Open The Dialogue

• Online news publishers are exploring ways to re-write the Robots.txt files on their sites to, in their words, more closely mirror the terms and conditions they have for sharing their content. I still don't buy the argument that Google News and other services are stealing their traffic, but that's just me. (CT)
• Along with that comes news that some site administrators may be altering their Robots.txt file to give preferential access to Google's crawler since they send the most - and best - traffic. (CT)
• Brightcove.tv, just days after saying it would no longer accept user-generated uploads, is looking toward the future and smartly focusing on building brand loyalty to the site as opposed to making a quick buck and hoping for the best. (CT)
• OMG, Google is building functionality that would let you tag particular results as more or less important and relevant to what you're looking for. This will, of course, change the course of the Internet as we know it and immediately result in the downfall of several civilizations as well. Or at least that's the impression I get from scanning various headlines. (CT)
• While these tips for enhancing brand marketing are specifically targeted at B2B companies, many of the general concepts enshrined in them are applicable to just about all levels of business. (CT)
• I never quite got what eBay was going to do with Skype to begin with. Always seemed to me like they were buying it to have one more asset to make the eBay itself more attractive to a potential buyer. Anyway, BusinessWeek says the confluence of recent events may turn 2008 into Skype's make or break year. (CT)

Posted by Chris Thilk at 07:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Okay, we know that Facebook took out the "is" from its status field, and with the ability for Twitter and other services to the platform, that was a no brainer. That said, I would love to know why Mashable didn't get more responses to this survey from last week. Of course, the audience of Mashable doesn't encompass the overall usership of a Facebook or another service, but still. I'd love to have that survey done through "regular" (read: non Web 2.0 workers) users. (TB)
• Guitar Hero does indeed blend, as Gizmodo points out. (TB)
• Marijean Jaggers is advising everyone that they better get on the RSS delivery bandwagon because she just unsubscribed from all her email newsletters. (CT)
• Steve Outing at Poynter suggests news operations should setup Twitter feeds for breaking news, something journalists in the field can use to share short little updates on developing stories. (CT)
• Kevin Dugan says if your press release is more than 22 words long Google's going to ignore it, so keep it brief or be prepared for zero search love. (CT)
• Cory at Lost Remote takes up the issue I was discussing the other day of why newspapers and other online pubs don't link out. (CT)
• Ben McConnell makes my day with this list of ways to tell you have too much money in the marketing budget. (CT)

Posted by Tom Biro at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When I got back into the office from a trip to The Garden State a couple weeks ago there on my desk was a package. Hmmm, I thought. I'd already gotten this month's Bloggers Gone Wild: Spring Break WOOOO!!! Edition VHS and everyone I know had already tried to assassinate me. So I was curious to see what was inside.

To my pleasant surprise I found it to be a copy of Now is Gone by Geoff Livingston with Brian Solis. The book purports to be a "primer" for executives to acclimate themselves to the new media world and figure out, if they already haven't, how to create effective marketing relationships in that world. Livingston places heavy emphasis on the idea of relationships, saying time and time again that they are what needs to be focused on and not traditional marketing. Not only because doing so allows you as a marketer to know what people are saying, but it gives the people formerly known as the audience the sense that they are participating in the success of a company or product that they feel an affinity for.

The strongest point Livingston makes in the book is that it's not enough to just take your existing marketing and put it on the web. It needs to be high-quality, appropriate for the people you're trying to reach and delivered on a platform that they are already using. The combination of those three things may not insure your marketing efforts will be successful, but it gives those efforts a better chance of not blowing up in your face.

If there's one thing that I took issue with in Now is Gone, it's Livingston's tendency to paint things as definitively right or wrong or to characterize the social media world as if it operated with a single collective conscious. At one point Livingston warns public relations practitioners that if they send out a heads-up to bloggers and that pitch does not result in the story being written up then it's a failure and they need to scrap the entire program since it's obviously not adding value to the larger community.

While I agree that PR people should approach bloggers carefully (that's why it helps to have someone who knows the community and that language) and that pitches need to be individually crafted to make the story as valuable to the blogger as possible I don't think failure to achieve pick-up is a sign of a bad program. I get pitches all the time that aren't that attractive to me, but sometimes that's just because I'm in a bad or just funky mood. Since blogging is so highly personal - even if I'm not blogging about personal matters - sometimes I just can't get excited about a story that would normally be right up my alley. Bloggers are moody, something that occasionally renders any hard and fast rules about engagement moot.

Considering that Livingston is aiming at the higher levels of the org chart with who he's trying to speak to the book does succeed more often than it doesn't at making its points. Marketing in the social media-powered world of 2007 is not like marketing as few as 10 years ago. The rules are different because the balance of power is shifting, the risks are higher and the demands even more demanding.

