watch Rick Astley's painfully classic "Never Gone Give You Up," or, a Rick Roll.

Not only is there a Rick Roll web site for the Internet-based joke, there's currently an Urban Dictionary entry, a Yahoo! Answers reply, and even a Digg update.

If you're ever asked for the definition of "viral video," this is it.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:44 PM
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August 27, 2007

Onion reports on "Web Crash 2007"

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 01:19 PM
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August 13, 2007

Black is the new green

By Nichole Woodcock

There are a number of us who have clicked “make Google your homepage.” Google’s popular search engine is now helping users through a green-friendly search with a revamped homepage, Blackle.

Designed by Heap Media Australia in the hopes of helping users conduct an “Energy Saving Search,” Blackle transforms your white Google homepage into a black screen that features the same familiar one-bar search tool. Some call Blackle an inconvenient homepage, while others insist it is a small way to help save energy.

Why Blackle and not Polkadottle? Earlier this year, the EcoIron blog featured a post on how “Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a year.” This sparked enough debate to get people talking about actually creating an energy efficient search engine. Wikipedia has additional info on the emergence of Blackle.

Google does not own Blackle, meaning the bells and whistles Google users are accustomed to are not available. Blackle is operating solely on the homepage. Results appear in a light grey text, but once you click on a new URL you are thrown back into the colorful world of the internet. Blackle also provides an eco-friendly reminder at the bottom of the page showing the number of watt hours saved. This is a small reminder that you are making a difference.

There have been heated debates among online skeptics who question Blackle’s efficiency, especially when comparing a LCD monitor with a CRT. Some tests have even shown that there are no energy savings to be found using Blackle on a LCD monitor.

Whether or not this truly saves a great deal of energy, it is sparking healthy conversations about the everyday things people can start doing to help conserve energy. It is certainly a nice contrast to thinking green.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 12:54 PM
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August 07, 2007

Where do we go when we die?

By Melanie Seasons

We are now in an age where everyone has the potential not to be forgotten, even in death. And nowhere is this more evident than on social networking sites.

As the prime example, when someone on MySpace dies, his or her profile becomes a digital snapshot of his or her life. This is because a MySpace account owner is the only one who can disable his or her page. If no one has access to the account, it has the potential to be archived forever.

If you haven’t come across one of these profiles, they’re absolutely heartbreaking. They have become online tombs littered with messages and memories posted by friends and family members. Reading comments that go from the everyday mundane like, “See you next week” to “I've trying my best to ‘cope’ with all this but it's just so hard. Life is never going to be the same without you,” is enough to make a complete stranger get a little misty-eyed.

If you’re morbidly curious, but don’t know where to find a dead MySpacer, there’s a new resource: MyDeathSpace.com, a site that collects and archives submitted MySpace profiles and obituaries of the recently deceased.

Unsurprisingly, My Death Space has sparked controversy, launching sites like Action Against My Death Space. The site claims that owner of My Death Space exploits the tragedy of death by featuring a cartoon-like skull as its logo and not moderating comments in its forum.

For me, though, it’s seeing an obituary headline like this, that’s the real tragedy.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:39 PM
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July 26, 2007

Did you watch the YouTube debates?

A colleague of mine recently asked me if I’d been watching the CNN/YouTube debates, to which I replied, “Meh.” I had, but I really wasn’t that impressed. After reading an opinion piece (“Brave New World Made Boring”) by Glynnis MacNicol yesterday, I don’t think I’m the only one who felt so “,eh” about the whole idea.

“By far, the best "YouTube-style" videos of the night were done by the candidates themselves (John Edwards being the clear winner...take that Maureen Dowd!), which is a bit like your parents having a better Facebook page than you.”

Was putting these debates on YouTube the right choice? I’m thinking it might not have been, but more an example of “Look at what I can do with Web 2.0!” Just because the size of the screen has been reduced to 425 pixels wide doesn’t mean thousands of high school seniors will suddenly pay attention and cast their vote.

As social media marches on and companies begin to listen, I see more and more examples of “check this off the new-media list” for ideas that aren’t always appropriate for a client or specific event. Perhaps that’s the case here with the YouTube debates. What do you think? I’d love to hear more thoughts on this.

Some other thoughts I laughed along with come courtesy of Jon Stewart and a recent “Daily Show” monologue on what he really thought of the debates. Check it out here.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:16 PM
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July 23, 2007

When TV and social media meet...

...Facebook Schrute Bucks are born. I just gave one to a friend on mine on Facebook; have you?

Never heard of a Schrute Buck? Read up on the subject over on Wikipedia.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:25 PM
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July 13, 2007

McBlog: Do fries come with that unbiased opinion?

By Nichole Woodcock

McDonald’s has tapped into the Momosphere in its latest efforts to help boost their company persona in the public arena. I think we all remember the surprisingly overwhelming impact “Super Size Me” had on the entire fast food industry. McDonald’s enlisted six moms to go behind-the-counters for an exclusive in-depth look at their restaurants. Moms will meet with top execs, chefs and nutritionists and write about their experiences via personal online journals.

The “Moms’ Quality Correspondents” were chosen by an independent company from a group of 4,000 applicants. The mom’s started on June 20 and will continue their journey through the Golden Arches until September. Their thoughtful opinions can be found on none other than the McDonald’s Web site itself. Keep in mind, McDonald’s said they would not edit the posts and have no control over what the women write. Think they are telling them what’s in the special sauce?

There certainly is a chance that a mom could post something negative about their encounters, but after reading the highly positive remarks from their first posts, I think McDonald’s is pulling out all the stops to make sure these moms and their meals are kept happy.

The online community has strong opinions on McDonald’s tactics. Mom sites are upset that McDonald’s selected six relatively unknown mothers instead of working with already established mom sites. Many moms will undoubtedly trust their favorite mom blog over a corporate site full of women they have no connection with. It is surprising that McDonald’s fails to see the advantages of going with trusted moms, or perhaps they are afraid of what they will really say. Whatever opinions the six moms share, any credibility is weakened by McDonald’s corporate stronghold.

We’ll have to wait on future posts to know how McDonald’s ultimately fairs with mommies, but they are on the right track with tackling a mass medium. According to the eighth annual survey conducted by StrategyOne, "a person like you" is seen twice as credible as a CEO and just slightly better than an academic or a doctor. I am among the skeptics who believe McDonald’s has the right idea in theory but is going about it the entirely wrong way.

Safe to say, I’m not “lovin’ it.”

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:32 PM
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July 12, 2007

The Mentos Intern

By Melanie Seasons

In what I consider to be the cleverest online marketing initiative this year, Mentos launched the site MentosIntern.com, where Trevor, “The Mentos Intern,” can be seen doing whatever the public tells him to do 40 hours a week. It’s quite a jump from the Bellagio-esque Diet Coke fountains, more like a cross between Justin.tv and a much, much cooler version of Ms. Dewey.

Trevor has a schedule that visitors to the web site can fill in with tasks. If he and his bosses approve the task, it’s penciled in and Trevor performs it. For example, yesterday Trevor was scheduled to perform the Mexican Hat Dance for 15 minutes. Today, he’s already choreographed and taught a line dance, practiced handstands, and taken a yoga class.

I can already tell that our intern, Daniel, is incredibly jealous. Who knows? Maybe Daniel will be the next summer’s Mentos intern. He certainly has the look down.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:02 PM
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June 28, 2007

Facebook's helping hands

An article in last week's Wall Street Journal had some interesting updates on Facebook's new platform that is allowing third-party services to create new applications for the No. 2 social networking site. According to the article, more than 800 services have been created for Facebook since the launch of its platform in May.

The new applications range from slide shows to horoscope finders, rating your top friends and Last.fm plug-ins. I know I've received countless requests from my friends asking me to add their new favorite applications. Looking at all of the options you now have on Facebook, I was nervous for them; didn't most of my friends abandon MySpace because of all the ads, band requests, and spam profiles? I guess not. Take a look at these numbers:

• In May, Facebook had 24 million active users.
• In June, just one month later, Facebook had 27 million active users.

Three million users can't be wrong...

I especially liked this rationale for why Facebook seems to "get it" right now. From the article:

Facebook is actually borrowing a tactic pioneered by Microsoft: Rather than building every piece of technology yourself, let others build on your "platform," much the way Adobe Systems Inc., Intuit Inc. and others built software for Microsoft's Windows operating system in the 1980s. Using this strategy, Facebook can nurture an ecosystem of developers who can create services far faster than Facebook could build them on its own.

With numbers that appear to be climbing every month, and friends who keep bombarding me with iLike recommendations I usually can't turn down, it looks like it's going to be a good summer session for Facebook.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:44 PM
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What we have here is a failure to communicate...

...Or, managing relationships, traditionally and digitally

By Nichole Woodcock

Reading Guy Kawasaki's blog entry on “The Top Ten Reasons Why PR Doesn't Work” is like rubbing salt in a wound. There is nothing worse than when a campaign is viewed unsuccessful in the eyes of a client. Every client dreams of “Oprah” and “The Today Show,” but if our client is Mattel and they are trying to get on top broadcast shows with the latest yo-yo, we have to advise them to thoughtfully reconsider. The same is true for the blogosphere. Not everyone needs to have an island in Second Life, even though the client might want the latest, greatest digital "must-have."

Whether it's a traditional PR initiative or a digital endeavor, It is our job as professionals to manage expectations of campaign results, keeping in mind that no two clients are alike. What might have been a great success for one client could turn out a flop for another. There is a way to be honest and fair with a client without insulting their ideas or thoughts. PR is a paid service to manage communication and if we do not advise our clients to the best of our ability, we all look bad in the public arena. If you were paying someone for something they promised you and it never happened, you would be upset too.

