Silicon Valley Watcher - at the intersection of technology and media

On the eve of the NewComm Forum in San Francisco I've been thinking about how our new media technologies are being used, and the unique two-way nature of our communications.

Internet 1.0 meant we could publish to any computer screen be it mainframe or pocket. Now we are in Internet 2.0 and that means that any computer platform, be it mainframe or pocket, can publish back. We now have a two-way Internet, an Internet on steroids.

But what is so striking about the online world is how little conversation takes place, how little two-way communication happens. One comment to an article is not a conversation. 300 separate comments on an article is not a conversation. If you look, these interactions peter out within one or two exchanges -- is that a conversation?

There's a lot of 'preaching to the choir,' which doesn't encourage conversation because the choir agrees with the sermon. I rarely see an online conversation that moves beyond one or two exchanges, or that doesn't degenerate into name calling. [Here is one example of a great (rare) online conversation that is well argued, reasoned, and fascinating: Goodbye Dubai | Smashing Telly - A hand picked TV channel.]

Twitter: not much conversation going on because it's not set up for that. Facebook, has a little more room for conversations but I rarely see much. All we have in social media is all still very much a "broadcast" media/communications channel. Yet we hear so much about "conversational marketing" and so on. But it doesn't (yet) exist.

The next phase of the Internet is when we have lots of conversations, that's Internet 3.0. (That's the real semantic web.) We don't have it yet because we're not yet used to it. Our most recent media communications paradigms are all broadcast based.

With Internet 1.0 we complained about information overload. Wait until we, most of us, complain about conversation overload.

- - -

SVW is one of the sponsors of the NewComm Forum, April 27 to 29 in San Francisco. NewComm is one of my favorite conferences of the year. I'm very pleased to be asked again to speak at the conference, my fifth time (...how quickly time flies.)

The conference is organized by the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR - http://sncr.org), a Palo Alto based think tank. I'm honored to be an early member of SCNR and a founding fellow.

At the conference you will be able to take part in presentations from SNCR fellows such as:

• SNCR Fellows Laura (@Pistachio) Fitton, author of Twitter for Dummies, and Shel Israel, author of Twitterville, with industry analyst and co-author of Groundswell, Charlene Li "Twitter: Exploring the Impact of Micro-communications Tools"

• SNCR Fellow Alan Kelly, president, The Playmaker's Standard addressing the question "What's in a Tweet"

• SNCR Fellows Paul Gillin and JD Lasica discussing "A World Without Media: What Will Fill The Void?"

• SNCR Fellows Joseph Thornley and J.D. Lasica with Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang and Amy Muller, GetSatisfaction discussing "Things That Go Bump In the Night - Challenges of Managing Social Media"

And there is lots more. . . Social media and new media experts gather at NewComm Forum in San Francisco April 27-29

Please see: http://www.newcommforum.com

If you send me a message through Twitter I will send you a discount code. I'm @tomforemski

I was at an evening reception Thursday and someone I know walked up holding his Flip video camera up to his eye and I put my hand up to shield my face. He said why are you doing that? I said I didn't want to be filmed right now.

"Why are you upset?" he asked. I said I wasn't upset but in fact I was upset by his rudeness. I'm not a media slut like many in this business. Everyone else jumps at any publicity. I'd rather be selective and I'd rather that someone ask me first.

In today's age where everyone can publish and Twit anything at anytime I think it is time for some new rules etiquette especially for those people that need to have it spelled out.

I go to a lot of events and I have a lot of conversations and people tell me lots of things that would get them into trouble if I published it. Yet they trust me and trust that I won't burn them but I'm not sure everyone understands this etiquette especially those that are new to publishing.

Sometimes people ask me "Can I blog that?" when I say something. Sometimes that's OK but at least they are asking first.

My line is: "This conversation is just between the people in this group, If I wanted the world to know what I just said then I would have blogged it myself," and usually I say it with a smile. And usually people understand that there are new rules and that if people over step those rules then others will take note and future conversations might be rather stilted.

The new rules are don't publish private conversations--these are not public conversations--and ask first.

- - -

Support the source: Rave reviews find out why! - Order the The Amazon Kindle Electronic Book Reader!

How should big brands manage their online reputation? Certainly not the Wells Fargo way...

Even though Wells Fargo has a blog page "Join the conversation" it doesn't.

Last April I had a really bad experience with Wells Fargo and wrote about it. Within minutes I had people commenting on their bad experience! It was the fastest response I had ever had to a post!

I wrote about my bad experiences several times actually. I was wondering how long it would take for a Wells Fargo representative to notice and leave a comment. As I pointed out, I'll get over my rant but the search engines will continually bring up my story and you would think that Wells Fargo would want to leave it's side of the story, at least say, "Sorry about that, here's a toaster..." or something.

But nothing came from Wells Fargo.

Sure enough, every few weeks someone finds my rant and and leaves another story about Wells Fargo. You'd think after about a year, someone might notice at Wells Fargo and "Join the conversation!"

(BTW, last month I met one of the bank's directors John Chen, the CEO of Sybase and mentioned that someone at the bank should keep an eye on what is going on online.)

Here is a recent comment about Wells Fargo from NKB that I received on March 18, 2008. I've got quite a collection and I know I will get more.

I thought I would just add my 2 cents regarding the WF's outrageous policies regarding holds.
I deposited a bonus check for in excess of $5K from my employer via an ATM and received an email a day later saying that WF will hold $4900 for a week and the remainder for 2 weeks.
Facts:
1. I am WF customer of more than 30 years.
2. The deposited check is drawn on BofA.
3. The same BofA account is used to make a direct payroll deposit into my WF account twice a month.<
4. I have had balances in my checking acct in excess of $100K over the last few years.
5. I have never had a deposit not honored.
6. The BofA check will clear overnight, I am sure. So how can WF hold my money for up to 2 weeks?
7. Spoke to WF by phone, and got nothing but policy statements.
I will probably sever my long-standing relationship with WF over this outrageous behavior. Wanted to put this on the record. Thank you.

Another commenter provided an interesting web site address: Wells Fargo Injustice

This site has been established to serve as a centralized resource which will publicly document individual instances of real or perceived employment discrimination or disability discrimination at Wells Fargo or any of its subsidiaries. In addition, ethical, information security and data privacy issues at Wells Fargo will also be addressed and discussed.

The site has a blog: http://blog.wellsfargoinjustice.com/

There is a recent post from that blog about a potential security vulnerability that could expose Wells Fargo customer bank records and social security numbers.

Wells Fargo Case Study: From Crisis Meeting To Conversation

From Wells Fargo: Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you. Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation I have a conversation I'd like to...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 28, 2007 02:37 AM

Case Study: Wells Fargo's Effective Brand Management . . . Not!

My RantWatch yesterday about Wells Fargo's poor service could become an interesting case study in how large companies manage their online reputations. Or how they don't. The post was hardly complimentary. I complained about depositing a check into my threadbare...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 25, 2007 12:29 AM

RantWatch: Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I used to be impressed by Wells Fargo, professional and with great service. My local bank manager even used to call and invite me to barbecues. That was when I had money in various accounts. He never calls anymore, now...