While there are points of view in Now is Gone I don't exactly agree with, it is worth picking up and reading. It's just like reading anything else. There are things I completely agree with and others I don't, but when it's all been tallied up it does add something to the conversation. I'd rather read something and disagree with the author than read something and have no opinion. I think that can be said of just about everything in my RSS list as well as my book shelf.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 07:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

For the last couple weeks I've been thinking - in my copious free time, which mainly consists of the walk between the train station and work - about the people I know online. Specifically I've been thinking about how I link to stories and how I identify the people I'm linking to. When I link to something from, say Josh Hallett or Alex Billington or someone like that I generally say "Josh says..." or "Alex pointed out..." in a manner that makes my identification of them a very casual thing. I know them and the brands they've built up around themselves and so refer to them in the same way I would were I talking about them to a mutual acquaintance. After all, as Tom and I said on Jaffe Juice a while ago, "We are the brand."

But when I link to MediaPost of Variety I use, for the most part, the publication name. That's because although I read those sites and assume that many of my readers do I don't necessarily know the people who have actually written the story. There's not the same personal connection and so the communication I use reverts back to being very formal.

There is - and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here - a dramatic shift going on in the media world. But it's not just on the audience's side of the equation. The members of the media itself are changing how they're doing business. But much of that change, it seems, is being held in check or at least slowed by the willingness of the publications they work for to adapt along with them.

The other day I linked to this MediaPost Research Brief that reported on a survey showing 54 percent of journalists said they got story ideas from reading blogs. When Tom saw that he kind of couldn't believe that. And I said back to him that while that in some respects is great, the problem is that the number - not the percent but the flat number - of publications that would give credit to those blogs much less link out to them could probably be counted on two hands.

That thought came back to me as I was writing up a couple stories for Movie Marketing Madness. In one story recounting the problems Paramount/Dreamworks is facing marketing Sweeney Todd, the Hollywood Reporter writer cites a blog entry from a Steven Sondheim devotee who is worried his favorite songs are going to be cut from the movie. But there's no link back to that blog. So the blogger doesn't know he's just been quoted unless he subscribes to THR and reads the full text of the story and recognizes his line.

In another example, a MediaPost story about some TV spots for Saw IV mention that the spots were still (?) available for viewing on YouTube. But there's no link to the video, something that would have made the story about 40 percent more useful to the reader since they could have seen first hand just what the spot looked like. Instead they can either accept the description as written or engage on their own YouTube search for the video.

Journalists are increasingly blogging, either on their newspaper or magazine's sites or striking out on their own. Some are doing it better than others (Chicagoist threw a mock celebration when the Tribune's Steve Johnson - the paper's technology writer - finally started linking out) but it seems like they're trying and learning just like the rest of us. And they're going after ad revenue on their stand-alone blogs.

Unfortunately even those publications that purport to be embracing blogs like AdAge, which now houses the Power 150 list created by Todd Anderlik, still aren't getting it. As Mack pointed out the other day, they've done little since taking over management of that list to integrate the blogs there into their coverage, neither citing them in stories or turning to the people behind them for their perspective on stories that impact the online marketing world.


Bloggers have succeeded in large part by becoming part of a community and those relationships encourage linking, commenting and other forms of interaction.

Publications like The New York Times and others have been shifting from a paid wall to free access that's supported by ad revenue, with the idea being that more visitors leads to higher revenue. But what they're not getting is that if the journalists at those publications were to go out into the online community that's covering the same beat they are, even more traffic would come their way. You link to me, you drop me an email, you interact with me and turn yourself into a person as opposed to a drone at a faceless corporate entity and I'm going to send more traffic your way because I now have a relationship with you. It's just like any other sort of referral. If a friend is looking for a mechanic you don't send them to a big store you just happened to notice in the phone book. You send them to someone you know and who has done good work for you in the past.

Ideally, journalists should become part of the communities they exist in for many of the same reasons companies should. Doing so makes everyone's life a little better and provides a more useful product for readers. In the OJR, Robert Niles points to some ordinary bloggers that went beyond a mainstream newspaper story to provide more information. And Nikke Finke just recently took the New York Times to task for some questionable reporting.

Malcolm Gladwell was right to some extent when he said blogs wouldn't exist without the New York Times. But the relationship is much more symbiotic than he might think. Mainstream media feeds social media, and social media is increasingly beginning to feed mainstream media. But while social media has been open about how much it depends on mainstream outlets, the mainstream outlets still have a ways to go before they are acknowledging bloggers and others in the same way. It's a deeper change that needs to happen than ABC putting together a clip show of user-generated videos that have been submitted. It needs to be systemic and deep-routed, with mainstream writers as much part of the community as bloggers are now.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 07:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Like Todd Anderlik and others I got a review of copy of Now is Gone by Geoff Livingstone with Brian Solis. A review will be coming as soon as I 1) Learn to read and 2) Read the book. (CT)
• I'm intrigued by this idea, floated in an AdAge article, of trying to reach a niche audience with a tailored marketing message. Tell me more... (CT)
• Speaking of AdAge, Mack has some issues with how they have - or more accurately have not - integrated the Power 150 list into the site. Some good points from Mr. Collier. (CT)
• Crain's Chicago Business has a good series of articles on the influence of blogging that manages to be a useful primer for those getting their feet wet and still interesting to experienced folks, a tough task to pull off. (CT)