A client can be difficult, crusty or perhaps perfect to work with, but for each campaign or RFP we have to manage values and relationships with clients and act on their best behalf with honesty and integrity.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:47 AM
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June 21, 2007

The end for Perez?

When a co-worker of mine told me PerezHilton.com had been shut down, I couldn't believe it. And then I checked for myself.

If, like me, you had trouble accessing Perez Hilton's blog yesterday, there was good reason. The site was taken down by server host Crucial Paradigm for violating warnings to stop using copyrighted photos, a problem Perez has been having recently. Now back up and running, thanks to a different host, Perez's blog is running at a "skeleton" capacity, according to Variety.

As of this posting, comments were still down and the archive was gone. Clicking on the "copyright statement" took you back to the blog's homepage.

But even a blog shutdown can't keep the blogosphere's most popular gossip hound down.

Try as they may, can’t nobody hold us down... Thanks for sticking with us and putting up with all the bullshiz. Truly. Deeply. Thank you!

What does all this mean? Should anyone outside of the blogosphere care? The answer... yes.

By finally holding Perez accountable for his actions, the blogosphere takes another step toward being a respected, CREDIBLE media source. The debate continues as to whether or not bloggers should be held to the same standards that MSM journalists are. With the shutdown of Perez's blog, a signal has been sent out saying, "Yes, bloggers should be held accountable."

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:09 PM
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June 11, 2007

Working the blog

By Nichole Woodcock

Newbie alert! This is my very first post since joining MS&L BlogWorks. In May I transitioned from four years of good old-fashioned public relations at MS&L Atlanta to the new media world of BlogWorks. When I arrived, I couldn’t believe some of the differences between the blogosphere and traditional PR realms.

Here are some of my immediate observations:

Traditional PR’s bread and butter for media is traditional print and online outreach. PR professionals want to place stories at print publications and the online versions of those publications. Hardly any thought is given to the thousands of blogs that could provide a great service to clients and impact a highly influential niche market. Many think (I was guilty of this too at one time) that simply by using blog search tools such as Google blogsearch or Technorati you can create a master list of top blogs and begin outreach. On the contrary, without knowing the blog industry there is no way to sort through the numerous blogs on a topic. Instead of trusting the list of blogs found doing a general search, you have to put effort into it and get to know the material.

PR and blogs help drive media results, but the avenue to garnering coverage can vary between the two. All clients want to receive coverage and no client really wants negative press. In traditional PR you develop plans of strategic messaging and outreach to deliver the appropriate information to the media. In blog-based outreach you have the product or promotion, and this is what has to speak to the target audience. By removing the filter, blogs have the ability to express whatever opinion they desire about what you're sending them.

Some clients have learned to embrace blog postings on their products and appreciate that they are hearing directly from the consumer and target audience, and others have not warmed up to the idea that blogs provide relevant information to the masses.

At the end of the day we are all here to help our clients receive meaningful coverage. The great thing about MS&L is that each office has so many specialized areas. I am excited to be on the other side of the fence and still have a lot to learn!

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:09 PM
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June 07, 2007

The Geography of the Internet

By Charlie Kondek

Imagine this scenario. You're working on a web-based PR campaign for a widget. You're trying to find blogs relevant to the widget and connect with the widget audience. You develop pitch materials and a target list. You pitch the blogs. You get some favorable responses. One of them, a blog that's exactly what you want for this campaign, is enthusiastic about your materials and eager to receive your widget and share his thoughts on it with the widget community. Now it's time to send this person the widget.

He's in Malaysia. The widgets are in a warehouse in Racine. To ship him the widget, you will not only have to pay the larger fee, you'll have to pay import fees and any other duties and fill out extra paperwork, something that can take the cost of a shipment from tens of dollars to hundreds, not including the time spent shipping and tracking it.

Part of working in internet-based PR and marketing means realizing that physical geography does not necessarily correspond to internet geography. The internet makes an international community local, developing networks based more on shared interest and shared language than proximity.

Most of the work I have done has been in the English language, and I am often surprised at who is contributing to the dialogue on any given subject in the blogosphere. Citizens of many countries are fluent in English and often they choose to blog about a given subject in English. They may be in Sweden, Malaysia, Portugal, or other countries, but they choose to blog in English and connect with English speakers who share their interests all over the world.

This is something to keep in mind as you develop and execute your PR tactics. Clients should understand that the best English-language widget blogger may in fact live in Malaysia, and that it's worth it to ship the widget there, import duties and all. The resulting placement will create impressions all over the English-speaking world and remain online to rematerialize as search results for English-speaking consumers.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:30 PM
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May 24, 2007

U.S. government uses blog format to discuss pandemic flu preparedness

By Kai Blum

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is currently hosting a five-week Pandemic Flu Leadership Blog, in order "to have an open conversation and shape the thinking about how to communicate the critical need for individual pandemic flu preparedness at home and within workplaces and communities."

Secretary Michael O. Leavitt, blogger Michael Coston (Avian Flu Diary), and Greg Dworkin (Flu Wiki & Flu Wiki Forum) were the first to share their thoughts on the subject.

Comments are welcome and provide everyone an opportunity to be actively involved in the discussion. Reading the comments is extremely interesting, since they give a glimpse into the lack of preparedness on a local level. For example, a reader from a small rural city in Iowa wrote:

“I recently asked a town council member if the city had a disaster preparedness plan especially about pandemic flu. I was met with a wide-eyed surprised look by the council member. He had never heard of it. He told me that if I got the flu, to go to the doctor.”

Hopefully, the Department of Health and Human Services will carefully read each comment and act upon this reader feedback. They should also not limit the life span of this blog to five weeks. It should be continued indefinitely as a daily resource and exchange of information.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:07 PM
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May 23, 2007

Facebook launches marketplace

Not wanting to be left behind by the likes of MySpace's classifieds or even Craig's List, Facebook launched its own "Marketplace" on May 14. Here's how Facebook's Jared Morgenstern describes it:

As of today, Facebook has fully rolled out our new Marketplace feature. You can use Marketplace to list what you have and what you want within your group of friends, networks, or other networks. Beyond its use for classified listings, you can use Marketplace to get a sense of everything available or desired within your networks.

Taking a look at the Detroit, Mich., marketplace (membership required for viewing), I found everything from apartment listings, a Buick Grand National with 15,000 miles on it, designer handbags, and snakes. Yes, snakes on a Facebook page, if you will...

Facebook is definitely NOT the first to start a classified service aimed at college kids. As Mashable reports, there's already a huge crop of sites to choose from. But in terms of new Facebook initiatives, this might be one of Facebook's better choices.

While I'm now not sure how long the virtual gifts are going to make it, despite a new item being launched daily, the marketplace looks like it's set to take off. Selling textbooks or looking for a summer subleaser seem much more practical to the college mindset than a $1 pixelated jock strap.

Not a Facebook member? Check out this visual tour of the marketplace Digg created.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:37 AM
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April 26, 2007

Is John Edwards in your Top 8?

When I logged into my MySpace account this weekend and saw that one of the “cool new users” happened to be Barack Obama, I immediately thought MySpace had totally missed the boat by focusing entire MySpace pages on the 2008 Presidential candidates.

On first glance, most people tend to think that the average MySpace user is a young teen, making the idea of promoting voting online pointless for those who still have a few years to go. But that’s just on first glance. According to a report from comScore Media Metrix last fall, more than 68 percent of MySpace users are over 25, making the concept very important to “upwardly mobile” Internet users in today’s all-digital society.

The “MySpace Impact” section is the holding area for all of the 2008 candidates, ranging from Hilary Clinton to Mitt Romney. And while the idea of seeing a MySpace page for a 60-year-old governor might seem, well, weird, Romney’s page is packed with links to all other related social network sites, YouTube promo clips, and a MySpace-created contribution button. And even Obama’s page gives users “I Support Barack” images for their own blogs and MySpace profiles.

With so many tools for the 30-somethings to help show their support for a favorite candidate, I can’t help but wonder if the MySpace Impact initiative is the new bumper sticker for the blogosphere? Until I figure that out, I'll work on getting John Edwards to be my Twitter friend.

P.S. MySpace is very aware of their younger users who are civic-minded. The “Declare Yourself” page helps users, of all ages, find out where to how, how to vote, and why they should vote. Looks like voting is the new black.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:53 PM
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April 18, 2007

The importance of accurate web design

By Melanie Seasons

Yesterday, around 10:30 a.m., CNN identified the Virginia Tech shooter as Cho Seung-Hui, a 23-year-old English major from South Korea. Released with the article were three of the victims' pictures, including one of the first students killed, Ryan Clark.

Clark's picture was shown along the left side bar with the caption, "Ryan Clark, a resident assistant reportedly killed at the dorm where the first shooting occurred, was described by a friend as a "happy person."

But when scrolling down to bottom, a link to the top story showed Clark's picture next to the caption, "Shooter identified as classmate." A bit misleading, no?

To accommodate web culture, online news sources like CNN and MSNBC are making an effort to become more visually stimulating by including tons of graphics and videos to accompany articles. But with these stimuli come more accountability on account of the editors and designers to double and triple check all aspects of a web page.

Someone at CNN eventually caught the mistake and by 11:30 a.m., a photo of mourning students had replaced Clark's picture.

Ambiguous headlines and captions can be a rather common aspect of journalism. Sometimes they make us chuckle (think Jay Leno's "Wacky Headlines"), but in Ryan Clark's case they also have the potential to ruin a reputation.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:18 AM
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CNN turns to I-Reporters to cover breaking news

Before Monday’s tragedy at Virginia Tech University, CNN’s “I-Reports,” an attempt to venture into “TV 2.0,” asked readers to become citizen journalists by submitting photos and stories on a variety of topics, ranging from the new Coney Island amusement park development to the benefits and distractions of working from a home office. However, I-Reports quickly became firsthand accounts of the violence taking place in Virginia all day Monday as CNN sought media from the students and faculty on campus.