Posted in Silicon Valley Watcher - the business of disruption on April 23, 2007 03:27 PM

. . . IABC Takes Over New/Social Media Release Leadership

It was just over two years ago that I penned my infamous "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die" post/rant. I wondered why the press/news release did not have any hyperlinks, did not tag/label various sections for easy information retrieval, and did not use any of the new media technologies we have at our disposal.

It quickly became a controversial subject. My headline should have read "Evolve! Press Release! Evolve! Evolve! Evolve!" But maybe it wouldn't have gotten the attention that it did.

Half the people that read the original post it said I was mistaken, the press release would never die. The other half agreed with me and set about creating a new format for the press release.

Chris Heuer agreed to start a working committee on what we were calling the new media release and we had other key help from Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Shannon Whitley

The name for the new media release is now the "social media release." I'm not keen on the name too much, as I've said before I'd prefer a more neutral term, but that's how it is being referred to.

The interesting part of all this is that the International Association of Business Communications (IABC) has assumed the responsibility of providing a leadership role in "the development of standards to govern the creation and distribution of social media releases, a format for making company news available to reporters, bloggers and the general public.."
[Please see: IABC Assumes Social Media Release Leadership Role]

We'll see how this turns out. I hate to think that my legacy to the world will be something as obvious as suggesting the use of new media technologies to reformat the news/press release but I'm glad that I'm not the only one that sees value in this approach.

However, it is still a controversial topic. There is still a lot of work to be done. And it won't be easy work. It'll be interesting to see how the IABC executes on its leadership responsibilities.

Here is the IABC announcement in old format style: IABC Assumes Social Media Release Leadership Role

And in the social media format style: IABC assumes Social Media Release leadership role

Additional info:

The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a global network of communication professionals committed to improving organizational effectiveness through strategic communication. Established in 1970, IABC serves more than 15,000 members in 70 countries and 100 chapters. For more information, visit www.iabc.com.

Evolving the news release with microformats...

When I wrote Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die! nearly two years ago, it got a lot of attention and a lot of work has gone into creating a more modern news release that includes much of the media technologies that make up Internet 2.0.

Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Brian Solis, Todd Defren and Shannon Whitley are some of the many people that have worked hard to bring attention to new formats for a press/news release, which is sometimes called a new media release, or a social media release.

We are still far from what I described in the original post:

In most news stories, the spin or angle, is set by the journalist in the first couple of paragraphs.
Much of the rest of the news story is factual: what the CEO said, when the company was founded, where it is based, the stock price, the specs of a product, the price, etc, etc, etc...

Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful...

The tags would be things like: recent share price, founders, first quarter revenues, analyst quotes, etc...

And because we are dealing with tags that are attached to facts--there is no spin so there is no problem in printing the information as it is received. If we can get the tags to be finely tuned, as a publisher, I could spec out a story and assemble it automatically and then quickly edit it by hand before publishing.

Read more here...Die! Press release! Die! Die! Die!

We are far from this vision but we have the technology to do this. It is because it requires a cultural change and we know that culture is always slow to change. And so we have to be patient.

In the meantime, Shannon Whitley has done some excellent work on creating those tags I mentioned, which in Geek speak are called microformats. He has been part of the hRelease Working Group and has done a stellar job in producing the basis of a standard.

Now we just need to have people start using it and refining it.

Just before the holidays, a few of us got together to do a New Media Release podcast that discusses microformats. From For Immediate Release: The Hobson and Holtz Report

Content summary:The usual suspects: Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, Brian Solis and Shannon Whitley. Shannon runs down the recently-released pre-specification working document, which needs your input. The group discusses the flurry of posts taking pro and con positions about the social media release.

You can listen to it here.

Shel provides some reference materials:

Working document referenced by Shannon Whitley.

The new Social Media Release site

Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion

hRelease wiki

Technorati Tags: mediawatch, newmediarelease, socialmediarelease

Ever since Chris Anderson, the powerful editor-in-chief of Wired magazine's recent momentary lapse in self-composure, in which he publicly blacklisted several hundred PR people for sending him bad pitches, the PR industry has gone into a frenzy of self-flagellation.

Masses of PR bloggers have been writing very long essays and about how Mr Anderson is right, and that the PR sector needs to get its house in order and and eliminate bad PR pitches. It is as if Mr Anderson was the first editor to discover that there are bad PR pitches and brought it to the attention of the world, and now the PR world is going to sort out the problem.

This is BS

Bad PR pitches have been with us since the beginnings of recorded history and will continue to be here. It is what separates the good PR people from the bad ones, and there will always be bad ones.

Bad PR pitches will continue because:

- many PR firms use juniors to scatter-shoot generic pitches hoping someone will bite.

- the fragmentation of media means there isn't enough time to customize each pitch for each journalist/blogger.

- many PR firms have very small numbers of people with the domain expertise in what their clients do.

Pitch perfect problem

Maybe I should publish a whitelist of PR people who are doing a great job, pitching excellent story ideas, offering exclusives, arranging interviews with their top CEOs, and generally looking out for me and my product.

Mr Anderson complained about getting 300 pitches that have nothing to do with Wired magazine. My problem is 300 pitches that are right on target, that demonstrate that the PR people know what I 've been writing about, that are thinking about related stories, and offering top access to their clients.

What happens if your PR pitch is pitch-perfect, it sets exactly the right tone, demonstrates an insight into the subject and the publication, and you still can't get an editor interested in it? That's going to be happening more and more because PR agencies are on a hiring binge while the professional media world is shrinking.

When it comes to media relations, there will be ever larger numbers of PR people, chasing ever smaller numbers of journalists, writing for a dwindling number of publications, which are publishing fewer pages.

Getting media coverage for clients is going to be increasingly more difficult no matter how good the PR pitch.

Over the past couple of weeks I've written a few posts that were intended to remind the PR industry that significant changes are underway in their sector, a point of view that wasn't warmly received.

My recent post "Wiley E Coyote: Traditional PR is running on thin air" was part of a theme I've been writing about for a couple of years. It was intended to remind my PR contacts that we have disruptive technologies in our midst, and that disruptive technologies disrupt business models. Media is hurting their industry will too...

It was interesting how many people took this personally. I had to remind them that I did not call out their PR firms by name, nor did I invent the fact that disruption is happening in their industry (it really has nothing to do with me...)

But I've also been hearing from my PR contacts about the furious debates that my posts sparked internally, within their firms, and how useful they were. And I wondered why they didn't take those discussions online--it is a perfect opportunity to share and move things forward.

Some of my friends, who are bloggers in the PR community, were frustrated that their colleagues were too bashful to take their discussions online. And I can understand that frustration. Because as I popped into various Silicon Valley events over the past couple of weeks, there were many in the PR industry that engaged me in passionate debates. But it was all offline, they wouldn't go online. Which is a shame because they had some interesting things to say.

