November 03, 2004
PR Watch: PR companies and their tech clients are starting to notice bloggers
I had an interesting chat with Christina Armstrong the other day. Christina has been working in the valley for many years and is one of the best PR professionals around. She said that the blogging phenomenon has left many PR companies and their clients baffled about what to do.
PR companies know how to work with traditional media, but they are not sure how to work with bloggers. That indecision has led to no action at all. But now, Christina says that things are changing. “Some PR companies, and also their clients, are beginning to ask, 'which are the most influential blogs?'”
This can be a tough one to judge. It is difficult to audit the readership of blogs. RSS feeds and the re-posting of stories and entries across the web is difficult to track. Yes, there is “trackback,” which is integrated into blogging software and can track links to a specific blog entry. But spammers have forced many blogs to turn-off this feature.
And the influence of a particular blog is not necessarily connected to the traffic to a particular blog. The readers of this blog, for example, are mostly Silicon Valley companies and their business partners. Our readers are small in number compared with say, News.com, but they are in the top echelon of the world’s top decision makers. They decide on the design, components, and technologies used in millions of digital products that are manufactured in factories around the world. They also finance huge amounts of innovation, which sets the direction of many sectors, not just tech, but also life sciences, etc.
And Silicon Valley executives do read blogs. In fact they do almost all their news reading online, except when they are sitting in a plane: that’s the only time print publications have a chance of reaching this elite group of decision makers. (Hey, there's an idea: a business publication that is ONLY available on airplanes?!)
In terms of blogging, Silicon Valley tech and PR companies are at least beginning to recognize the importance of this fragmented media channel. It will be interesting to see how PR companies will approach this challenge, and how they will seek to influence the “influential” blogs.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 02:05 PM | Comments (2)
October 22, 2004
PR Watch: Outcast dinner party Part II -- bits and bites…
Let me rush through the dinner highlights:
Margit and Caryn took the stage to welcome the guests, and they both looked fabulous. They attempted a joke about how Margit, being from Germany, did not know the term “home plate” and thought it was a type of food plate. It’s quite understandable—Margit seems to be on some kind of super Atkins—so she might get a little hungry occasionally.
. . .
I was delighted to find that Gary Reback, Silicon Valley’s top lawyer IMHO, was seated at my table. In the 1990s, Gary helped to set in motion the antitrust complaint against Microsoft, which led to the government winning the case. He has just finished with the PeopleSoft court case, is working on a book, and is looking for his next challenge.
He’s very concerned about Washington D.C, and that the legislators do not understand the technology business. This could lead to problem regulations or ineffectual legislation. Gary is not one of those lawyers that chase after the dollar—he really wants to make a big contribution on large issues.
When I was at the FT, I had the scoop on Gary’s comeback into the law profession. During the dotcom boom Gary founded a communications technology startup company called Voxeo, and became its chief executive. “I wanted to have the business experience of running a startup, but, as CEO, managing teams of software engineers was a lot harder than I expected. And as for dealing with our lawyers....I can understand why lawyers are often so disliked.”
. . .
The indefatigable Tony Perkins, founder of AlwaysOn, Red Herring, Churchill Club, etc, etc, was at the party. I mentioned that he seems to have a ton of stuff going on right now with AlwaysOn. He is launching a quarterly magazine, there is a blog magazine, conferences, etc. “I feel that we’ve come to a stage now where we can monetize our efforts,” he said. Monetizing content is a huge challenge and I hope Tony figures things out—because then we can all benefit from examples of successful online media business models.
. . .
I had an interesting chat with David Helfrich from Garnett & Helfrich Capital. David made his money the traditional Silicon Valley way by working at startups that were then sold for large sums to larger players. This put him into the venture capital business for several years. His focus now, however, is not VC investments, but on financing deals with private, medium sized companies. He says such deals can be very complex---which keeps out the competition.
Mr Helfrich said he got out of the VC business because it hasn’t changed in years and it is not producing the value it once did. He said there are too many VCs living off the very generous fund management fees and doing little in return. I heartily agree--if you have a $1bn fund and the management fee is 2 per cent, the VC team doesn’t need to worry too much about eating, or finding a roof over their heads—or risky investments. I think the investment landscape has changed tremendously in Silicon Valley, yet the VCs are still doing business the old fashioned way. They are still following a herd mentality and seem bereft of good ideas.
It is networks of Angel investors, such as TIE and Silicom Ventures that are going to be the major beneficiaries of the changes occurring —but more on that topic later…
. . .