CNN readers can view an online gallery of submitted photos, many from cell phone cameras, from its I-Reporters, as well as the now-infamous video of gunshots on campus captured by Jamal Albarghouti. The photos now range from vigils happening in Blacksburg, to news conferences from local police officials. With the ability to subscribe to the I-Reports news feed, readers are instantly updated on the latest from VTU.

The I-Report feature on CNN is just another reminder of how any “average Joe” can become a member of the media in today’s information-ready society. Thanks to CNN’s “toolkit,” even the most novice of photographers, videographers and bloggers can perfect their skill and share their eyewitness accounts with the world.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:10 AM
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April 10, 2007

Lov.li reinforces niche social networking

Just after I said last week about how the last thing I needed was another social networking site, I quickly joined Lov.li, a community site aimed at bringing together artisans and crafters.

(A side note: When I'm not busy blogging, I'm usually making crafts for a craft fair I help plan in Detroit every summer, which I then, in turn, blog about.)

Having launched just a few months back, Lov.li is already earning "blogosphere cred" from noted sources, such as CRAFT magazine, the sister publication to tech-heavy MAKE, as well as famous D.I.Y. business owners, like Jennifer Perkins of Naughty Secretary Club in Austin, Texas.

Lov.li allows users to not only create profiles to find other like-minded makers, but has a selling component to it, too, which could be a big selling point for some who find indie-powerhouse Etsy too crowded.

I was impressed with Lov.li right away. When I gave my address to find out "where I was, " I was immediately paired up with someone who matched my same interests. And they couldn't have more right on; I was paired up with one of my friends in metro Detroit.

As generic sites like MySpace begin to see fallout, I see niche sites like Lov.li brining more and more people in. Because while I don't have lots left of myself to spread in the blogosphere, I'd gladly spread any leftovers with a bunch of crafters.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:15 PM
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April 02, 2007

Drinking the Twitter Kool-Aid

Much to my chagrin, I joined Twitter last week so that I can find out what my co-workers ate for lunch or what they’re listening to on their iPods.

Am I the only one who’s not officially sold on Twitter? (I already blog, have a Flickr account, mingle with former classmates on Facebook… I don’t know how much me there is to go around on the Internet.) Maybe not.

Andrew Keen called out Twitter’s hype in a post on The Great Seduction:

Calling Twitter a "mini-blog" is like describing a stunted flea as a "mini-flea". There's nothing intellectually more insignificant than a blog and Twitter is simply a multi platform bulletin board which enables people to express themselves.

Following that thought, the Spokesman Review (subscription site) had this perfect review of Twitter:

Remember the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry and George pitch NBC "a show about nothing"? At one point Costanza asks a network executive, ‘What did you do today?’

• ‘I got up and came to work,’ the exec replies.
  
  

• ‘There's a show!’ George exclaims. ‘That's a show.’
  
  

  That's also a Twitter.

I can see why the site is addicting (constantly wanting to know what your friends are doing, the current theme of blogosphere), but if instant messages, text messages, and “old-school” phone calls just aren’t enough, I don’t know if Twitter will satisfy all your needs. After all, there are just some things my friends are doing that I’d rather NOT know about.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 10:37 AM
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February 22, 2007

Is Barack your friend?

By Chris Clonen

Could MySpace be the new political barometer for measuring a candidate’s chances of taking the White House in 2008? Yesterday, I spotted an interesting article on stating that a recent “poll” put Barack Obama ahead of Hillary Clinton in the run for the Democratic nomination for the presidency. I had to click because I thought this was incredible news. To my surprise, Barack was ahead all right, but not in the traditional sense — Barack had more MySpace friends than Hillary.

The article referred to TechPresident, a site that currently measures the amount of MySpace friends a presidential candidate has accumulated. The site is updated regularly, contains graphs to help explain a candidate’s “friendship” trends, and includes links to the presidential hopefuls’ MySpace pages. There is even a blog that posts news informing the reader how many candidates have web sites, who in showbiz is endorsing whom, and tracks Technorati for blog posts mentioning the candidates. One post informed me that John Edwards is in Second Life.

Could a candidate’s popularity on MySpace predict the next president of the United States? Time will tell. We could see an evolution in political forecasting.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:01 PM
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February 20, 2007

Facebook opens virtual gifts

Sometime last week I had a message on Facebook letting me know I had a free "virtual gift" to give to a lucky friend. Virtual gift? Instantly my mind flashed back to other "virtual" trends of yesteryear (think Tamagotchi), but when I saw friend after friend give these icons to one another, I knew Facebook had to be onto something.

...And then I got one myself, and it went downhill from there. I was hooked.

Here's what Facebook's Jared Morgenstern, who engineered this project, had to say about the gifts in his Feb. 8 blog post:

Starting today, Facebook will begin enabling users to give each other gifts, tiny tokens of appreciation, that live on your profile. In this collection of gifts on Facebook, all items are $1 each and the net proceeds for the month of February go to the breast cancer research charity, Komen for the Cure.

Facebook was smart to launch the idea with a free hook; almost immediately I had used my free gift and was searching for my credit card to buy more credits. (Each gift costs $1 individually, but when purchased in bulk, discounts are given.) Facebook was even smarter to tie in a charity component, too. I didn't feel like I was wasting money giving my friends digital cupcakes when I knew the money was going to charity this month.

But virtual gifts are hardly new. LiveJournal has allowed users to bestow pixelated magic to one another for more than a year, and Myyearbook.com has so many free "glitter phrases" it's enough to hurt your eyes.

But are virtual gifts a good idea? The Bloggers Blog seems to think gifts that aren't free won't fly.

Are virtual icons really a serious business model when you can easily email images and photos at anytime; place photographs on your blog or profile and use icons during chat and IM sessions? A lot of social networks give you a lot more for free.

I tend to disagree. While I don't think this will be a runaway success, by any means, I do think there is a place for it within social networking, especially as we move into a bigger e-commerce culture. The idea of buying a gift for someone to display on a profile page could be the wave of a future, if they stay at a cheap price. And while can always create some sort of image on their own to "give," I know I'm still impressed that someone paid $1 to give me an Etch-a-Sketch designed by Mac legend Susan Kare.

Now if only I could figure out who is deserving of that blue-haired troll...

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:09 PM
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February 19, 2007

Are you a gamer geek?

By Chris Clonen

Well I am — sort of. Now I don’t spend every waking moment increasing my character level playing World of Warcraft when I retreat from the dog-eat-dog world of public relations to my man cave, but I do enjoy a good killing spree on Halo 2; or an hour or two craving fresh blood because my vampirism is acting up in Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. Weird? Well, I am not alone.

As soon as I turn on my Xbox360, I am automatically logged into an online community called Xbox Live. Full of game demos, community forums, and yes, even downloadable TV shows and movies, Xbox Live is a living, breathing community full of gamers from around the world looking for that special someone, or something, in a little place I like to call “Geekdom.” Geekdom is not a place for the weak of stomach or soft of heart—it is a realm full of surreal characters and esoteric guilds. A world where you can be anything you want to be (at least as far as game programmers’ minds can code). And, here again is where we come in—a world full of consumers.

These consumers like to spend their hard earned money on impulse purchases such as armor for your stallion, retro-arcade games, or a new hideaway for your well-groomed assassin. You can even get “Gamercards,” or membership cards, to support your favorite game and show the world how officially geeky you really are.

Impulse shoppers are our friends. And better yet, these geeky shoppers like to travel in packs and form their own little Utpoias surrounded by fellow geeks who can’t get enough multi-player maps for blowing up their friends playing Halo 2. I admit, I am one of them, but don’t be afraid — at least in real life, because if you are on the blue team at 3:00 p.m. on Saturday in the Ivory Tower map, you better be armed with a Covenant sword, or you best just run.

My point is that online social networks expand beyond the typical “Facebooks” and “MySpaces” of the blogosphere and into the world of online gaming. There are forums for almost every multiplayer game available for the Xbox360, including web sites specific to those games. Within these forums you can check up on your friends, send messages to each other, plan parties and competitions. You can compare your advancement within a game to one of your friends, or even blog about your performance. Bungie.net and Xbox.com are only a few of the sites out there offering gamers refuge, but there are many more.

This is an opportunity for us to tap our talented resources and expand beyond our typical soapbox, blog mentality and create dynamic, online communities full of commerce, live messaging, steaming video and graphics that will make your jaws drop. Let’s not just create places where you can go to read the latest microwave review, or telemarket the blogosphere with PR buzz about the tastiest soft drink — let’s create homes where consumers can join fellow consumers and play.

I know what you are thinking — don’t we already do this? My answer is no. We create buzz, not communities. There is something beyond the blog out there, buried in this cyberweb of white noise and Broadway glitter. Hosting on-line communities might be the answer, but for now, I will retreat to my cave and hang out with a few friends in Geekdom. Join me so you, too, can see what I am talking about.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:19 PM
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February 07, 2007

MTV for the digital millennium

Twenty-five years ago, when a band couldn’t get airtime on Top 40 radio, it turned to MTV, at the time a “groundbreaking” concept giving bands the video spotlight. That was then, this is now.

With MTV’s continuing development as more of a “lifestyle” network than a music authority, a new trend is occurring: When a band can’t get airtime on MTV, they turn to social networking sites.

I asked Seth Hubbard of Polyvinyl Records about this trend. Polyvinyl, an independent record label, is a great example of a company recognizing where their potential audience is and sending the goods that way. Polyvinyl’s bands can now be found on a variety of social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace.

