Day: November 26, 2004

Shel Holtz reports that Marqui has done a deal with fifteen bloggers to insert mentions of Marqui’s “hosted communications management services” into their blogs.

“The bloggers will get $800 a month to mention Marqui with a link once a week in their blogs and post its emblem on a page. They’ll get an additional $50 per qualified sales lead they send to Marqui….But transparency and integrity are the order of the day, King said. Information about Marqui’s “Blogosphere Program” is posted on its corporate Web site, and bloggers are urged — but not required — to disclose the relationship.”

I think it should be easy enough to spot if any marketing bloggers are in this program.  I think it would be quite hard to subtly post an entry on “hosted communications management services” 🙂

On a more serious note, as long as the mentions are flagged as advertising, I don’ t have a problem with this.  Just as in the physical world where advetorials are highlighted, as long as these blogads are highlighted and the blogger is up front with their readership I don’t see why this should pose a problem. Of course if they’re not up front that’s a different matter….

Two more PR blogs and some interesting reports from media roundtables….

• Bob LeDrew, another esteemed Canadia PR blogger, runs the FlackLife blog. He points to an interesting profile of San Antonio Public Library Pro, Beth Graham.

 

• Steve Rubel has discovered another notable addition to the PR blogging ranks. Barbara Heffner of Chen PR has started a blog called Clark Lane. Barbara has an interesting report on a Businesswire panel on targeting online media:

“Paul Gillin, editor in chief for TechTarget, was a tad more direct: “In general, I advise you never to do exclusives in print or online. You give CNET an exclusive, and 10 minutes later everyone has picked up on it and you’ve got dozens of reporters pissed off at you, for a jump of 15 minutes that no reader notices.”

• Maria Perez over at MediaInsider posts a report on the Publicity Club of Chicago’s recent lunch that tackled the subject of freelancers. If there’s one media group that is growing fast it’s freelancers.

“She urges PR people not to �try to draw me into a web� that features only one client. Her editors trust and pay her to present a balanced feature and that can only be done with multiple sources. As a PR person herself in the health care industry, she writes mainly for trade publications. There is a crossover in content between her services; however, she uses a wider variety and different sources when she writes, and the information she presents is more flushed out.”

Drew and Andy (or should that be AndyDrew) both link to a story on SpinBunny about how FT Editor Andrew Gowers had a ‘Naked Gun’ moment at a recent FT gathering in Paris.

Following a speech to his fellow workers, he walked backstage (with his microphone still on) and made a phone call:

“Spies tell of a wholly embarrassing incident in which editor Andrew Gowers made a glowing speech about the success and planned future success of the esteemed publication. But then the daft bugger went backstage, forget to take his clipmike off and the whole audience heard him take a call on his mobile.

Amongst the tirade of abuse dished out as commentary on how the meeting had gone, he was heard to dismiss it as the usual load of bollocks and a waste of time.”

Footnote:

• If the link to SpinBunny doesn’t work, please don’t give out to me, it doesn’t work for me either and I know for a fact the site isn’t being blocked by my employers, I have tried a whole load of ways to access the site with no success and the only way I get to read it is via bloglines.