Posted by Chris Thilk at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even if I didn't know that it was the company that lured Jeremy Pepper away from the agency world I would still really like the idea behind The Point. You know all those social issues that are completely deserving of addressing but which can't get off the ground commitment wise? The Point seeks to address that problem.

It works like this: Create or join a campaign then sit back. Only when enough people commit to action on that issue - once the number of members crosses the Tipping Point - are those who committed called upon to act. Those who start the campaigns decide what that looks like, whether it's a financial pledges or number of members or some other goal line.

The reason I like this idea is that many well meaning people are constantly being asked for their time or money. But they don't want either of those scant resources to be spent on something that doesn't have the support of others and therefore has little chance of success. The Point tells people they'll only be asked to contribute to causes that have the backing of enough people to actually effect change.

Crowds, as we've seen just about everywhere in the social media era, are a powerful force. The Point wants to make sure they have a big enough crowd to make a difference. It's a good effort and I wish Pepper and the rest of the team luck.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 08:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Cleaning out the feeds.

• 72 percent of journalists read blogs according to new numbers from the Arketi Group and 54 percent say blogs generate story ideas. The number I'd like to see is how many of those journalists credit the blogs they got the idea from or link back to them with the inspirational post. I'm guessing that's a small number. (CT)
• Speaking of journalism and blogging, Robert Niles says (and I agree with him) that journalists who start their own, independent blogs are just fine selling ads on those sites. They're not selling positive coverage, just a little bit of space somewhere on the site. That provides a little bit of income, which enables them to keep doing what they're doing. (CT)
• David Armano warns you there are weirdos tells you there are people who are quietly teaching themselves social media tools and communication best practices, people whose knowledge you can tap into. (CT)
• It must be the holiday season. More and more articles like this one from the Chi Trib are popping up about how greedy, evil employees are shopping online during business hours. (CT)
• Chris Brogan is moving on from Pulver Media. (CT)
• Campaign-specific microsites might not be as popular as they once were as people expect brand marketers to come to them on social media platforms instead of forcing them to seek out the brand. (CT)
• Considering the drama over Super Bowl spot inventory usually reaches well into the New Year, I'm a bit suspicious about stories like this one that says Fox has just two - 2! - spots in the fourth quarter that remain unsold. (CT)

Posted by Chris Thilk at 07:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Wow. Steve Safran is more or less leaving Lost Remote. LR, of course, has an all-star caliber team that Steve was a part of but it will be a bit strange not having his name in some way showing up on the site regularly. LR was one of the first blogs I subscribed to when I first started getting into that and so I feel like an era has ended in some manner.

Good luck to Steve and to the rest of the LR team.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Everywhere I look this week, it's all about the social ads. Chris was discussing MySpace's "targeting" abilities and how that was utilized for ads focused on Amanda Bynes fans, Brian Solis is all over Facebook's efforts to get you, the user, to essentially identify the companies / brands / products you identify with, and integrate that in various fashions into how your friends and contacts see you in the social network.

But while we have something that might be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the online version of people walking around with your t-shirt on, and influencing their friends to want one, too, we're also greeted with stuff like this, an "ad" in your Facebook feed featuring Odd Thomas (whose page, amusingly, only contains links to his MySpace profile, not the one on Facebook. OOPS!), made to "look" MUCH more like something that is, as Dave suggests, "more like friend news." Is that any better than the typical "sponsored" items in your friend news? I guess that's up to the whole eye, beholder thing, but I tend to lean with Dave on this one.

Sometimes I really feel like we take some great steps forward when it comes to companies "getting it," and then, when turning around, I want to kick the wall in frustration for the marketing guy in me. So while Jeremy makes some awesome points when he says that advertising as an industry will "win" the business of social media from its clients, these are just some of the examples that make me feel like they, just as PRfolk say "Ohhh, yeah!" entirely too much, need to step out of their own little world for two seconds before getting people to drop tens of thousands of dollars on technology that no one has nailed down just yet.

[ed: I apologize for the reference to Disney's "Gummi Bears" in the title. But since I've already gotten it into your head, go check out the theme song. You know you want to.]

Posted by Tom Biro at 06:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Catherine Holahan at BusinessWeek has a good story up about how the online experiences of everyday users could potentially change if a Do Not Track list is put into place. For those who may not have been following it, privacy groups have proposed a Do Not Track list that would halt advertisers and publishers from using visitor data to customize ads for them.