Alicia Dorset: How is Polyvinyl using sites like YouTube and MySpace to promote bands?
Seth Hubbard: We use YouTube and MySpace all the time. Each of our bands has their own MySpace page and the label has their own page, too. We put all of our music videos on YouTube, too. And there is a lot of fan-created live footage available on YouTube that really seems to help. Both of those web sites have translated into a lot of record sales.

AD: Where do you think consumers are looking for music or their favorite bands these days?
SH: I think most people look online for their new favorite bands. With sites like Pitchfork gaining so much popularity, along with digital download sites like iTunes and eMusic, it makes it so much easier to find out about new and upcoming artists.

AD: What kind of possibilities does the Internet give a label when promoting an artist?
SH: It gives labels infinite possibilities when it comes to promoting an artist. I am sure as time goes on it will continue to create new avenues to reach new possible fans.

AD: How important is "new media" to indie bands when trying to get their music out?
SH: It is a very important part of the whole process. Digital sales continue to increase across the board while physical sales continue to decline. As long as labels continue to be on top of new technologies, they will only benefit from them.

Polyvinyl artists on MySpace:

• Of Montreal
  
• Aloha
  
• Owen

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 01:30 PM
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January 26, 2007

Newspapers continue to aim for transparency

We’ve all seen the effects of what happens when you’re not transparent in the blogosphere. Newspapers have always struggled with how much information they release when it comes to sources, stories, etc.; while the challenge has stayed the same, it’s moved into a new area: the Internet.

While PR practioners strive to maintain transparency for their clients and respective projects, newspapers must make themselves, newsrooms included, open to the public in an age where the public wants as much information as possible.

Today, Editor and Publisher’s Joe Strupp discusses the challenges newspapers are facing today with what content they release on the web to make themselves more transparent and, in some cases, maintain readership that continues to slip as more and more readers put down their paper product and move toward the Internet. He cites the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman Review as a newspaper that “gets it” when it comes to Internet transparency.

“The Spokesman-Review may be one of the best examples of the newspaper industry's newfound embrace of transparency. Among the first to post raw reporting materials on its Web site and open up news meetings via a daily webcast, the Spokane daily sees its future bound to Web-related openness.”

The Spokeman’s web site features their “Transparent Newsroom,” allowing readers the following options:

• News in Conversation


• Daily Briefing


• Ask the Editors


• Live webcasts


• Future of the Newsroom


• Finding the Frame


• RPS Coverage Review (local feature)

I watched one of the editorial meetings via archived webcast. While the video player was a little small on the screen, it was refreshing to have a firsthand look at what decisions the newspaper was making in real-time. As a former reporter, there were numerous times I wasn’t allowed in many editorial meetings at my own newspaper, so I appreciate the transparency the Spokesman is trying to achieve.

Even the Detroit Free Press has moved to a more blog-like feel for their web site after a recent redesign, which was met with both praise and criticism.

Newspapers have a long way to go in terms of finding a “happy medium” between their print and online products. By becoming transparent, newspapers can set themselves up to remain favorable in public opinion as more and more people demand more and more information online.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:11 PM
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January 17, 2007

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Blogger

By Charlie Kondek

I don't blog. At least, I don't call what I do blogging, because blogging, to me, means regularly providing content to a blog or family of blogs in which one has a long-term investment. This is not what I do, sporadically providing content here and elsewhere as part of a team of contributors. I read a lot of blogs, obviously, I converse with a lot of bloggers, but I don't number myself among their company. Recently, however, I tried my hand at blogging in a half-hearted, experimental way and I think it's given me some valuable insights into the world of the regular, committed blogger.

My reasons for not blogging are not extensive or complicated; I simply don't have time. I have two small children at home, and when I'm not working, I'm with my family. What little spare time I do have I normally spend with my wife or on my hobbies. Blogging, I think, can be a two-edged sword — it can help bring you closer to your interests or take energy away from them. For me, I decided it was the latter and left it alone.

We had our second child five months ago. Anyone with a baby knows you spend a lot of time sitting still, doing nothing but holding said baby. You watch a bit more TV than you used to, or read if you're able. It was at this time that my mom and step-dad loaned me the complete DVD set of the old television show, Kung Fu.

You remember this show, right? On the air in 1972-75, David Carradine walking through the Old West as the half-occidental monk Kwai Chang Caine? Barefoot and kicking butt? Learning and loving and righting wrongs, all between flashbacks of his days in the Shaolin monastery at the feet (and fists) of Master Po and Master Kan? I love kung fu movies, and as a kid I loved this show. I hadn't seen it in years and was eager to learn if it was as good as I remembered. Baby asleep on chest, I slipped the first DVD into the player after my older child and wife had gone to bed. The show WAS as good as I remembered. No, it was BETTER.

I went on with my life. I gleefully continued working my way through the series after everyone went to bed and I lay on the couch with our infant. I talked with my parents about it — I talked with everyone about it. I felt the show was deep, out of its time, a literary and cultural milestone in pop culture history. But nobody in my immediate circle was really watching it that way. My folks liked it, sure, and we chatted about it, but nobody wanted to sit down and discuss it with me the length and breadth of which I wanted. Not that I would have had time for such a discussion, anyway!

So then it hit me: this is how blogs get started, precisely because you have something to say and want to say so in a lasting way, to leave your mark in the form of the written word, to give voice for your feelings and have some reaction in return. One night after the kids were asleep and I was doing some work on our home computer, I whimsically fired up blogger.com. I started a blog about the experience of watching Kung Fu, figuring I would try it for a while and abandon it if I couldn't keep up with it. KwaiChangCaine.blogspot.com was born.

Building the site took maybe a half hour. I slapped up a few links, made a blogroll, and wrote my first post. I sat at my desk in the dark and stared at the computer. Suddenly, I was one of them. Suddenly, I had joined the conversation. Perhaps because the Internet moves at nearly the speed of thought, I expected some kind of instant feedback, a celebration, perhaps a lone comment at 1 a.m.: "Great new site! I think I speak for all kung fu and daddy bloggers when I say we are looking forward to more content from you!"

Of course, nothing happened.

Nothing happened when I looked at the blog again a few days later. I e-mailed a few other "Kung Fu" web sites to let them know about my blog. One of them added it to his resources page. I wrote a few more posts. Nothing much happened.

If the blog were a bigger outlet for me, I certainly would have done more to promote it, to network with like bloggers, exchange links, send pings, stuff like that. But because it was an experiment, I have let it whither. The most important thing for me, though, was that it let me get inside the skin of a blogger a little. I spend a lot of time communicating to bloggers on behalf of our clients without ever being one of them. Now, I think I have a better idea of what it's like to be on the other side of the keyboard.

• 1. Blogs get started because somebody has something to say, whether it is about the everyday, the huge, the personal, the universal, the eclectic or a combination of things. The theme to my blog could have morphed into "stuff I watch on TV while the baby sleeps on me."


• 2. Blogging is lonely, or can be. Certainly, some bloggers want no contact from PR firms and the like. They want to be left alone. But even those bloggers are part of a network of similar bloggers; they have friends. Except when we stuff a half-completed rough draft into a desk drawer, nobody wants to write something that no one will read. Blogs communicate.


• 3. Blogs want new readers and they welcome the overtures — if polite — of companies like ours. As a Kung Fu blogger I certainly would welcome, say, a nice note from the makers of the DVD set, info about other, related products such as books and movies, an invitation to collaborate on TV-related promotions. I would pass on news about David Carradine or a new coffee-table book on the show — especially if I got a copy of the coffee-table book on the show!

This isn't the time to rehash the already well-covered dos and don'ts of blog-based PR but it is a reminder that blogs are fertile ground for companies that want to respect them and empower them. Our own work, which involves dozens of bloggers with whom we regularly communicate and a handful that are on a respectful "do not pitch" list, attests to this.

So, uh, please read my kung fu blog, ok? Kidding!

Posted by staff at 09:37 AM
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January 11, 2007

Kodak enjoys the digital moment

When I saw this video on YouTube, I loved it right away. The video's summary is perfect:

"This is a commercial that was produced for internal use. But it has become so popular, especially with employees, that Kodak has released it for external viewing. It demonstrates that Kodak not only understands it's changing business but also has a sense of humor. "

Not only does Kodak understand its changing business, the company also appears to understand where it needs to be, such as involvement with YouTube.

Unfortunately, I'm one of those individuals who owned an Advantix camera (you'll see what I mean after watching the video.). It seemed like a great idea at the time...

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:38 PM
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January 05, 2007

Tag, we're it

We were tagged on the Internet playground by Mike's Points for a "I bet you didn't this about me" meme. Since we have a cast of different authors here on BlogWorks, I thought I'd ask some of them for one fun fact...

Alicia Dorset: "I'm one of the founding members of Handmade Detroit, a craft/artist collective. We host the annual Detroit Urban Craft Fair."

Charlie Kondek: "I'm a third-degree black belt or 'san-dan' in kendo."

Chris Clonen: "I was a huge Islander fan growning up on Long Island."

Kai Blum: "None of my co-workers knew (until now) that I have a blog called 'My Dog Looks Like A Celebrity.'" This is true, I had no idea, Kai.

David Binkowski: "I was always taller than most of my classmates. This allowed certain "perks", among them the ability to earn money at the young age of 12 as a caddy. I was able to carry two bags at once, which got me a spot working with the international golf federation.

So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddie, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dali Lama, himself.

Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald — striking.

So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one — big hitter, the Lama — long, into a 10,000-foot crevice, right at the base of this glacier. And do you know what the Lama says? 'Gunga galunga — gunga, gunga galunga.'

So we finish 18, and he’s gonna stiff me. And I say, 'HEY! LAMA! HEY! How about a little something, you know, for the effort? You know.'