(En)Courage Online Debate

Every time I write a post I put my name behind it and I risk everything. Anyone can step up and engage and challenge me online or offline.

But there are too many people that will only engage me offline then shy away if I ask for an online debate.

I'm not asking from them anything that I wouldn't do myself, which is to state my point of view, and put my name behind it. It is an invitation to step up and share.

[This is response to a discussion in the comments section related to my recent post: Social Media Releases are Moving in a Bad Direction - Questionable Ethics in Masquerading as "News" ]

I think lots of people can distinguish content as promotional, as in a press release, or content that is a news story written by a journalist. The latter is trusted more because it is independent of any direct financial incentive.

But just in case readers get muddled, let's clearly mark PR content along these lines: "This is promotional content on behalf of Acme Corporation."

So if a news aggregator such as Google News picks it up by mistake readers can clearly identify the source of the information. They can see that it is self-serving, biased, paid-for-content -- and readers won't confuse it with news journalism.

But there are PR firms and PR practices that profit from a flaw in Google News, Yahoo News, and other large online news distributors, that pick up press releases and distribute them along with news stories written by journalists. There are studies that show that a significant number of readers get confused and think some press releases are news stories. Let's make things clear by marking content clearly.

If you have them, please send me examples of media using press releases in this way. I'll be publishing a few examples over the coming weeks.

This is becoming an interesting discussion and I thank people for their contributions.

It is an important issue because our society needs high quality information to make high quality decisions. Otherwise it is garbage in, garbage out, which doesn't bode well for us making the right decisions on global warming, foreign policy, healthcare, tech policy, and many dozens of extremely important problems.

Let's not let minority elements in PR, media, and search sectors profit from practices that reduce the quality of our information. Let's point out such practices.

. . .

NEW! - Get SVW on your Mobile Phone!

Since Google News, Yahoo News, and other online news aggregators sometimes have trouble distinguishing news journalism from news releases from corporations or their surrogate PR firms, then the ethical thing to do is to mark all company releases: "Not to be distributed by News Aggregators."

It is the ethical thing to do. Because some people might mistake company releases, especially if they are in social media release format, as real news stories written by independent unbiased parties. Especially if they see those press releases on sites such as Google News, where they are mixed with legitimate news stories written by journalists from around the world.

Also, the company news release should clearly state at the top:"This content was prepared to promote the products or services of the following company or companies: [put company names here] and was created by: [PR firm or individual]."

Does anyone have any problems with that? It upholds transparency and it directly identifies the source of the content. It allows people to make their own judgement on the quality of the content.

Who'll be the first to send me a press release with those marks?

Or do you tell your clients how they can get their press release wide distribution through Google and Yahoo news? And charge them for it?

- - -

Please see: Why Social Media Releases are Moving in a Bad Direction - Questionable Ethics in Masquerading as "News"

Brian Solis from FutureWorks PR and and Todd Defren from Shift Communications have collaborated on a post called: " The Future of the Social Media Release is in Your Hands."

They have both been strong supporters of my call for a different type of press release described in my post "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!" Mr Defren quickly came up with a template for my ideas. And over time, it began to be called a "social media release."

I have welcomed such efforts simply because it can make my life easier in assembling the information and materials I need when I'm writing stories.

Make my job easier

The whole point of my rant about the press release was that it was not suitable for use in today's online world. Put some links in it, (still, very few press releases have links), tab/label various sections so I can quickly find relevant information; give me links to relevant stories; give me a page of analyst quotes and customer quotes; provide me with links to stock price; provide links to other media formats such as podcasts and vidcasts. It is all very obvious stuff, imho.

Also, I prefer the term new media release, it is a more neutral term than "social media release."

But there is a much bigger and more worrying difference than just the name. The social media release is evolving into something much different - it seeks to bypass journalists altogether.

Mr Solis and Mr Defren write:

...search engines are an incredible catalyst for news distribution: people are finding news through Google and Yahoo and as a result have become more accepting of press releases as legitimate information resources, on a par with trusted trade journals (this has been documented by several analysts tracking the media space).

Their argument appears to be that a social media release is a good thing because readers will attribute the same trust to a social media release as to content written by trade journalists. Self-serving content will appear as if it were unbiased content.

Not a good thing

Why is this a good thing? It is clearly not.

Journalists are accorded a certain level of trust by readers because of their independence. Press releases are accorded a lower level of trust because they come from self-interested parties. Social media releases (SMRs) are taking advantage of readers mistaken perception that Google and Yahoo News carries content created by journalists.

This is not a good thing. This a questionable ethical PR practice. (I'm sure this is NOT what Mr Solis and Mr Defren are advocating, I know them both and they are extremely ethical and trustworthy. However, their post is encouraging further development of the social media release to gain even wider distribution.)

SEO for social media releases

Mr Solis and Mr Defren complain that not all search engines discover social media releases. Technorati is one of those problematic search engines. Which I would say is a good thing, that the Technorati algorithm, unlike Google and Yahoo's, recognizes the difference in the content between self-serving corporate releases and the posts of bloggers and journalists.

They offer tips and techniques to overcome such limitations for social media releases and go on to conclude:

The key to the SMR’s long-term success will be the ability to truly be social; to not only deliver the news in a snazzy new format, but also to facilitate discovery through Social Media channels, encourage sharing and spark conversations, all in a way that brings customers, journalists, bloggers, and analysts together around your story and your community.

And they issue a call to action:

How you develop and issue SMRs is ultimately up to you, and given that these are the early days, the interest level is high in making sure we get this right. We’re all in this together.

My advice is don't. I am a huge fan of the work of Mr Solis and Mr Defren. But on this issue of making social media releases that can find even wider distribution to readers by using various tricks and techniques I part company.

Our society needs high quality information and it is the job of journalists to sort through many sources and try to come up with something that reflects a truth.

Companies and their PR firms create self-serving materials. And if those materials, under the disguise of social media releases, fool readers into thinking these are the same as if written by journalists-- it does not make the world a better place.

Similarly, if those self-serving materials find wider distribution than news stories written by journalists because of sophisticated tricks and techniques--it does not make the world a better place.

Let's go back to the concept of a new media release: the release of relevant content in formats that make the job of a journalist easier. Readers can still discover the original materials that the journalists use to write their stories and thus companies will still be able to present their side of the story.

Brian Solis replies:

Tom, well said, and honestly, I think we all agree here.

Perhaps we weren't clear enough in our post and for that, we will have to update it.

This isn't a call to action for people to take garbage to new levels of distribution and reach.

It all starts with thinking about what you want to say and figure out why it's important to those you want to reach.

A crappy press release is still a crappy press release regardless of multimedia or social bling.

Our intention is the furthest thing from offering tips and tricks to manipulate people.

Writing the news in a way that's helpful, informative, and relative is a critical starting point for any release to be successful now and in the future.