The problem, of course, is that so much of the Internet is now dependent on advertising. And that advertising has risen in value for publishers as they've increasingly been able to show ad buyers data on what sorts of people are visiting their sites. Higher value for targeted ads means publishers have been able to cut back on sheer volume and the combination creates, by most measures, a much better user experience.

So if vast swaths of the audience then opt not to have their behavior tracked and data collected the result will likely be more ads that are less relevant to the users.

As Holahan's article states, the creation of such a list depends greatly on whether consumers actually care as much about the issue as privacy groups do. But this idea seems to be much more likely to collapse the Web 2.0 world much more than just about any other threat.

All these online services that launch with ad-support as a business model. All the ad networks that are built around various forms of targeted ad delivery (including those owned and operated by Google, AOL and Yahoo!). These are all in danger of having the rug pulled out from under them if they can't pinpoint the advertising they buy, sell or otherwise depend on. And if you thought newspaper publishers were insufferable before, wait until their not-yet-substantive online ad revenue dries up.

I'm all for consumer privacy, and if this discussion creates an environment where those doing the tracking make adjustments in how they collect and protect identifiable data, then it's an undeniable good thing.

But everyone needs to be aware of just what a Do Not Track list means.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

• Associated Press head Tom Curley told a group of conference attendees to stop complaining about the traffic portals are siphoning off and adapt. I disagree with this whole notion that portals are actually taking traffic away and think instead that news media companies didn't do enough to differentiate themselves in the minds of consumers, consumers that then found that a Google search will take them to the news they're looking for. Brand loyalty. Learn it, love it. (CT)
• I don't care how you gussy it up, I still can't get past the belief that all Microsoft got for the money it gave Facebook was the opportunity to slap a few banner ads up that people will likely ignore. (CT)
• In a sure sign of the success Apple is currently experiencing, the Mac user base is now big enough that it's starting to attract creators of viruses and other malware. Yay? (CT)
• If you're in the market for WordPress themes, there's soon going to be a market for WordPress themes. Founder Matt Mullenweg announced the marketplace that will allow theme developers to display and get paid for their works and for users to easily download and install them on their sites. (CT)
• The New York Times is adding Blogrunner's functionality into its technology section to pull in content from elsewhere on the web. This has the potential to open up some great sites to new visitors who have never been exposed to them before. (CT)
• Both Brandweek and Ben McConnell hit on the idea that there's nothing more disruptive to your advertising an experience that doesn't live up to the marketing message. (CT)

Posted by Chris Thilk at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I really can't get over how much I love this graph put together by Steve Bryant on the intersection of interactivity and presentation. It's really, really interesting if you follow the media at all and are involved in trying to get clients or customers into the interactive space.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 12:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In downtown Wheaton, IL - not too far from where I both grew up and where I currently live - there's a little store called The Popcorn Shoppe. I'm not exaggerating when I say it's little. The store is deep from the sidewalk but across it's about five feet. Long, but narrow.

At the Popcorn Shoppe you can get a variety of candy, as well as popcorn. Bins are set up along one wall with everything from pre-packaged candy like miniature Reese's Peanut Butter Cups to open candy like gummy worms that's priced by the half-pound. So you go in, squeeze through the other customers, use the little shovels that are in each bin to grab a little of a whole bunch of stuff then do more squeezing to make it to the cash register and maybe pick up a bag of popcorn while you're there. It's a quaint, fun little place, but one of those places only the locals really know about.

The Popcorn Shoppe sprung to mind when a meme started yesterday about how many of us are, apparently, drunk on the Web 2.0 juice, a concoction stirred and served up on virtual street corners by many of those currently decrying the situation.

When I think about the variety of Web 2.0 applications, features and tools available in October of 2007 it can sometimes seem overwhelming, much like the wall of the store. I look at them and can't imagine using all of them but I know that there are a few that I definitely want to pick up and use. Others seem like a good idea at the time but when I try them out I'm disappointed and regret the time/money I spent on something that didn't live up to my expectations.

For those of us who work in online public relations it's important that we evaluate the tools that debut seemingly every day not only for ourselves but also for how they might benefit our clients. Not everything is going to be for everyone and we need to not be so enraptured by the shiny object the just flitted in front of our eyes that we lose all perspective. 'What does this do?" "What need does this meet?" "What gap does this fill?" "How does this increase connections/engagement?" These are just a sampling of questions we need to be asking ourselves whenever the latest thing debuts.

These questions can often only be answered by trying them out. TechCrunch's descriptions and write-ups only go so far. You have to dig in and see what sticks. Once you do that you gain perspective and then can rationally and more accurately opine on the topic to both the public and, for PR practitioners, your clients.

Posted by Chris Thilk at 11:58 AM | Permalink