And he says, 'Oh, uh, there won’t be any money. But when you die, on your death bed, you will receive total consciousness.'

So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice." Thanks, Bill Murray!

I was never very good at picking kids for my kickball team in elementary school, so feel free to tag yourself and leave us a comment with things we might not know about you.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 01:06 PM
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December 13, 2006

Making room for the next generation

By Charlie Kondek

I have been contacted three times in as many weeks by college students seeking information on the PR field and the role of Hass MS&L in it. I make it my policy to always talk to students in cases like these. I thought it was interesting that students were seeking information and insights like this in the first place, but then I thought I might share with you the kinds of questions I was being asked, and how I answered. I got the student's permission to post the following content (edited, so as to give a general rather than exact impression of the exchange). I'd like to hear what you think of her questions and my answers. The resourceful student was going to use this material in a paper she was writing for a PR class. She also, wisely, concluded our correspondence in a way that left an impression, leaving open the idea of her doing an internship or the like. (That's a lot savvier than I was at her age.)

Student: What is the medium you use the most in your work?

Kondek: PR professionals still prefer to get their clients' message out via print and broadcast, but online PR is becomingly increasingly important. I work in a part of MS&L that specializes in online outreach. Event-based PR is also important. Personally, I'd say that PR firms as a whole are still behind the times a bit, in that most prefer to place stories via print, broadcast and through event-based PR, saving only a small portion of their budgets for what could be beneficial online tactics.

My office specializes in those tactics: we conduct outreach on behalf of our clients to blogs and other web sites, podcasts and at message boards and the like. Often this takes the form of putting product into the hands of bloggers so that bloggers will try the product and tell their readers what they thought of it. We also call that Word of Mouth Marketing. The kinds of blogs we regularly do this with are mom/dad blogs, tech/gadget blogs, food blogs, and others. We also use YouTube and other resources in innovative, communicative ways. Some examples of stories we have placed or online things we have created are:

• Philips Electronics Hates The Clock Rule, Too
  
• Countdown to Father's Day

Student: What is your audience when using online tactics? Do you specialize in one field?

Kondek: MS&L has offices all over the U.S., so it actually has quite a few specialties. The Detroit office of MS&L, for instance, also specializes in automotive PR, and our New York office specializes in consumer products. We have used online PR for consumer products, health care, automotive, electronics and technology, and food, for the most part. We're usually trying to either affect a purchase decision or communicate a concept, so the audience varies.

Student: Is it easy to calculate the ROI with this medium?

Kondek: I hope they are teaching you this in school: ROI is highly subjective, and everybody has different ways of calculating it. (Tell your prof I said that, see if he/she agrees.) Further, many PR professionals use subjective ROI methods to justify what they are doing for their clients. However, it's an important question, and this is how we do it: we provide our clients with a number of impressions. By impressions we mean the number of people who potentially saw their message, the size of the audience. We also stress to our clients that online impressions differ from print, broadcast and event impressions. With a print impression estimate, you can't be sure that everyone saw your story. With an online impression, you can be more certain.

Let me explain: let's say you place a story in a newspaper. That newspaper is read by 30,000 people, so you tell your client that each of those 30,000 copies passed through three sets of hands, and ring up 90,000 hits. While that’s a safe way to return some ROI, nobody really thinks the story got read that many times. On the other hand, let's say you place a story at a BLOG with 8,000 readers. Chances are good that most of those 8,000 read your story, because blog readers function differently than print readers. And blog content is different, too. It can be linked out or accessed by search engines or it can morph in various directions. Take a look at that YouTube link above — it shows Philips Electronics prototypes, and has 50,000 views. That's 50,000 people who not only watched the video, but who were searching for info when they found it.

And the best part? Things on the internet don't go away, they turn up again and again as people search for them. The next time someone searches for info on a product or company, they may find a story we placed. We work with some of the same bloggers and web editors over and over again so we can give a good estimate in advance of the kinds of audiences we can create.

Student: What are some drawbacks to tools like blogs, webcasts, podcasts (i.e., content issues, lack of control...)?

Kondek: Bloggers are not professional journalists, normally, so they sometimes react to messages in unexpected ways. We always expect an honest review of something we send to someone, but sometimes a blogger will take something the wrong way and publicly — and personally — slam our client or us. Talk about "lack of control!" Also, we are dealing with lower numbers of readers with blogs, lower number of listeners with podcasts. Still, we feel it all adds up to a positive. But while there is a sense of new potential there, it doesn’t work for everything. For example, you may have a product or event that people just aren't interested in. No amount of cajoling is going to get them to talk about it.

Student: What trends are forming in the industry regarding tech and Internet technologies?

Kondek: People are doing very innovative things with cell phones and texting. Podcasts are growing - there are a small number of listeners now but that will change dramatically. The key is that people are no longer allowing themselves to passively receive information and entertainment. They go out and get it, or create it, or both. The challenge to PR firms and their clients is to join this landscape by giving people something they want, not disrupt it by giving them something they don't want. For example, people are able to watch an event on TV or in person and "liveblog" it (blog/message about it at the same time). Being a part of that is an important goal to PR professionals and their clients, both of which are still waking up to this kind of method.

Student: Are there language or culture barriers that disallow global use of these new mediums?

They don't disallow use of the medium but they can be a challenge! For us, though, this has meant conducting our tactics in multiple languages. In fact, we've had to learn how different countries use the Internet. Take blogging, for example. It’s very popular in North America, England, France and Japan. Growing in China. Central and South America, not so much.

Posted by staff at 02:18 PM
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November 23, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanks to this post from Boing Boing this past May, you can enjoy these vintage Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade photos, posted over at Swapatorium, after a long day of turkey consumption.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:52 AM
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November 22, 2006

Vlogging politics

By Chris Clonen

On my drive into work this morning, a news program that discussed the future of British politics and how blogging might be a deciding factor in the country’s upcoming elections intrigued me. Conservative Party members in the U.K. are using the same strategies to get their message out that we use every day to get our clients noticed—the blogosphere.

The party’s young leader, David Cameron, has surfaced in every internet-capable home in the U.K. The ambitious politician’s video blog, or vlog, www.webcameron.org.uk, contains videos of the party leader at home with his kids, working late at night, and discussing issues facing British citizens. Throwing the proverbial gauntlet down within the blogosphere is not a new approach for conveying a political agenda, but this puts a new spin on the battle for public office.

By taking the politician out of the esoteric halls of parliament and revealing his personal life for all to see, British citizens can relate to the person they recognize on their monitors. They too have kids; they also have to make breakfast in the morning; they also bring work home and are tired at the end of the day. And what better way to show that those running for office are human, feel the same way you do, bleed when they are pricked, but by inviting them into your house for a proper cup of tea?

Vlogging could be one of the new approaches to winning office here in the U.S for the 2008 elections. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, or any of the party frontrunners, may use their own vlogs to get their message out. They could be at home explaining why they are the best candidates. We can enter their study on a Tuesday night, listening to them speak about their concerns not just about war, but about their daily lives, putting dinner on the table, discussing latest book they read, and how they worry about their children—scriptless and from the heart. We can share experiences and personally interact with those we elect to represent us.

This is where we come in.

The political parties are looking for new and innovative ways in which to persuade the American public that their message is the right one. We can help. We have the capabilities of producing video blogs, just like David Cameron, in which to change political sound bites into personal words from home. Maybe our next clients are not just those with products that clean our houses, but those with ambitions to clean house in the next race for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:40 PM
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November 10, 2006

Got the flu? Spread it around...

By Chris Clonen

Not the flu itself, but information about the flu and how to prevent it; and not around the office, but in the virtual world.

At least that’s what the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention is hoping you will do on your next visit to Second Life.

The CDC recently took a chance and launched its message into SL. Instead of the typical media outreach, the CDC decided to create something novel — a presence in Second Life’s virtual world to promote the significance of disease prevention.

This exciting venture from the Department of Health and Human Services features a modest, two-level property, furnished with educational posters and links to web libraries full of information. It’s a portal that discusses real disease prevention issues within a virtual foundation. You can even instant message an avatar named Hygeia Philo, who in real life is John Anderton. He’s the person responsible for bringing the CDC to Second Life. If you have any queries concerning the inner workings of the government agency, along with questions about diseases and where to find information on prevention, he’s the one.

This venture has yet to be called a success, but the idea that government agencies are joining the ranks of social media gurus by opening its doors to the virtual public is something to take notice of and learn from. The CDC’s job is the same as ours — to get the message heard.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 11:53 AM
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November 08, 2006

Comedy Central: a now-credible news source

I usually read Comedy Central's CC Insider blog to find out what I missed on last night's episode of "The Colbert Report" or to see if new Demetri Martin, youth correspondent for "The Daily Show," video clips have been posted. You can imagine my surprise when I checked in on the blog today and found that they'd scooped ALL mainstream media Tuesday night when they predicted the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The buzz I'm hearing from a friend, and a totally unconfirmed White House source (remember Comedy Central doesn't have journalistic standards), is that Rumsfeld will be out of the administration tomorrow. This is a shocker even to the totally unnamed source in the White House. Already, we are seeing reports of a White House Press conference scheduled for tomorrow at 1 p.m. Could this be it?

"Token Conservative" to the blog Michael Brendan Dougherty posted the news just after midnight Wednesday. Shortly after President Bush's announcement at 1 p.m. today, Dougherty's news tip proved to be correct. CC Insider posted a blow-by-blow account of the story, with a tone that made it seem like they were amazed, too. The Detroit Free Press even included a brief on the blog break with its report on the resignation.

"How could this be?" many traditional journalists must be asking themselves. Good question.