In the Redwood room later on, it was always a pleasure to chat with the very tall Cory Johnson, Silicon Valley business reporter for CNBC and a familar talking head to many. (I’m hoping he can introduce me to Maria at some point!)
I didn’t hang around too long—although I do remember demonstrating the inherent instability of a Manhattan cocktail to Joe Fay, US editor of Computerwire, using part of his shirt in the demo. BTW, Joe might be leaving Computerwire soon, which would create an internal power vacuum, one that the young but ambitious Kevin Murphy, Computerwire reporter, would like to fill.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 04:33 PM | Comments (0)
PR Watch: The Outcast CEO dinner party part 1: The Silicon Valley Hack Pack turns up...
Outcast Communications, the public relations agency, has been doing very well lately and that showed clearly at its 3rd Annual CEO dinner at the Clift on Wednesday evening. The place was full of Silicon Valley luminaries, including much of Silicon Valley's Hack Pack of leading journalists. I picked up some great stories, (however, I also picked up a hangover and forgot some of them!)
Outcast was founded by Margit Wennmachers and Caryn Marooney in 1997 and I've been a fan for a long time because of the "startup" culture of Outcast. It has outgrown its “boutique” image by winning some large corporate clients such as EMC’s software group, and Dell’s Enterprise group. (More on Outcast next week...now back to the party.)
Fortunately for the many baseball fans amongst the hundred or so guests, Outcast had set up a large TV outside the dining room for pre-dinner cocktails. And there was a large and lively crowd following the game.
I preferred the TV-less lounge area, where I could catch up with fellow reporters, such as Constance Loizos, a lead reporter for Dow Jones Venture Capital Analyst: Technology newsletter. This is also where Andreas Kluth from the Economist was hiding out. I was complaining that I hardly see him, “that’s because I hate driving over the bridge and into the city,” he said. And that is how you know that an event is worthwhile attending if you see that Andreas is there.
Jason Maynard, software analyst at Merrill Lynch was also in the lounge area. I asked him if he had been following Salesforce.com at all. Interestingly, Jason said he had not yet initiated coverage of Outcast's largest, and oldest client--Saleforce.com--led by the colorful Marc Benioff.(I wish the valley had more Benioffs BTW.)
Jason and I listened to the delightful Julia Blystone from Outcast tell us about Halsey Minor’s new $50m “On Demand” venture capital fund. It targets “On Demand” investments. It was announced earlier in the month but I missed it.
I asked who else is funding the fund and was told it is all Halsey. And why not? Halsey has shown a Midas touch and has done very well. He did very well on his Cnet stock, selling a big chunk before the bubbles popped. And more recently, he has done very well out of his buddy Marc Benioff’s Salesforce.com IPO. Halsey was an early investor in Salesforce and had a nice chunk of that deal. And he is also pushing hard with his Grand Central Communications web services company.
As an aside, I found an interesting link to a webinar conducted jointly between Halsey and Jason Maynard. Next time I see Jason I’d like to ask him how this type of thing is set up. For example, can I hire a Merrill analyst to do a webinar? Or is it a customer type of thing, say, if I kept my IRA at Merrill?
From a posting on WebServices.org:
“Enterprise Software in an On Demand World - Webinar, 17th June, 10am PST
Join Jason Maynard, Software Analyst for Merrill Lynch and Halsey Minor, Founder of Grand Central Communications for an executive webinar to learn how "On Demand software could lower overall cost of deployment by 5x-10x compared to traditional implementation models, effectively changing the way customers buy, vendors sell and investors invest".
http://www.webservices.org/index.php/ws/content/view/full/5080
And this is the press release announcing Halsey's new venture fund. You’ll notice that Halsey’s buddies provide unbiased testaments to the power and insight of his investment skills ;-)
http://www.grandcentral.com/news/press_archive/OnDemand_100404
Part II of the Outcast Party report...
Posted by Tom Foremski at 06:12 AM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2004
PR Watch: The place to be on Wednesday evening was Outcast's 3rd annual CEO dinner at the Clift...
There was a who's who of industry luminaries, top journalists, and excellent conversation. And I picked up a ton of great gossip and items that I'm dying to share with my loyal readers.
But--it will have to wait for Friday because I have to run out and be a reporter. I'm off to yet another glittering event. This one is in San Jose, the annual Awards banquet hosted by SEMI, the trade group. The event celebrates the massive--but long suffering--chip equipment industry.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)
October 04, 2004
PR Watch: A pontification of priests...let’s bring back the concept of the salon
Sunday evening was a lot of fun because I had dinner with Susan MacTavish Best and a couple of dozen of her friends. And I also bumped into a few people I hadn’t seen in a while.
