Category: General

RSS is a fantastic technology that has the potential to save a lot of time, particularly for PR people who need to monitor multiple news sources whether they are magazines, newspapers blogs or a combination.  However RSS is still in its early stages and it’s still not widely understood outside of technical and weblog circles. (In fact you could argue it’s not widely appreciated in the technical community at this point either).

Dee Rambeau has a weblog on business communication and he points to a very interesting piece from Robin Good on some sample applications for RSS.

Rok Hrastnik: The number one problem RSS publishers are facing is the lack of knowledge about RSS. What in your mind are the best ways to present RSS to your existing subscribers and get them to start using it, and of course “subscribe” to their feed?

I think that the best way to expose RSS to new users is by way of providing them with something that they have not seen before, that is highly useful for them, and that they could not do without.

So what you do is to create RSS newsfeeds on highly specialized topics and you promote and make these feeds accessible from as many news aggregators, distributors and syndicators as possible.

The more your RSS newsfeed is a specialized information channel on a specific topic the more readers can appreciate its uniqueness and value. The more this is just another channel for distributing your rants the more confusion and the less appreciation you will get.

 Jim Horton points to a post on Business 2.0’s blog about the potential crisis facing Kryptonite locks over an Internet posting that claims they can be opened with a Bic biro.

“A crisis like this might mean the company may have to replace millions of bike locks — an expensive exercise. Few firms can afford it. Or, Kryptonite would have to find a low cost way to prevent the opening the lock with a Bic pen and get that solution to the field as soon as possible. Another expensive exercise. The worst thing the firm could do would be to ignore the problem and hope it will go away. It won’t. Kryptonite can be sure people across America are stuffing Bic pens into Kryptonite locks and trying to open them. If even a few succeed, its market share will plummet. It’s an interesting product crisis with many PR implications. I wish I were working on it.”

Kryptonite’s PR response attempted to be as secure as their locks allegedly are. It completely dodges the actual question and instead promotes a new product innovation. Not much use if my bike is secured to some railings by the insecure model.

 Meanwhile long-term PR blogger Kevin Dugan is turning to the dark side and moving in-house.  He’s joining FRCH Design Worldwide. We wish him every success.

 Richard Bailey looks at the rationale behind multiple PR brands as Next Fifteen, the holding company for Text 100 (where I spent many happy years), August.One and Bite Communications has announced it is killing the Joe Public Relations brand.

Mark Hughes, CEO of Buzz Marketing is eating his own dog food so to speak.

To create some interest (or should that be buzz?) ahead of the launch of his new buzz marketing book, he’s targeting bloggers to get people to vote for their favorite book title.

This post just goes to prove that your author is a sucker for honest pitches even if I’m not a great fan to the buzz word, which has appeared four times in this post…

I’ve come across two relatively new PR blogs:

• PR firm Topaz Partners has kicked off a blog entitled Tech PR Gems.
• Drew is a UK based PR pro with a blog on Technology PR

 

• Donald K. Wright – Professor of Communication, University of South Alabama and President of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA)
• Richard Gaunt MIPR ï¿½ CEO Benchpoint Ltd, London, England
• Katie Delahaye Paine � CEO KDPaine and Partners, Durham NH, USA

• Thanks to Stuart Bruce for the link.
• In the most recent PR Opinions Survey 70% of respondents said they used a non-standard combination of measurement tools to gauge the success and/or failure or a program.

I am nowhere near through my backlog but here are some interesting tidbits I’ve spotted in the meantime:

 Steve Rubel points to Brian Foy’s tribulations with a PR person when he tried to get a review copy of their client’s software. It seems to me that this is a case of internal pressure on the PR person to “get” an interview or demo before giving him the software. The sooner our profession realizes that if we don’t object with clients when we know something is wrong then ultimately it’s our reputation that suffers… luckily the pro in question has had their identity hidden.

 Hans Kullin posts a story on astroturfing* and how many practitioners feel it is OK. I’m not sure it fits in with the new bright open model of communications however…

*Astroturfing is where groups/organizations with vested interests form “independent” bodies, associations and groups that try and promote various positions and/or influence public opinions.

 Jeremy Pepper has an interesting post on a recent editorial from Jack O’Dwyer over at O’Dwyer’s PR on PR’s move to marketing communications:

“PR firms must do more than just say, “We do marketing communications, too.” They should identify themselves as marcom agencies right off the bat, eliminating ambiguity. They can’t sit around while ad agencies move into their territory.”

 Mike Manuel links to the Red Herring interview with Joyce Park, the blogger fired by Friendster for her blogging..

 Trevor Cook points to a new survey of Australlian communications professionals.

 Neville Hobson points to a piece from Blogger on promoting your weblog.

Well I’ve made it back in one piece. 

I am currently navigating the usual post-vacation swamp of e-mail, spam and reading materials. Usual postings should start again once I’ve managed to get on top of the day job….

Ah yes, just as the Summer is coming to a close (we’re not sure we had a Summer here), PR Opinions is heading off on a much needed vacation until September 14th, 2004.

Should you require some up to date PR news, opinions and information in the meantime, you should visit the wide variety of PR blogs listed to the right.

I’m completely offline until the 14th!

 PR Pro Brian Schwartz, who works at CDW, has kicked off a blog called Reporters’ Gold, which is aimed at providing journalists with an aggregated source of industry research and other information.*

 Constantin Basturea has put together a fantastic Wiki that lists CEO blogs…

 Bacon’s (nee MediaMap) Expert PR newsletter has long been a staple source of PR articles and how-to’s.  The latest issue covers improving the accuracy of news coverage, online newsrooms, blogs, building lasting media relationships, corporate messaging,  pitching online editors, tips on being a good TV spokesperson. There’s something there for everyone!

 Matthew Podboy takes a look at measuring online PR and Angelo Fernando looks at measuring word of mouth.

 A new global survey on PR measurement has been announced.

 Edelman’s Silicon Valley office has picked up a nice account win with the Churchill Club.

 Be careful out there…Mike Manuel notes another blog victim.  Joyce Parks has lost her job at Friendster for…. her blog.

Footnote:

* Thanks to Steve Rubel for the link.

 Larry Osterman is a long-time engineer over at Microsoft and he has a really interesting blog post that reviews his twenty year stint at the world’s largest software company. It’s a walk down memory lane. “I�ve watched three different paradigm shifts occur in the software industry, and most of a fourth.  The first one was the shift of real computing to �personal� computers.  The second was the GUI revolution, the third was the internet, and now we�re seeing a shift to smaller devices.  We�re still not done with that one.”

 Martin Tobias over at the VentureBlog explains what he wants from the next generation of the Web. He also examines the benefits or otherwise of some recent technological advances.  He asks a number of questions:

“1. Over the last five to seven years has technology increased or decreased your personal productivity?
2. Increased or decreased your overall quality of life?
3. Strengthened or weakened your interpersonal and family relationships?”

 Meanwhile Karen Richardson, CEO of E.piphany is interviewed over at the BBC. “There is no short way or quick remedy to success, just do it the right way even if it takes a little longer.”

 I see that Novell have another management re-org taking place. Novell is a company with potential, marrying their SUSE acquistion with their traditional network management strengths would seem to have a lot of potential.  The question is can they turn the ship around…

 CNET has an interesting article from the Harvard Business School on how smaller players can survive in competition with the big boys and girls. “The essence of a niche strategy is to achieve specialization by taking explicit advantage of the opportunities provided by the ecosystem while avoiding the kinds of traps that challenge firms in such environments.”

Footnote:

Thanks to Neville Hobson and Greg Brooks for some of the links.