Dougherty was in the political know and, more importantly, is an active blogger ready to post at a moment's notice, once again reinforcing the power of the citizen journalist, or in this case, the citizen blogger.

Gawker sent out its own congratulations to the blogosphere with this quote:

Nice work, media! You got scooped by the folks who write web promos for Mind of Mencia!

And in case you were wondering, CC Insider included a special "Mind of Mencia" web-only promo with their Rumsfeld-wrap post.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:47 PM
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October 30, 2006

Comedy Central Yanks Daily Show Clips

By Charlie Kondek

BoingBoing reports that Comedy Central has ordered clips of The Daily Show removed from YouTube for copyright violation. As we have said often in the past, online resources like YouTube extend the life of a brand, and Daily Show clips are among the most heavily viewed content on the site. Ordering these clips removed not only damages the show's brand but takes wind out of the sails of the grass-roots activity that have helped make this show such a phenomenon in the first place. One blog reader even explains why using YouTube is preferable to watching clips on Comedy Central's own site.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:28 PM
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October 18, 2006

Blogs keep baseball fans informed

It's an exciting time in Detroit right now as we wait for the World Series to begin this weekend, featuring our Tigers and yet-to-be-named challenger. It's been 22 years since the Tigers' trip to the 1984 World Series and victory, so fans are understandably eager.

...But with a few days to go before the series starts, what's the best way to keep up to date with the latest from the MLB? Fan blogs. Take a look at some of these devoted Detroit Tiger bloggers and see how they're keeping themselves busy, and keeping readers informed, as they wait for Game 1.

• The Detroit TIger Weblog: Combinging his love of the Tigers, baseball, and writing, Bill Ferris has been covering the Tigers for the past five years online. One of his most recent entries, Killing Time, sums up how many Tiger fans are feeling this week.
• Tiger Blog: Brian Borawski provides a good voice on this blog with enough facts, scores, and charts from around the leagues to keep any devoted Tiger content.
• Mack Avenue Tigers: I appreciated Kurt's recent thoughts on how a World Series appearance is so much more than just a baseball game for the city of Detroit.
• Bless You Boys: A Detroit Tigers Blog: If there was a more perfect name for a Tigers' fan blog, I can't think of it...

Looking at these dedicated Tiger bloggers reminds that there really is a blog out there for everyone.

If the blogs aren't enough to keep your World Series needs satisfied until Saturday, take a look at this clip from Game 4 of the American League series. With more than 15,000 views on YouTube, you can bet it's been keeping web-savvy Tigers fans happy, including yours truly.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 01:32 PM
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October 10, 2006

YouTube, Google join forces

What would be the best way for YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen to announce their site had been purchased by Google for $1.65 billion? By posting a YouTube video response, of course.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:31 PM
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September 22, 2006

Using the web in times of crisis

The recent outbreak of E. coli in packaged bags of spinach has caused concern across the country as cases of food poisoning continue to be reported. However, companies who sell spinach have been turning to their own web sites to adress those worries and keep consumers up to date on the latest news.

Earthbound Farm, whose spinach has been contaminated, has transformed its press section to an outbreak update area, providing the latest findings from health officials.

Dole, one of the leading distributors of packaged salads, has a special section on its homepage that sends readers to a statement about the recall and tells them how to avoid any possibly contaminated products. Dole even has a sponsored link on Google that sends searchers to their site for E. coli information.

National retailer Whole Foods has put together a special section as well, as they carry some of the brands in question.

Andy Boy's homepage has been replaced with a special landing page that consumers see before being redirected to the official corporate site. The statement notes that Andy Boy doesn't sell spinach, but reminds consumers to take precautions with all kinds of ready-made foods, and offers a suggestion of how to replace spinach in recipes with their other products.

By providing readily accessible nformation, and simply acknowledging the problem, these companies have taken a step in the right direction in terms of following good PR practices when it comes to keeping their customers safe.

Food companies aren't the only ones using the web for up-to-the-minute updates:

• The Food and Drug Administration's top "Hot Topic" on their homepage is the E. coli outbreak, and the link sends readers to a page with the latest press releases.
• Blogs are devoting informative posts to the topic as well, as this story from the Food Poisoning Law Blog shows.
• And if you type "Natural Selection Foods" into a Google search, the ad that shows up first is for a law firm asking, "Have you been affected by a foodborne illness?"

Whether it's a company homepage, goverment site or even a blog, the use of the Internet as a public safety tool in times of a potential life-threatening crisis is just another example of how important it is to remember the web in any successful PR game plan.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:21 PM
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September 19, 2006

Speak like an Internet Pirate

Did you now that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day? No? Well, "ARRRRRR!" to you then!

For the past decade, John Baur (Ol' Chumbucket) and Mark Summers (Cap'n Slappy) have been helping friends across the globe find their inner pirates with the September holiday.

The concept took off after well-known columnist Dave Barry wrote about it back in 2002 (subscription required) in the Miami Herald, and continues to grow today thanks to his blog. Just one look at Barry's postings for today show that his support for the holiday has never been greater, as he simply writes:

ARRRRRRRRRRR!

(Make sure to read the comments.)

Barry isn't the only one showing his support for pirate speak online. Comedy Central's CC Insider blog takes a moment to tell the "truth" about pirates.

However, we would be remiss to not mention a cause that is dear to our hearts: educating people on the true nature of pirates. The Hollywood spin machine, in its infinite wisdom, has spent decades lying to the public about the ways that pirates lived their lives and conducted their business, turning sea-faring rogues into romantic anti-heros.

The Boston Globe has a fun poll in their arts and entertainment section to see how well you know your pirate lingo.

Want to work on your pirate speak? Take a look at this YouTube clip, courtesy of Cap'n Slappy:

Need more practice? Take a look at what these YouTubers have to offer:

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day. Yarrrrr!

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:20 PM
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September 14, 2006

The future of entertainment or just a clever vlog?

That's what MSNBC is wondering after YouTube personality "lonelygirl15" was exposed as a hoax this week. That lonely girl is really Jessica Rose, a 19-year-old aspiring actress who has been broadcasting from her bedroom to YouTube for the past three months, courtesy of three equally aspiring screenwriters.

LG15 had a simple story — she was an average 16-year-old American girl, bored out of her mind thanks to a small town and being homeschooled by her parents. She supposedly created entries on her family, her friend Daniel (seen in clips) and even religion. Since her very first vlog, YouTube users have been criticizing the one- to two-minute clips as fake, citing the polished look, good use of music, seamless editing, and, well, her eyebrows...

"are you ACTING ??? you sound like you are....are your eyebrows real ???"

OK, she was acting. Rose is actually originally from New Zealand and currently living in Los Angeles. Whether her next move is to Hollywood is still up in the air.

While the backlash from YouTube users was quick, just as many fans were still supportive of LG15. Even while posts began circulating trying to prove the whole thing had been a hoax, other comments on her videos and even her Myspace page encouraged her to keep up the good work.

Should we feel upset by hoax? This YouTube user thinks not:

"Because when this was new 3 months ago it wasn't in the papers, people thought it was all real. They were trying to fool us and worked on a lot of people. Anyone who shows up now saying "Who cares if it's fake?" Missed the boat, because it was fun trying to figure the whole thing out. Sorry you don't get it now, you're late."

LG15 got thousands of viewers to watch and comment on her ongoing teenage saga, so she must have been doing something right. But was this really such a big deal? She wasn't a company trying to sell something. In reality, she was trying to sell herself as an actress looking for the next big part.

Jane Wells from MSNBC summed up her report on LG15 best:

"But is there a movie here? Or do some things work better in two minutes on YouTube rather than two hours at the Cineplex. Yet to surface is the actress herself, who’s gone Greta Garbo as the Lonelygirl saga figures out how not to blow the next move."

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:16 PM
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September 13, 2006

How to monitor Wikipedia

By Kai Blum

Steve Rubel confirmed what we already knew: companies should pay attention to what is being said about them on Wikipedia. Of course, any high-quality web monitoring service – one that informs clients where to locate information that has the potential of damaging their reputation – has Wikipedia on its radar, in addition to other community-driven online media, including message boards, blogs, video and picture sharing sites, etc.

Based on my experience, Wikipedia should be monitored:

• frequently, since entries can be created and changed at any time
  
• thoroughly, because damaging information can not only be found on the pages about an organization and its products, but on other pages as well
  
• multilingually, since there are Wikipedia versions in many languages and content varies greatly between the various Wikipedia sites
  
• topically, prioritized by known issues. If there are complaints about certain problems in other online communities, then there’s a great chance that something similar will be posted on Wikipedia.

This monitoring should be done by experienced media analysts, whose skills allow them to identify the most relevant information - better than any software package could do. They should also be able to recommend a strategy to their clients to counter inaccurate information about them found on Wikipedia or in other online communities.

Posted by staff at 12:30 PM
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September 07, 2006

Facebook wants to help members. Honestly.

I hadn't logged into Facebook for a few weeks, but when I received an e-mail telling me I'd been invited to a birthday party for my brother I knew nothing about, I checked in on my account right away. Needless to say I was surprised last night to see RSS-like news feeds reporting on the most mundane of updates on college friends, including an alert letting people know I had "become friends" with a former co-worker of mine from Michigan State University. What the?!

Enter Facebook's site redesign, complete with "news feeds" and "mini-feeds."

Facebook's attempt to keep members up to date was met with a HUGE backlash and even created anti-feed groups, such as the "Students Against the Facebook News Feed," complete with an online petition to stop the new features. Take a look at the group's mission:

"You went a bit too far this time, facebook. Very few of us want everyone automatically knowing what we update. We want to feel just a LITTLE bit of privacy, even if it is facebook. News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go.