The food was delightful, but it was the people and the conversations that made the evening. Yes, Susan is a PR professional, but this was not a public relations event. It felt more like a family and friends Thanksgiving dinner, as we sat on chairs borrowed and begged from neighbors, and sat scrunched together in her modest apartment.
The mix of people was wonderful, and I realized how much I missed this kind of salon-like event that is more common in larger cities, especially on the East coast, and in Europe. Here, most of the natives go to bed early and they rise early, which is probably why many of the people left at Susan’s dinner party after 10pm, were East coasters, or those of European backgrounds.
I’ve tried to introduce more of this type of event myself, with occasional dinner parties, and the Friday Blackout Salon. There are so few social events that aren’t industry related, that it’s always a pleasure to be among people that have many different backgrounds and jobs. It’s very much in the tradition of the salon concept of the late 1800s and early 1900s, in which a host invited a broad mix of people, artists, industrialists, writers —- a format designed for mixing ideas and people.
Susan’s dinner/salon was the first time I had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with Craig Newmark, yes, Mr. List himself (BTW, Susan’s partner is Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craig’s List, our co-host that evening.) And let me tell you, Craig is a true geek. He loves to talk about his Linux box, and is also an avid reader of science fiction. Craig’s companion Eileen, entertained our table with a list she found that described the name of groups of things. For example, most are familiar with “a gaggle of geese,” but probably not with the term, “a barren of mules” or “a pontification of priests” (my personal favorite.)
I also had the pleasure of meeting again, Gil Gershoni and his partner Amy, of Gershoni design studio and who regularly host one of the best salon-type events around. Chris MacAskill is another interesting person, co-founder of SmugMug (a very interesting photo sharing web site that is growing like wildfire, mostly by word of mouth.) Chris was also co-founder of Fatbrain.com, which Barnes & Noble picked in a stock and cash deal valued at about $64m, four years ago.
And I ran into Alex Gove, of WaldenVC. I hadn’t seen Alex in years, probably the last time was at one of the many dotcom networking parties of yesteryear (. . .hey, might this be a sign that bubbly-ness is coming back?). Oh, and let me thank Vlad for that excellent tip, my readers will be very grateful when that one comes out.
Then there was some guy called Gary Rivlin (http://www.garyrivlin.com/aboutme.html. Anybody know him? Claims he works as a reporter for some sort of Manhattan based newspaper? I had to break it to him gently -- that on the West Coast, few people read newspapers. Not because we don’t have the literacy skills, but because we don’t have a large community of commuters using public transport, as on the East coast. (Also, being caught reading a newspaper at work can lead to disciplinary action.)
Gary has been in town just 4 months, and although he likes San Francisco, he is a touch homesick, pining for the Norwegian fiords, or rather, the deep, majestic canyons of Manhattan.
So, if you run into Gary, give him a big California-style hug, it might help to help him feel better.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 09:28 PM | Comments (1)
September 22, 2004
PR Watch: No downturn down here as PR companies scramble for bodies
From a Wall Street vantage point the tech sector doesn't look that good right now. Earnings season is coming up and there are unlikely to be many positive surprises from Silicon Valley's public companies.
However, things are cooking in the private company sector, and Silicon Valley's PR companies are scrambling to fill new positions.
One large PR agency, which I'd rather not name...
...has 13 job openings. And many smaller PR companies are also looking for people. This is a good indicator of the strength of the local economy, since startups need representation. And increasingly, many startups are looking for PR companies to present their story to the business press, rather than just the trade press, says Marianne O Conner, president of Sterling Communications, one of the top tier local PR agencies. "Many companies have found that greater visibility in the business press can help them in many ways, such as making it easier to raise funding, and in recruitment," she says.
One problem, however, is that the mainstream business press mostly focuses on publicly traded companies. That is why stories about private companies are difficult to "sell" to the business press. And it is not just because they are small, either. SAS is a $1.3bn revenue software company, the largest private software company in the US. Yet coverage of SAS in the mainstream business press is rare. (There has been more press coverage on SAS in recent months, but that was in connection with the Google IPO, and comparisons with SAS' strong employee focus with that of Google.)
Silicon Valley PR agencies are hiring, but the work is tough, and some agencies are developing a reputation for burning people out very quickly.
This is partly because clients are demanding more and wanting to pay less. Clients have gotten used to being in the driver’s seat over the past few years, when PR agencies were desperate for business. But now? I think there may be a rude awakening coming up for clients…and also one for those agencies that haven't taken care of their people during the past three very tough years. We are all vulnerable to better offers.
Posted by Tom Foremski at 09:48 PM | Comments (0)