The reason for this post is to remind people that tricking out press releases for the sake of tapping into a trend doesn't do anyone any good.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Press releases, for better or worse, ARE already showing up in search engines as a natural part of the wire distribution process. It's just a "benefit" for the $1,000 fee you pay.

According to Outsell, Inc. over 51% of IT professionals are reporting that they get their news from press releases in Yahoo and Google news over trade journals.

It's a fact that is changing the game for PR, and it's not only being driven by journalists, but customers too.

What it really represents is an opportunity, dictated by necessity, to do things better.

As we talked about last week, PR won't change until it has to.

Our post simply explains the differences between multimedia and social media versus the packages that you, as pr pros, are buying and what/where it gets you.

Tom, there are vendors now that are selling social media release packages that aren't full social. So, we're calling attention to the building blocks and the channels to help people understand the entire game and to guide them how to tell a better story without adjectives.

As you say, "...the release of relevant content in formats that make the job of a journalist easier. Readers can still discover the original materials that the journalists use to write their stories and thus companies will still be able to present their side of the story."

This is a call to action for PR people to stop and think about the entire process and take the challenge for improvement, whether multimedia or social.

What we all agree on is that we have a responsibility to you and to our customers that we need to finally take seriously. And, in order to build/continue relationships, we have to provide information in way that works for the different groups of people that want info, without the usual b.s. or spintastic hype.

Thanks Brian I certainly agree with you on these issues and I'm glad we can both point to the dangers in moving the social press release beyond its charter. There are many people in the PR industry that love the fact that they can capitalize on flaws in the search engines to move corporate messages into the mainstream.

Technorati Tags: new media release, New Rules Communications, social media

Every company, large and small, needs to rise above the white noise of the mediasphere and get its message out--and collect the messages about it and it's space.

Now that we have these two-way media technologies such as blogs, wikis, and RSS, and the many hybrid media formats that they make possible, how do companies achieve their basic goals of boosting sales and boosting their brand perception?

It used to be done by hiring PR firms. These days there are many other ways of getting things done, there is a fundamental change in how PR will be done. I've been writing about such changes (and upsetting a few people.)

My premise is simple: traditional media is undergoing great change and so will traditional PR for very similar reasons--but change won't happen until pain is felt, as it is being felt in traditional media. A change is certainly coming and some firms will make it others won't.

Yet many in PR feel that they can have their cake and eat it. That they can continue to sell traditional PR services and new PR services. Clients won't continue to pay for both, the money will flow to what is most effective, and most cost effective.

The new media technologies are extremely disruptive technologies. And disruptive technologies disrupt business models.

Here are some excerpts from a just published report from The Council of Public Relations Firms: (Hat tip to Sam Whitmore.)

‘RELATING TO THE PUBLIC’
THE EVOLVING ROLE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS IN THE AGE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

BY PAUL M. RAND AND GIOVANNI RODRIGUEZ,
ON BEHALF OF THE COUNCIL OF PUBLIC RELATIONS FIRMS

. . .

Clients must find and engage the best partners with the best ideas, regardless of whether they are
public relations agencies or not.

Peter Debreceny, former vice president of corporate relations, Allstate Insurance Co., expressed concern for the profession, “as many more competitors step into the traditional agency PR space.” He thinks confusion about the roles and responsibilities of various marketing and communications providers is steadily increasing and adds: “I don’t like where the trends are going.”

. . .

As for future skills, social media must become part of the way public relations practitioners do business or
they will become obsolete.

. . .

Hybrid compensation models are likely to develop that are more closely tied to audience
engagement than hourly revenue.

. . .

Clients often serve as catalysts for revamping PR agencies’ business models. Says State Farm’s Fernandez:
“Things are changing, and we don’t have a mandate to buy PR from PR firms and ads from ad agencies.”
Thus, to become communications partners, public relations agencies must illuminate how they develop the
best ideas from all the media tools available.

. . .

Within the public relations industry, practitioners increasingly understand that the media communications
landscape has changed dramatically. A Council of Public Relations Firms’ survey in the 2006 third quarter found
that a majority of public relations agencies (52%) say they have run into advertising agencies or other
marketing providers that are pitching and/or delivering services today that they consider traditional PR services.

. . .

For public relations professionals, 2007 will be an important year to determine what path they take as an
industry from the critical crossroads they’re at today. Will agencies embrace social media and move to
incorporate its various forms into client communication strategies? Or will they allow outsiders to furnish
those services? It promises to be a very interesting period ahead.

Read the report here: http://www.prfirms.org/

BTW I had no idea I was quoted in the report:

Sometimes, it’s helpful to consider the views of non-PR communicators.

Former Financial Times reporter Tom Foremski, who hosts the SiliconValleyWatcher blog, says
he’s often asked to recommend public relations agencies to companies and also how to choose public
relations agencies, especially ones that understand a bit about new media and, specifically, the blogosphere.

“Here is a key pointer:” he advises, “If you are looking for a PR company that understands something about
blogging, find out who in that organization blogs, and how long have they been blogging, and what is their
blog page rank and traffic. You will find that in many large PR agencies, it is their most junior staff that are
the in-house bloggers, and there lies the rub. PR companies that ‘get it’ have senior staff as bloggers, and
they blog regularly, and they have decent traffic, and they also use other types of new media such as wikis.”

Josh Hallett has joined Voce Communications, which is quite a coup for this Palo Alto PR firm. Voce is one of my favorite Silicon Valley PR firms because they really understand new media/social media and are building a great team of leaders in this area.

Josh has been working with many large newspapers, creating the infrastructure for their blogs and online forums. He is what I like to call a media architect, a software engineer that knows how to implement the media technologies that make up Internet 2.0.

Voce's Mike Manuel writes:

. . . “conversation” and “community” are words that easily roll off the tongues of marketers these days, but too often it’s without knowledge or regard for the technology that’s required to carry these things from conference room concepts to real-world experiences.

This is where Josh excels. The guy’s a master translator between marketers and web developers, between ideas and experiences, and ultimately, between companies and customers.

Josh is the newest addition to our growing team of social media strategists here at Voce. Earlier this spring Andrea Weckerle, a DC-area blogger and author of New Millennium PR, joined our gang, as did Scott Sigler, author, podcaster and social media provocateur. And yeah, yours truly continues to act as this team’s lead wonk.

From Voce Nation - Now With More Cowbell

Earlier this year I published a video of Josh talking about his experiences building media systems for companies such as New York Times. There is tons of great advice and stories here:

Social media in the enterprise: How to deal with IT roadblocks

Technorati Tags: voce

[I recently received an email from a reader in reference to my infamous post: "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!"]

By Harry Zane

I am retired from a career that began in journalism, turned to PR, then to marketing, and finally to consulting. And I agree wholeheartedly with what you said in your column. However, I am astonished that in 2007, PR is still slogging lower and lower into a press-release and press-conference tactical miasma.