We demand that either the feature goes, or that we have an option to remove ourselves from the feature. Nothing people write on our walls, or what we write, or what we update goes up on the "News Feed." These are small demands of your users, but we are here to complain and protect our privacy.

I know it's odd to protest facebook through facebook, but this perhaps is the best way for them to get the message.

Until this feature is removed or changed to protect my privacy, I WILL NOT update my profile, and I hope you will too.

So join here, and you're part of the petition to remove the most undelightful feature to have ever hit facebook."

This uproar isn't good news for popular Facebook. According to the Wall Street Journal, the online social site has more than 9 million members, had 6.1 million page views in July and is one of the 10 most viewed sites on the web.

Much to the dismay of Facebook, the anti-feed groups and backlash from members have been picked up by just about every MSM outlet as well as blogs across the globe. The topic was the top story on the WSJ's Marketplace section today and due to vandalism over at Wikipedia, is no longer open for public editing.

Adding insult to injury is the response from Facebook itself. WIth a blog post tile of "Calm down. Breathe. We hear you.," you can imagine how well that was received by the mad users. Take a look at part of Mark Zuckerberg's blog post in response to the controversy:

"We’re not oblivious of the Facebook groups popping up about this (by the way, Ruchi is not the devil). And we agree, stalking isn’t cool; but being able to know what’s going on in your friends’ lives is. This is information people used to dig for on a daily basis, nicely reorganized and summarized so people can learn about the people they care about. You don’t miss the photo album about your friend’s trip to Nepal. Maybe if your friends are all going to a party, you want to know so you can go too. Facebook is about real connections to actual friends, so the stories coming in are of interest to the people receiving them, since they are significant to the person creating them."

It's probably a good thing the blog doesn't show comments posted on this entry... I was disappointed with the response from the company as it seemed to almost talk-down to its users and make them feel as if they should be grateful for the new service they clearly down't want.

Overall, I couldn't agree more with the angry users. The feature crosses the line of being useful; it's too invasive. Facebook should have allowed members to sign up for the feature and make it a tool they could customize to personal interests.

But who knows, maybe I should be happy for the feature. How else would I have learned about my brother's birthday party?

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:09 PM
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August 24, 2006

NBC keeps fans' attention high

MIssing your weekly fix of The Office on NBC due to summer reruns? Fear not! Luckily TV's favorite accountants are keeping fans entertained and patiently waiting for the third season of the hit primetime sitcom.

With just two episodes left for the summer, the weekly webisodes are NBC's answer to online video content that is available on their site only. The accountants have been on the case to find out just who stole $3,000 from the office petty cash. (Hint: They know it's their boss, Michael Scott.)

The webisodes aren't the only online content available to fans. Fake public service announcements, deleted scenes, teaser trailers for the fall and even a photo blog of Dwight as a bobblehead doll are just some of the popular features.

Earlier this year NBC fought against YouTube after a Saturday Night Live skit appeared on the site, only to strike a deal with the popular video-sharing destination just a few months after.

I'm glad to see NBC has realized the popularity of media-sharing sites and giving extra content for their popular programs. By having so much new content available while the show is off for the summer, the casual viewer will be more likely to tune in this September to see what happens next in Pennsylvania's favorite workplace.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:38 PM
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August 03, 2006

Fosters beer — Welcome to 2006!

By David Binkowski

Today's Journal (subscription required) reports that Fosters beer is pulling its advertising budget from TV and going to spend its entire TV budget on online ads. The reason for the change?

Many marketers, increasingly uncertain about the value of TV advertising, are looking at other media. That shift is particularly marked for advertisers such as Foster's that target young men, a group that is watching less TV and playing computer games or spending time on the Internet instead.

My hope is that they're not just creating banner ads and creating lame Flash games but actually plan on interacting with their users online... which, of course, falls outside of the advertising realm and into PR. Sigh.

Tagged: Fosters, advertising

Posted by staff at 01:54 PM
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August 01, 2006

Wikipedia and truthiness

In the last week, the New Yorker and Stephen Colbert have both explored Wikipedia and the meaning of truth.

New Yorker writer Stacy Schiff, in an article that prints out in nine pages, looked at Wikipedia’s genesis, its ever-increasing breadth, and its relationship to the truth. If you’ve ever checked out Wikipedia on a subject you’re intimately familiar with, you know its shortcomings:

Glaring errors jostle quiet omissions. [Founder Jimmy] Wales, in his public speeches, cites the Google test: ‘If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist. This position poses another difficulty: on Wikipedia, the present takes precedent over the past. The (generally good) entry on St. Augustine is shorter than the one on Britney Spears. … Wikipedia remains a lumpy work in progress.

Here’s what the Encyclopædia Britannica’s president, Jorge Cauz, has to say about its competitor: “Wikipedia is to Britannica as ‘American Idol’ is to the Juillard School.” Wikipedia’s founder Wales counters, “Wikipedia is to Britannica as rock and roll is to easy listening. It may not be as smooth, but it scares the parents and is a lot smarter in the end.”

The last WØRD goes to Colbert, whose word last night was “wikiality,” which is a lot like truthiness.

Colbert applauded Wikipedia for subjecting facts to majority rule. “What we’re doing is bringing democracy to knowledge,” he said. He closed by encouraging viewers to take the truth into their own hands and talk back to environmentalists.“Find the page on elephants in Wikipedia," he said, "and create an entry that says the number of elephants has tripled in the last six months.”

This morning, the entry on elephants carried a note at the top: “Because of recent vandalism or other disruption, editing of this article by anonymous or newly registered users is disabled (see semi-protection policy).”

Posted by Laurie Mayers at 03:15 PM
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July 26, 2006

NewAssignment.Net takes shape

With its long description of what this unique, journalism community is all about, NewAssignment.Net can best be summed up in one short sentence:

In simplest terms, a way to fund high-quality, original reporting, in any medium, through donations to a non-profit called NewAssignment.Net.

Jay Rosen, of PressThink, announced the concept yesterday to generate buzz and get great minds to start thinking.

"Enterprise reporting goes pro-am. Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn’t, couldn’t or didn’t," Rosen states on the web site. "They raise the money too. Q and A explains. There's $10,000 to test it, courtesy of Craig Newmark."

While NewAssignment is still just an idea, the blogosphere is already buzzing about it.

"I think this is an important experiment in pro-am, publicly supported, open journalism," said Jeff Jarvis in a recent post. " We must explore new business models to support coverage of news and this is one of them. I’m an enthusiastic supporter of NewAssignment and I look forward to working with Jay and you on it and learning a lot along the way."

I'm also excited to see where this idea goes. Bloggers are an important, and almost always, unrecognized group. By giving them the power and the tools to get the important stories out to the greater public, I can see only good things for the future of "the press." I'll be looking forward to see where these stories end up and how traditional media outlets embrace them.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:02 PM
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July 25, 2006

Rock stars make for lousy passwords

When readers checked in on music blog Stereogum last week, they saw a message claiming the blog had been hacked. The dialogue between the hacker and Scott, Stereogum host, claimed the blog's server had been exploited and that the password SUFJAN, for indie music hero Sufjan Stevens, was a poor choice for a password.

Naturally, Scott's loyal blog followers were concerned. His Myspace page filled with comments wondering what was going on. So what exactly happened? It was a hoax. Kind of.

Turns out Scott wrote the dialogue himself in response to his server being compromised. In a post on July 22, Scott explained what really happened.

"The truth is our server was "compromised." Whatever the f*$% that means. That's what our hosting company said. Almost certainly the work of a bot leeching on our RAM. Or the person sending nasty missives from Firecrotch's CrackBerry. Or someone who hates indie rock a cappella.

The sorta-hack even grabbed the attention of the folks over at Gawker, with the headline of, "Corporate Websites Too Irrelevant to Hack."

With the hack behind Stereogum, it didn't take long for readers to start requesting "PERHAPS SUFJAN WAS A POOR PASSWORD" T-shirts.

• definitely would buy a Sufjan/Password shirt.
  
• I'll third-or-so on that Sufjan/password shirt. Glad you're back.
  
• i also require a sufjan/password shirt. to the printers with you!
  
• sufjan tees all around

And just as soon as the T-shirt requests went out, the Flickr photo prototypes came in.

As Blogebrity discussed, the true signs of a hip blogging superstar are a T-shirt and personalized Flickr photo set. Who knows what kind of merchandise is in store for Stereogum the next time the server is compromised...

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:50 PM
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July 20, 2006

The importance of research

There's been a lot said recently about the launch of Dell's new blog and its approach to content, but what I've been reading up on is how the blog's name seems to be all too close to the name of a pornography "live chat" site, one2one.com. (Feel free to visit the site at your own risk...)

This immediately reminded me of the infamous whitehouse.com/whitehouse.gov mix-up from a few years back that also lead unsuspecting visitors to a pornography site.

This just reinforces the importance of doing some research, such as checking domain names, when starting a blog, web site, etc.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:40 PM
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July 19, 2006

Wal-Mart tries to "school your way"

In an attempt to jump into the social media world AND boost sales, Wal-Mart has launched The HUB, a limited-feature site aimed at teens ages 13-18 with the slogan "school you way." Advertising Age has an interesting, dead-on review, by Mya Frazier, of the new site that I couldn't agree with more: it's pretty boring.

"It just seemed kind of corny to me," Pete Hughes, 18, told the publication.

By registering on the site and creating a profile page, teens are eligible to win prizes or even appear in a Wal-Mart commercial if their submitted video on school fashion is a hit.

Unlike Myspace, which is now the No.1 U.S. web site over Google and Yahoo, The Hub has strict limitations on what kind of material and quotes kids are allowed to post on their profile page. All kids are left with are a headline, a song, and a photo. Once the profile is created, parents are notified (mom or dad's e-mail is required to make a page) electronically that their kids are on the site and have the option to take them out of The Hub.

