Post-Google Blogger…a sign of things to come?…

It seems this morning that a lot of Blogger sites are down.  Kevin Dugan‘s blog and SherpaBlog to name two are both down.

When you make a high profile acquisition, as Google have done, there is bound to be higher web traffic volume than before the news hits.  Did Blogger and Google make allowances? 

Blogger’s servers were never what you’d call swift, but now I believe the service is very very slow and with pages suddenly disapearing off the Internet, it’s not a perfect new start.

It’s a good example that PR in an online world covers every facet of an organization and not just the media. When you are planning a significant event you have to think through all the implications.

Here’s hoping Google give Blogger some new servers very quickly!

PR news round-up….

Entrepreneur magazine includes a PR-related question this month.  The question asks how can someone justify the cost of PR and/or measure the ROI. The answer is provided by Al Lautenslager from a firm called Marketing Now. Have a read of it and let me know what you think of it!

For all those doomsayers out there, there are still some technology-related PR accounts up for pitch!  ChenPR has won the Kubi Software Inc. PR account according to the Boston Business Journal.  Kubi provide collaboratives e-mail products.

Whilst their country’s rugby team’s woes continue, Wales do have some good news on the PR front.  The country’s first PR firm launched, owned and run by women is now up and running. The firm, called Vibe already has clients on-board including the Wales Tourist Board, Caerphilly County Borough Council, Care Forum Wales and Hallmark Health-care.

Still in the UK, The Scotsman reports that a local PR and Marketing firm, Dynamic Group, are being reported to the Police fraud squad for non-payment of wages. 

Facing a difficult Public Relations situation?…. 

What you need is your own online Public Relations adviser.  Now, where could you find such a thing?

It’s OK, your search is over, AskDD (Mr. D. Davis) is a UK site that promises personal PR counseling, PR whitepapers and a PR knowledge bank. There are three levels of site membership, UK�30, UK�55 or UK�70, the higher the level the more questions you can ask DD and the larger the reduction on face to face consulting.

Mr. Davis has had a varied career as a journalist and PR man.  He’s previously worked for firms such as Edelman and Ranier Corporation.

CLARIFICATION: As you can see in the comments, David has been in touch to point out that “all questions are answered free of charge by me. The subscriptions are for people who want unlimited access to The Knowledge Bank and portfolio of PR industry white papers.” TM

The Scoop….   

The LexisNexis (the artist previously known as Press Access) Scoop newsletter is out.  They have some excellent stuff in there, from writing online to maximizing editorial calenders and valuable information on outlets like Ebony and the AP.

15 seconds of Fame….

What do the FBI’s 10 most wanted, the Goodyear blimp, National Discount Broker’s Duck Quack and the Miss America Pageant have in common? Well you are unlikely to have guessed that they are all inductees into the Public Relations Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame is run by Bill Stoller.

PR Blog Content… 

While I was away last week there was a lot of interesting content from the growing community of PR bloggers.

Richard Bailey who always has a lot of excellent content has taken up a lecturing post in the UK.  On his blog he includes a synopsis of one of his lectures which looks at the Internet’s affect on PR and specifically Google’s increasing role as the Internet information gatekeeper. Recommended reading.

Kevin Dugan discusses a USA Today article which purports to educate investors on how to shield their investments from scandals.  One of the “tips” is how the CEO of  said company parks his car.  I kid you not.

Meanwhile Phil Gomes’ firm G2B Group has released the February issue of their newsletter, TapeOut.

My brand is bigger than your brand…

First up, Interbrand (watch out for pop-ups and other irritating design effects) the UK brand agency has done a study on the most popular Internet brands.  According to 1,315 respondents, Google tops the poll with fifteen percent, followed by Apple on fourteen percent, Coke, Starbucks and Ikea.

Harris Interactive has released the results of their 2002 Corporate Reputation Survey and in a year of corporate scandals it makes interesting reading.  The top ten US companies according to the study are: Johnson & Johnson, Harley Davidson (New Entry), Coca Cola, UPS (Up from 15th last year), General Mills (New Entry), Maytag (Up from 9th), Eastman Kodak (New Entry), Home Depot (Up from 19th), Dell (Up from 13th) and 3M (Down from 5th). 

High profile fallers from last year’s study include Fedex, Microsoft, Intel, Disney, General Electric, Hewlett Packard an IBM. 

The full listing is here.

How PR can change behaviour…

Pressbox covers a recent announcement of a new PR article from Robert  A. Kelly covering why Public Relations is a “power tool” for the 21st century.  It primarily deals with how PR can change behaviors, you can read the full article here.

“Fortunately for all concerned, that success will spring from the fundamental premise of public relations: people act on their own perception of the facts, and those perceptions lead to behaviors about which something can be done.”

Sometimes discretion really is better part of valor�.

 

The UK�s Register is taking Symantec�s �PR bunnies� to task over their claims (in a press release) that their products found the recent �Slammer� virus before it hit systems around the world.

It turns out their claims are less clear cut than they would like.  Calls to Symantec�s UK PR reps were stonewalled with the Registered referred directly back to the original press release�.

Update: February 20, 2003 – Symantec respond

Search + Weblog = Googleblog?…

A week is a long time.  There’s loads to catch up on and as you’ve probably already heard Google has bought Pyra, the company behind  Blogger, arguably the world’s leading provider of weblogs with over a million bloggers on its books.  Dan Gillmor broke the news. There will be a lot of analysis of this news in the coming days…

Deborah Branscum has (as usual) some great opinions on the Google acquistion and also covers an interesting farewell memo from David Stutz to his Microsoft colleagues on his departure from the company.

[Interesting that at the time of writing there is still no press release from Google on the acquisition on their website.]