I think the media, despite their constant carping about their dislike of press releases, are largely responsible. Many years ago, while working at a major university, I can recall a meeting of journalists and educational PR pros when the biggest complaint was that we PR folks sent out too many press releases. So we cut back, and the first complaints came only weeks later – from reporters, who couldn't understand why we were pitching stories without sending them "press releases."

I recall as well some 25 years ago working at a then major technology firm in Massachusetts when I had to fight endlessly with my peers and executives to keep the self-absorbed, self-unaware nonsense out of press releases. My "reward" was praise from the editor of the biggest industry trade journal. He really liked my releases because, as he said, they were brief and contained "no bullshit."

I took little comfort from his attaboys, however, since he ran unedited the competition's endless column inches of yammering right next to, or well above and ahead of, mine (the longer copy, rather than concise content, better fit his need for lead story layouts), creating the impression to casual readers (most trade journal readers are) that the competition had more to say than my company. Needless to say, this didn't sit well with the puffery-spouting peers and execs I'd just vanquished, either.

The reason, of course, for his actions are entirely explicable. His was a labor-intensive business, and he needed the free copy. Such is the fate of all media today: copy, no matter how untrue, uninformative, or unbecoming the author, trumps solid content.

PR people won't stop creating press releases because PR people, be they consultants, or employees will not stop serving the pleasure of their benighted bosses and clients; most media will continue to take content anywhere they can find it for little or no cost; and reader expectations for something better will continue to spiral downward with the whole sorry mess.

You are obviously a dedicated journalist with healthy amounts of skepticism and ambition. Your idea is sensible, laudable, and intelligent, but I don't see it happening. Ever.

Technorati Tags: die press release, mediasphere, PRWatch

Todd Defren from Shift Communications dropped me a note to point out that my Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! post is on the front page of TechMeme. That was written in February 2006.

But the date doesn't really matter. I've noticed that happen with some of my other posts. Search engines will kick them back into view and others will reference them and they live again in the mediasphere.

It's interesting to watch what I call the trajectory of ideas. Sometimes I will write something I think is significant and 2 people will tell me they thought it was important. Yet I can write the same piece a year, sometimes two years later or more, and 20, or 200 people will pick it up and discuss it.

That's a totally understandable phenomenon because more people now understand the ideas and conversations that emanate from Silicon Valley about the changing nature of media and its changing mediums. With simple technologies such as RSS we can now create totally new forms of media, and totally new ways to distribute and generate media.

- - -

Please see:
Ross Dawson's Trends in the Living Networks: Deconstructing the press release: how tagging will change journalistic workflow

Brian Solis: Future of the Press Release - Acceptance

Technorati Tags: puppy

Social media and IT . . .

If you missed my panel on social media at Intel Developer Forum, you can watch it here. You can find out how Intel has been using blogs and wikis. It is always interesting to see how a very large and established company such as Intel (Intel is a sponsor of SVW) is able to change and embrace social media - it is not an easy process. We also had an Intel lawyer on the podium.

- - -

iPhone religion . . .

I meet a lot of people and many of them like to talk about their cell phones and then go on to tell me why they don't have an iPhone, and/or don't need one. This is interesting because these are unsolicited and unprovoked comments. It is as if just the presence of my iPhone stirs some pangs of guilt or justification.

Let me say this: I like my iPhone, but I'm not religious about it, but many people are religious about their non-iPhones. Which is interesting.

My response is this: think of the opportunity cost to you in your business and professional life. Waiting for another price reduction or until your contract comes up for renewal makes sense if you are the average consumer. It makes no sense if you live and work in Silicon Valley, if you are in media, in PR, or are a developer, or an investor. Saving a hundred or few hundred later, will cost you bigtime now because you will be behind in experiencing and being experienced with this platform.

The iPhone is a media delivery platform of a unique kind. My colleague at TechOne Steve Gillmor, says this:

The iPhone has effectively replaced my laptop for much of my working day. The extent to which I can create the necessary metadata to do my various jobs determines what applications I use.

The iPhone does have problem spots but they are mostly software fixes--it will get better very quickly. What is the cost to you in not having experience with this platform? It is far more than saving a few bucks.

- - -

Blue moon . . .

Lunarr invitations. Let me know on Facebook (send me a friend request) if you'd like to check out this unique collaborative platform created by two Japanese entrepreneurs based in Portland, Oregon.

Lunarr: A Once in a Blue Moon Company with a Unique Collaborative App

- - -

Gaia hackers . . .

My 13 year old daughter Sarah is very sad this week, someone hacked into her Gaia Online account and stole all the things she had collected from over a year's worth of work, and erased all her friend info and other malicious damage. I did some searching and there are several sites that teach others how to hack Gaia user accounts.

I sent Sarah this to cheer her up . . .

Technorati Tags: gaia online, IDF, iphone, lunarr, social media

The most fascinating aspect of being a journalist blogger is observing what I call the trajectory of ideas. How publishing a post can reach just six people, who will see it as significant and respond. Yet a year later, or two, the same post will resurface yet this time seems relevant to 600 or 60,000 people, who will comment on it, or respond to it, and discuss it further.

I love to watch this happen and that's why I generally never ping my colleagues in the media about a post (which is not the way things are usually done...) because I want to see what the organic effect of the mediasphere produces.

Sometimes this is frustrating. There are times when I feel I have discussed an important issue yet hardly anyone seems to notice, 2 people will say that it was great. Yet other times my posts seem to hit a chord I didn't realize was there and the uptake is surprising.

There are several posts recently which seem to have resurfaced. One is my classic: Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die! A late night rant about putting links into press releases, which is now revolutionizing the PR industry, believe it or not(!) leading to what is also known as the "social media release."

Permalink Concrete

A more recent example is a post about a bad experience with Wells Fargo Bank. I wrote a second and third post, hoping to get a response from the bank, I even started linking to sites that reported shady Wells Fargo practices. Nothing. I even found a page on Wells Fargo's site "Welcome to the conversation" promoting their blogs.

I wrote that I have a conversation here that I would love it to join. I pointed out that I will get over my rant, but the search engines will continue to dredge it up time and time again.

Why didn't Wells Fargo leave a comment, right there next to the rant, offering an apology and a free toaster :-), or just an apology so that its view is represented each time the search engines dredge up my complaint.

Nothing from Wells Fargo. But I do get comments and emails every few weeks from people who have had bad experiences with Wells Fargo and they found me through the search engines.

. . .

Please See:

Wells Fargo Case Study: From Crisis Meeting To Conversation

From Wells Fargo: Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you. Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation I have a conversation I'd like to...
Posted by Tom Foremski on April 28, 2007 2:37 AM

RantWatch: Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I used to be impressed by Wells Fargo, professional and with great service. My local bank manager even used to call and invite me to barbecues. That was when I had money in various accounts. He never calls anymore, now...

Posted by Tom Foremski on April 23, 2007 3:27 PM

I've been thinking about journalist sources. I know some of mine are among my FaceBook and LinkedIn friends. Could that become a problem in the future?