"The second you try to create boundaries and draw a line around content and put a box around content, it becomes something else. Teens aren't searching for what a company deems relevant, but what they deem relevant," Tim Stock, a researcher with New York-based Scenario DNA, told Advertising Age. "You can't own it. When anyone tries to own it too much, then it becomes a problem. That's the impression I get on this site."

After spending a few minutes watching the all-too-fake sample videos on The Hub's homepage, I created a profile for myself. Using my real age, I wasn't allowed to create my profile page or participate in the contest because I was "too old." By creating another profile and saying I was born in 1991, I was allowed to pick my favorite outfit and state how I "school my way."

I found the site lacked a lot of excitement. Besides choosing from a few selected pieces of clothing for the "fashion quiz," the pages are very bland, which is funny considering it's all about "expressing your style." The extent of my personalization was limited to background and font colors that I noticed didn't even display properly on my monitor after I picked them. While reading the terms of use, I came across this:

"We have made every effort to display the colors of our products that appear on the Site as accurately as possible. However, as the actual colors you see will depend on your monitor, we cannot guarantee that your monitor's display of any color will be accurate."

I had problems loading the site and picking out my fashion quiz results. When you combine the lack of options and tech troubles, I can't imagine too many teens sticking around long enough to see their finished results. I understand why Wal-Mart feels the need to launch The Hub, but perhaps a site like this isn't the right platform for the discount-store giant to reach new consumers and retain the ones they're losing to other department store-like retailers, such as Target.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:57 PM
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July 12, 2006

Office Pirates lend a hand to Rocketboom

The folks over at Office Pirates are working hard to help Rocketboom find a replacement for the recently departed Amanda Congdon, host of the daily vlog. Here's their suggestion:

(When not auditioning new Rocketboom hosts, Office Pirates offers daily blog updates and video clips on life inside the office cubicle.)

While Congdon is no longer with Rocketboom, she's keeping fans updated on her own blog, complete with her side of what happened between her and former business partner Andrew Baron. Congdon left the show last week after a dispute with Baron over control of the popular video site.

Joanne Colan, a former VJ on MTV Europe, is currently filling in as the show's temporary host.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:26 PM
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July 11, 2006

bLaugh wants to make the blogosphere a funnier place

Everyone can use a good laugh now and then, and bloggers are no exception. At least that's the philosophy behind bLaugh, the "(un)Official Comic of the Blogosphere."

"bLaugh is already being called a… 'MAD Magazine for the Blogosphere,'" the web site states. "But since our moms are the ones who said that, it doesn’t really count. What us, worry?"

With Chris Pirillo serving as writer and Brad Fitzpatrick as artist, the blogosphere's A-list stars and sites are subject to attack. So far comics have featured Steve Rubel, TechCrunch and Jeff Jarvis.

Launched at the end of June, GoDaddy-sponsored bLaugh allows readers to share the comics by providing HTML code with every cartoon for reposting. RSS feeds keep fans in the loop.

So bloggers, beware.

"If you blog, or your name (brand) is getting tossed around in the blogosphere, you’re on our radar."

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:47 PM
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July 10, 2006

YouTube introduces ads on video site

MediaPost reported last week that YouTube launched its first ad from a national marketer on the site ever with the debut of Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" on July 7.

The banner ad featured a "countdown" clock to the movie's launch and lasted only 24 hours. Julie Supan, YouTube's director of marketing, told MediaPost that the promotion marked the first time the site not only ran ads from a national brand, but were graphic as well.

The "Pirates" ad marks a new direction for marketing on YouTube as more advertising on the site is in the works. Supan told MediaPost that a new ad team is working across the country to recruit national advertisers.

"Lots of advertisers are contacting YouTube now, because they better recognize the opportunity it presents," Supan said to MediaPost.

I'm curious to see where YouTube is headed with advertising on the site and how some users will react to the new component.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:54 PM
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June 28, 2006

Comedy Central reaches out to Myspace

Even Comedy Central needs friends.

The cable comedy channel posted on their blog, Comedy Central Insider, a call for friends on their Myspace page. As their blog pleaded:

"1633 friends just aren't enough. Won't you be our friend on MySpace?"

By the end of the day on Wednesday, they were up to just 1,641.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 04:47 PM
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June 22, 2006

AOL "customer service" video storms blogosphere

You've got mail, AOL? More like you've got customer service problems and a public relations nightmare.

The blogosphere has been abuzz with the video clip of former AOL user Vincent Ferrari trying to cancel his account with frustrating results. (Take a look at the bottom of this post for the video.) During the more-than-20-minute call, Ferrari asks repeatedly to end his account of several years while remaining calm and polite. The same can't be said for the AOL customer service representative, identified only as "John." At one point in the coversation, John tells Ferrari he's making a big mistake that he'll regret later in life.

In an interview with Matt Lauer on MSNBC, Ferrari, who purposedly remained polite to prove a point, decided to record the conversation since so many visistors to his blog had expressed their frustrated encounters with customer service representatives, but never did anything about it.

"One way or another, it was going to prove a point," Ferrari told Lauer during the interview.

Since the video's release and discussion on his blog, Ferrari's site has been flooded with traffic in addition to blogs of all kinds discussing the subject and similar problems with AOL.

AOL did issue an official apology to Ferrari and stated that the employee in question no longer works for the company.

"At AOL, we have zero-tolerance for customer care incidents like this — which is deeply regrettable and also absolutely inexcusable," Nicholas Graham, executive vice president of communications at AOL, told Ferrari in his letter.

Ferrari has used his blog to provide video clips of interviews, letters from AOL and discussion from commenters on the problems of the Internet giant's customer service. This case is another great example of how blogs and bloggers can use their soapbox to take control of situations where they might have felt powerless in the past. Unfortunately for AOL, having the tape circulated around the Internet isn't helping win any sympathy points from frustrated users. Ferrari's call to AOL and blog response are setting themselves up to be textbook examples of how to handle customer service in today's new media age.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 03:47 PM
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June 21, 2006

Blogging outside the brand lines

The name says it all. If you're into beer, no matter what brand, then you'll want to check out Miller Brewing Company's new blog on the brewing industry. Miller launched the blog last month. In a twist on company blogs, it covers a variety of topics regarding the entire industry, not just news and events that pertain to Miller.

Buy it or Die! couldn't agree more with the blog's launch as an industry-wide commentary.

"In what I see as a major advance for blogs emanating from large packaged goods companies, BrewBlog from Miller Brewing Company, provides daily analysis, commentary and some original reporting on the current state of the alcohol-beverage industry."

Whereas a blog dealing just with Miller press releases and products might have turned away faithful Budweiser lovers and the average reader in general, anyone geniunely interested in the latest industry updates will find posts that catch their interest, resulting in more traffic for Miller and a perception that they are dedicated to promoting the best for brewers.

"We want this site to be the home of an active and informed dialogue about the American beer business," the web site says in its 'Putting Your Own Mark on Brew'" section.

According to a report in AdPulp, the blog is run by Jim Arndorfer, a reporter who covered the beer industry for years. Other stories come courtesy of contributors or recent news reports.

In addition to the new blog, Miller publishes Brew magazine, a publication that also covers industry news.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:12 PM
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June 13, 2006

AT&T, Austin City Limits look for perfect music blogger

AT&T and the Austin City Limits music festival want you! To be a music blogger, that is.

The communications giant is sponsoring the Be Our Field Blogger contest in an attempt to find the ultimate music lover, who just happens to know a thing or two about blogging, and reach out to younger audiences in touch with the entertainment world.

“Think you've got what it takes to hang out in a field in the middle of a Texas summer with nothing but good tunes, good food and good drinks to sustain you? Then send us your best attempt at what us pros like to call ‘music blogging,’” the web site states.

The grand prize is hard to pass up if you’re a music buff; in addition to the basics (plane tickets and a hotel room), the chosen blogger will receive a press pass for themselves as well as a three-day guest pass for a friend.

“Equal parts review and observation, your writing style needs to evoke the passion, the emotion and the fanaticism that comes with multi-day music festivals,” the web site says.

Judging the entries will be music-blogging superstars Stereogum, Scenestars, Chromewaves and Largehearted Boy. I like the idea of using bloggers to judge the entries instead of AT&T officials — it gives the contest more validity and reflects how the company respects the opinion of bloggers.

The ACL web site is getting ready to launch a variety of interactive features, too, such as free iPod guides, personalized schedules of events and even a Myspace page. The site currently features a message board for fans of the respected music festival.

ACL won’t be the only music festival receiving the web treatment. Mud-filled Bonnaroo, slated to start this weekend in Manchester, Tenn., will broadcast live online through AT&T’s “Blue Room” with webcasts, much like California’s Coachella did earlier this spring. Chicago’s Lollapalooza is also scheduled for an appearance from the Blue Room. If you’re heading to the Windy City this summer for the festival, I recommend checking the Blue Room out — I did last year when I attended the festival and it was a good way to beat the heat while seeing what was going in the entertainment world.

The ACL contest is just part of AT&T’s ongoing new media efforts, known as As the web site says, it’s “a network of top blogs and collection of influential editors designed to inform, as well as entertain.” The site contains blogging tips and a blog reader.

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 02:08 PM
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June 09, 2006

PubSub to shutdown?

Michael Arrington of Tech Crunch recently reported on the impending shutdown of PubSub, a matching service that notifies subscribers when material is posted matching subscription requests.

“Blog search engine PubSub had massive layoffs today after last minute merger discussions with knownow fell apart. It looks like a shutdown is imminent,” Arrington said in his post.”

Posted by Alicia Dorset at 05:28 PM
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June 07, 2006

eBay to launch blogs

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