What if I write about Apple and Steve Jobs thinks it has been leaked and sacks a friend who works at Apple, because he can see my social network even though that's not my source. What about a two degree separation? A friend of a friend...could that still cause a problem?

Should I keep my network private?

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Foremski/?p=191

By Tom Foremski

Strumpette, the popular blog site for the PR industry, has laid down a gauntlet, inviting the top 50 executives of the world's top PR firms to confront the changing nature of the PR world.

This is an interesting issue, one that seems to be splitting the leading edge elements in the PR industry from the trailing edge traditionalists.

This is the first part of a remaking of PR. It is similar to the changes the media industry is going through.

However, Strumpette's call to arms could be a false dawn because the PR industry has been very slow to change, it needs an economic bust to change its habits. Either way, it is all part of the process that PR needs to go through.

Here is an excerpt from Strumpette:

To the Leadership of the PR Industry:

Where are you?!! Listen: We had a Call to Action last week where we invited a number of you here to a debate about the future of the business. Not one showed up. NOT ONE! Well, that's marked a turning point.

WE'RE OUTRAGED! While there's absolutely a growing cancer in our industry, you (plural) seem bent on lining your pockets exclusively. Regrettably, your peers are involved in behaviors that will surely kill our business. And when it goes to hell and you make off with your millions, we are the ones who will be left holding the bag.

By Tom Foremski

With all the disruption that is going on in the mainstream media industry, where is the disruption in the mainstream public relations industry? PR companies and corporate communications teams are still going about their business in the same way, and seem to be thriving.

You would think that there would be a corresponding shakeup in both industries. After all, one is dependent on the other. The PR teams work with the journalists to find stories, and help them research whatever information is needed for their articles.

Always Linked

There has always been a close correspondence between the fortunes of both sectors in the past. This could be seen in the dotcom dotbomb fallout.

PR companies suffered large losses when thousands of internet related companies went bust. Job losses in both media and PR were directly related to the fact that there were now far fewer customers.

Fewer dotcom-related firms meant less demand for advertising services and thus less demand for PR services. But now there is a growing disconnect; the mainstream PR sector is booming while the mainstream media sector is fading fast.

The PR boom paradox

Over the past two years the PR sector has been growing quite nicely. The PR firms serving Silicon Valley companies have been been hiring people steadily as the local startup companies seek to raise their visibility.

Every PR firm I know has many vacancies, and there is a very short supply of experienced PR practitioners in the 5 to 8 year experience range. And the demand for PR services continues to grow as new startups come onto the scene and want to raise themselves above the noise level of their competitors.

Yet the number of media outlets continues to shrink. There are fewer mainstream media outlets, there are fewer journalists to pitch stories to; and there are fewer pages to carry stories because there are fewer ads.

Mashup metaphors: The Cows are coming home to roost

What this means is that the realities of this situation have not yet hit home. The realities are these:

-Companies can sell their products and services with a far lower cost of sales these days, because it is easier than ever to reach their customers directly through search engine marketing and blogs.

-This means there that there is far less value offered by mainstream media and mainstream public relations in the product and services sales process. . .

. . .

The above is an extract from a post I wrote 18 months ago, in January 2006. Since that time, the disconnect between the fortunes of mainstream media and public relations industries has grown tremendously.

The San Francisco Chronicle recently cut 100 newsroom jobs, 25 per cent cut. Business 2.0 is on its last legs, yet 18 months ago it had increased ad rates on booming sales.

The IT trade media, all the computer magazines from the East Coast are dead or online only. And private equity vultures are snapping up declining media companies.

Things are getting far worse for media companies yet PR companies continue to boom.

Are PR firms doing more new/social media?

Yes, a little bit more, but most of their time is spent doing traditional PR practices, trying to influence the publication of stories into smaller numbers of media outlets and they can't get enough staff...

Something is seriously out of sync here.

Shannon Whitley is behind the very interesting PRX Builder, a way to produce company press releases that include many-media, links, etc.

PRX Builder now has a feature that allows companies to use Google AdWords to advertise the "news headlines."

Although news releases should not be advertisements themselves, there’s nothing wrong with hawking your headlines to get peoples’ attention.  That’s why I developed NewsAds™ for PRX Builder.

What’s a NewsAd? 

NewsAds are advertisements that are published to the Google AdWords network.  You know, the ads that appear besides the Google search results and on web pages across the internet.  PRX Builder now offers NewsAds as an additional feature for each news release.  Publish your release through PRX Builder and then create a NewsAd about your release on Google AdWords.

http://www.voiceoftech.com/swhitley/?p=317

This is an interesting development because parts of the PR industry thinks it can do quite well by getting around the media and publish directly to potential customers. Yes, they can, but few people ask if this strategy makes much sense.

Morgan McLintic, over at Lewis PR recently wrote about an event discussing the successful use of search engine optimization to get a high Google ranking for a press release.

I asked a few people after the session what they thought. Everyone said you want people to find your content online. Agreed. No-one said they'd ever bought anything based on finding a press release.

Everyone agreed a PR team should know which media might be interested in a press release, and that they should be approached directly. No-one felt that media would spend much time reading releases they'd stumbled across on the web.

SEO PR - missing the target?

A high Google rank should not be confused with a successful news release. Readers know when something is from the company. Readers respect independent media articles over those from a company. Much better to promote those independent media pieces than press releases, imho.

But with independent media rapidly disappearing, what are the PR firms going to do? Publish to Google it seems...

[UPDATED: Google says that 25 new people are joing this month and that they have plenty of PR professionals on their staff, with many years of experience.]

When I was over at Google late last month, I caught up with corporate comms bosses David Krane and Brian O'Shaughnessy. They told me that their staffs were being doubled in June with about 50 new people joining their teams.

I asked how many of those new people were from the PR industry. I was told none. How many of those new people were former journalists, again I was told none. They are all new hires straight out of the top schools in the US.

There is only one person on the Google communications team that was once a journalist, and only for a very short time. There are very few people, about 5 or 6 recruited directly from the PR industry.

This is the policy of Elliot Schrage, head of corporate communications.

I can understand that it is often worthwhile to hire people that have not been taught how to do things because then you can teach them your ways of doing things.

But there should be more media professionals on the GOOG team, imho.

UPDATE #2 (Aug 18 2007- I didn't notice that Google had sent me an email shortly after publishing this post, asking for further corrections - here they are. BTW the comments section is a quick way to post corrections because my Gmail inbox gets incredibly crowded. )

From GOOG:

I believed when we spoke I explained that the team was getting roughly 30 new college graduates (the number is actually closer to 25 - as you have corrected- thank you) However they are joining Google over the next few quarters - not "next month". While I will concede that these recent college graduates are not media professionals - these are entry level PR positions and these are incredibly impressive young people that believe in Google's mission and want a chance to make their mark in Mountain View or in our offices in New York or DC or even on the YouTube comms team.

And as I noted earlier they are joining an incredibly seasoned team of PR professionals - in fact, the Directors on the team have an average of twelve plus years experience in agency, corporate and technology PR and journalism experience. These are communications professionals that have joined from such PR teams from Cisco, Microsoft, Gap, and VeriSign.

The bulk of their direct reports have joined from the a variety of fields including media and politics - however the vast majority come with solid communications experience (either in house or on the agency-side). Google is very proud of the team assembled (and continues to look for new additions) --- and we are also very excited about the opportunities that lay ahead and to not correct the record is a disservice to their experience.

By Tom Foremski

I use Movable Type to publish Silicon Valley Watcher although many other bloggers moved to Wordpress a long time ago. I like it because I know it and I don't want to learn another platform if I don't have to, plus it works. So I was very interested to get a briefing on the new Movable Type, Version 4.0.

I spoke with Chris Alden, EVP and General Manager of the Professional Division at Six Apart. He said that version 4.0 represents the largest investment of engineering years that the company has ever made in Movable Type. And it answers critics who said that Six Apart was spending more time building its hosted services businesses, than on Movable Type.

I can't wait to try it. It has social/community features built into the platform. Users can rate posts and each other; they can be given special publishing rights, they can be given permission to write posts without moderation, they can even publish their own blogs on the blog.

There are a lot of new content management features built in, favoring large scale deployments. It is designed for four types of users: large publications such as New York Times; Universities and academic uses; Marketing and promotional; and internal blogging within large organizations.

A lot of features, previously available as plug-ins, are integrated into the platform. And Six Apart will release "functional packs" that are targeted at different types of users, such as large media companies, that contain specialized functions that don't need to be in the base platform.

Also, the look and feel of the software has been completely redesigned--the first time in five years.

And, Movable Type will be available under an open source software license in Q3. The open source version will be based on Movable Type 3.x series with some Version 4.0 features.

"It will be a similar model to that of MySQL, which offers an open source licence as well as a commercial version that is supported," said Mr Alden.

The current Movable Type version 4 is beta, but the shipping version is just 6 to 12 weeks away.

Wordpress is a good blogging platform and popular among individual bloggers but Movable Type, with its ability to run multiple blogs from a single installation is gaining ground in enterprise applications.

I'm looking forward to trying it out and moving SVW to the new platform-- after the beta period.

---

Additional Info from Six Apart:

Sabrina Horn, head of Horn Group, Silicon Valley's top independent PR firm, says she has heard too many sales pitches from conference keynoters from large IT vendors--and they are making a mistake.

...you appear almost defensive when you only talk about yourself and your products in these keynotes...

Ms Horn suggests...:

Audiences today really want to hear what you think about the industry and where it's going. What should we be worried about? What are you worried about? Where are our opportunities? What are your ideas? The dirty little secret is, if you did that, we'd probably like you more and want to buy even more from you.

Link to Horn Group Weblog: Get a Clue!

I agree. A CEO makes a keynote speech at large conference and delivers a sales pitch?! What a wasted opportunity.

A sales pitch can be delivered in a video, an advertisement, it shouldn't be delivered in a keynote. I usually skip them because 95 percent of the time they are sales pitches--and I know plenty of other journalists and bloggers that do the same. 

A Keynote Is A Unique Opportunity

At conferences, a cavernous, cathedral-like room is filled with thousands of people in a darkened space happy and willing to be there. It is a perfect setting to deliver an experience, something hard to forget.

Apple is very good at this sort of thing. I remember several MacWorld keynotes from Steve Jobs and guests that were unforgettable. (One of them was when Mohammed Ali was there, just a few feet away from me.)

Outcast PR's CEO Dinner was good this year, much better than last year. I didn't write about it last year because I had nothing much to say about it, this year was different.

I've got lots of interviews, lots of video to publish from the event. And I have lots of stories to tell too, which will appear over the weekend and over the following days.

Here are some teasers:

-ZDNet advertising/marketing services will unveil a new business model. Buy our marketing services and we will write your corporate blogs as part of a sponsorship deal. 

"It is going great," said Chris Jablonski, a former ZDNet blogger, who is now in the marketing department at ZDNet. "We've set up blogs for Computer Associates and other large IT companies. If they don't have a writer we will write their blogs for them." The blog posts are not identified as ZDNet authored. It is similar to how public relations companies ghost write for clients.But will it work in this context? Is it a new and viable media business model? UPDATE: The blogs are labelled as sponsored blogs. Here is an example: http://blogs.zdnet.com/Dice/ The blog is written by ZDNet on behalf of Dice. ...   

-Sam Whitmore from Sam Whitmore's Media Survey. This time I interview Sam instead of the other way around.

-Come back to hear Sam's take on the implosion of the East Coast IT trade media.

-Plus, there is an upcoming merger in the works for Sam.

Don't miss:

• -Video interview with Satish Dharmaraj, CEO of my favorite, favorite, Web 2.0 company: Zimbra.
• -Tim Turpin from Outcast interviews me and my hush hush project.

I'm still getting used to toting a video camera around with me, so some of the interviews might be a little experimental in quality. I will do better next time around, and the time after that too, I promise  :-)

I was asked this question by one of my readers in Russia. Is it the large PR agencies or the smaller boutique agencies that are best at using digital communications and social media?

My reply was that while some of the agencies have pockets of knowledge and experience within them, generally, none of them, large or small, are using digital communications and social media well, or even reasonably well.

Yet they will all tell you, and their clients, that they have an experienced practice in new/social media.

If a PR company is not using social media to effectively promote and market itself--then how can it do it for its clients? It can't.

Show me a PR agency that has bloggers amongst its top execs and also across levels within its organization. And is using podcasting and vidcasting to represent itself.

Show me a PR agency that does that, and you will have shown me a PR agency that "gets" social media and digital communications.

There is no "generational gap" in understanding these things, there is an "experiential gap."

The only way you can know how to use these digital communications effectively is by doing. It is not something that you can read about and then do it.

(PS: There are a couple of smaller agencies that get it but they are very rare.)

From Wells Fargo:

Blogs are interactive online forums that allow us to communicate and share ideas with our readers. We're here to start a conversation with you.

Wells Fargo Blogs Join The Conversation

I have a conversation I'd like to invite Wells Fargo to, but they seem to be rather shy.

RantWatch Extremely Poor Service from Wells Fargo

I've been biting at Wells Fargo's ankles for a couple of days because they insist on sitting on my checks for up to ten days. Everyone and their grandmother knows they could clear and deposit a check into a customer account in a Silicon-Valley-micro-second.

My complaint has resonated with my readers, some have shared similar stories. But nothing from Wells Fargo.

I'll get over my annoyance with the bank but the search engines will continue to dredge up my complaint, plus comments, for a long long time.

I asked some friends in PR about this puzzling lack of comment from Wells Fargo: "They are probably having a crisis meeting and you'll get a response in about three weeks time."

I'm looking forward to it. BTW, I don't feel that I've been unfair or mean with Wells Fargo, I have a legitimate complaint. If anything, I'm doing Wells Fargo a favor, I'm helping it to figure out how to respond to these types of bad publicity situations.

---

Case Study Wells Fargo's Effective Brand Management . . . Not!

Brand management is a tricky thing. How do you know who is blogging or writing about your brands, and if the sentiment is positive or negative? There are millions of online "conversations" happening every day.

BuzzLogic, based in San Francisco has developed tools that allow corporations to track conversations across thousands of online sites, blogs, mainstream media and anywhere else online, in almost real-time.

And those tools can also determine how influential a site, a blogger, a writer is. And who they influence. After all, there is no sense in galvanizing a response team to an unfavorable post on a blog if its influence is zero.

The company recently completed its Series A funding, raising an impressive $9.6m after bootstrapping the venture for more than two years. "Its good to have a salary," smiles Rob Crumpler CEO. It is also good to have the validation that a VC investment brings.

BuzzLogic recently moved out of beta and in mid-April launched its BuzzLogic Enterprise service. More than 160 customers, many Fortune 500 companies, collaborated with BuzzLogic in the beta phase to refine the service.

"Companies are interested in knowing about themselves, how they are perceived and how their products are perceived," says Mr Crumpler. "And companies want to be able to spot potential problems before they grow into much larger issues."

There are many examples where a complaint online can mushroom into a major public relations disaster. Jeff Jarvis, a prominent New York blogger and his complaints about Dell is one such example.

The company's two key features are its algorithms and its visual display of the results which gives users an excellent view into the influence of a particular site on a specific topic.

Todd Parsons, the chief product officer explains: "Just because someone is influential within one sector doesn't mean that they are influential in other areas. Our algorithms can analyze influence and allow companies to focus on those sites that really matter. We can also track the rise and fall in influence of a particular site."

The algorithms cannot measure sentiment, but users can quickly tag online content according to positive or negative sentiments, which can be shared with colleagues.

Email alerts will warn of possible trouble in real-time. But each customer applies their own response. This can include contacting people and also getting involved in the online conversations.

BuzzLogic's technology also learns from its users, which should mean that the service continues to improve over time.

Foremski's Take: BuzzLogic's visual presentation of its data is excellent. The visual data is presented within a user interface that provides a view into who is participating in each conversation, over a specific period in time, alongside summaries of the content.

It is a service that could be used in many ways, not just for brand management. It could uncover new types of buzz bubbling up that could provide business opportunities for some companies. And it can also be used to test the effectiveness of a public relations campaign.

The role of search engines is one that is not yet part of BuzzLogic's measurement. Search engines can dredge up negative comments time and again, and can help sites gain influence despite other factors.

Services such as BuzzLogic's can give organizations an insight into how they are perceived without requiring focus groups. But most organizations don't yet know what to do with such data and what the appropriate response should be. But they will figure that out over time.

[Wells Fargo should take notice...]

- - -

Case studies:

The Web 2.0 Expo has dominated most of my week and I'm exhausted talking with "Web 2.0" companies. So Wednesday evening, it was a pleasure to have a much different conversation, with a company called Global English.  

Anastasia Marin from Connecting Point Communications had whetted my interest in this company. It teaches English to the employees of top multinational corporations such as IBM, Deloitte, Hewlett-Packard, using unique online techniques.

It is sold as an online service using the enterprise software model, and costs $400 per seat per year. Multinational corporations are using the service to improve the English language skills of their professional staff in places such as China and India, and 98 other countries.

The company is 8 years old, private, profitable, with revenues between $20m and $30m, and about 100 staff.

Labor Crunch

But isn't English already a common skill among people in tech and business sectors? Deepak Desai, CEO of Global English says that this is not always true.

"The competition for staff means that global corporations are having to look further afield. Outside of the major cities, fewer people speak English as a second language, or speak it well."

This is true even in India, where English is widely spoken. "I was surprised at how large our business in India has become," says Mr Desai, who grew up in Mumbai, India.

Global English uses a variety of learning techniques and technologies, some involve voice recognition to check on pronunciation. And it has a broad range of metrics to measure and check on progress. If you lag, you'll get nagging emails to do better, and your boss will see your report card.

But it's not just English that is taught. It also teaches the cultural context of the language.

"People need to know how to converse in different situations," says Mr Desai.

Lingua Franca 2.0

English is certainly the lingua franca of business and technology. And combined with the Internet--the other lingua franca of our times--it makes for a killer communications application.

I consider the English language, plus the Internet, as the key technology accelerating the globalization of our economies. But will English continue to dominate?

Global Mandarin

Mandarin is the language that many business professionals are learning. As China's economy grows ever larger, Mandarin is certain to challenge the dominance of the English language in global business transactions.

Mr Desai nods, and says that his children are learning Mandarin. But Global English won't be changing its name anytime soon. "It is important to focus," he says. Which is very true.

News aggregators and bloggers that carry third party content should carry at least one advertising link associated with that content.

It would be the fair thing to do and a large aggregator such as Google News could help establish this practice. 

Google News publishes the headline  and the first paragraph of a news story on its site. Since news stories are written in an inverted pyramid format, the headline and first paragraph contain most of the value of a news story.

Therefore, it's only fair that if you take most of the value of a news story, then also publish one advertising link from the original site.

And if you are a blogger and blog the content or quote it, then the same would apply: publish one advertising link from the original site alongside the content.

- For example, if you'd like to republish part of this article, you might agree to publish one of my three advertising links alongside the content:

          -Silicon Valley Minute-Startups pitch in less than a minute.

          -Intel Core2Duo is here!

It's your choice which one of the three to carry, and your choice to do it or not.

But over time, it's a practice that would be seen as a mark of respect to the original content creator.

And it would help the original content creators recoup some of the cost of producing it--and it would encourage good content.

Google News doesn't monetise the news content it harvests from other news sites. If it carried one advertising link along with every news story it features on Google News, it would be respectful of the original content producers. And it would be in a leadership position that would influence others to do the same.

Also, many of the news sites run Google AdSense advertising links, Google would be bringing more clicks into its realm and do it for a good cause.

Also for RSS syndicators too:

- If you syndicate my content then please syndicate my accompanying AdLinks--don't strip them out. It's only fair.

If you re-publish my content -- then publish my AdLink.

This should also be an option for a new type of Creative Commons license.

For example: 

- Feel free to make money by republishing this post or anything else on SVW.

- As long as you make sure you preserve my links in the copy.

- And give attribution to SVW through a live link.

- And publish one of my AdLinks alongside each piece of content.

It should become the new "Fair Use."

Maybe Technorati could be the first to adopt this New Fair Use--it has been a champion of the blogosphere for many years.

Or maybe Digg will do it.

Whoever does it first will gain a spot in history, and a permalink spot in Wikipedia.

As for Google, do no evil is fine, but do some good is better, imho.

Please see SVW

The virtuous trackback A proposal for paying for content

April 7 - 2006

We need a Google AdSense on steroids: The Grand Challenge of Internet 2.0

 April 4, 2006

...