The Flack

Alba to wed. Fraser to divorce. Fergie to wed. Penn to divorce. Ahhh. All in a day's work for the modern entertainment publicist.

• Jessica's publicist, Brad Cafarelli, told People: "I can confirm they are engaged."


• "They continue to maintain a close and caring friendship," Ina Treciokas, publicist for the 39-year-old actor, said in a statement.


• Duhamel's publicist, Ruth Bernstein, said the actor recently popped the question to the pop star, whose debut solo album is titled, "The Dutchess." She didn't release any other details.


• Their publicist tells People magazine's Web site that Penn and Wright are divorcing after 11 years of marriage. She didn't say why.

It made little difference that on the other side of the world, profound tragedy thrust an unstable nuclear power into an even more dangerous state of instability. No matter: the entertainment media machine still needs fuel to keep it firing on all cylinders.

About ten years ago, I handled a news conference wherein Citibank announced an ad campaign featuring Sir Elton John and its sponsorship of his global tour. (No, he was not asked to promote Citi's sub-prime mortgages.) We held the event in Miami where Sir Elton took the stage to accept his own (oversized) Citibank ATM card.

On that very day, however, even more momentous events were brewing. They included: the Pope's first mass in Cuba, the Unabomber's guilty plea and sentencing, and the lurid revelations about a famous blue dress worn by an intern named Monica. Talk about a tumultuous trifecta to dampen any publicist's hopes for national media coverage!

No biggie. In spite of it all, the Citibank-Elton John hook-up reverberated far and wide. This was at a time when the business of celebrity-driven media was confined to a few, albeit influential outlets. Nowadays, the sheer volume of gossipists all but guarantees an airing (or more likely, a posting). In spite of the changed media landscape, entertainment coverage remains a most insular beat.

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Bhutto, Citibank, entertainment media, Fergie, gossip, Hollywood, Jessica Alba, PR, public relations, publicist, Sean Penn, Sir Elton John

Do you, like me, sense that the venerable game of Scrabble is making a fabulous comeback? (Did it ever go away?) Our family got the bug two summers ago, and we now can't seem to shake the habit.

Just this week, my boys had the mini Scrabble board out on the plane to Denver, and then again on the drive from the airport to Vail. We had to put an end to the backseat brotherly bout after my oldest prompted a rather loud debate by insisting that "qi" is a word.

My Blackberry's browser was soon summoned to settle the score, but the argument only grew in intensity over the choice of which online dictionaries to be used, e.g., dictionary.com, Hasbro's official Scrabble dictionary, or the Scrabulous dictionary. My oldest son, a college junior, attempted to persuade my youngest, a 10th-grader, that the Hasbro Scrabble dictionary must prevail over dictionary.com. His reasoning: "You wouldn't use women's lacrosse rules in a men's lacrosse game." Hmmm.

My old friend, colleague and client Wayne Charness and his colleagues at Pawtucket-based Hasbro must be pleased, I think, by the renewed vitality of their word-worthy, and now socially networked board game. The new issue of Wired even has a piece on the Scrabble frenzy titled "Confessions of an Online Scrabble Cheat."

What's more impressive: the Scrabulous application on Facebook may be the fastest-growing in all of Mark Zuckerberg's burgeoning empire. It's a veritable "triple word score" with 333,456 daily active users comprising 16% of total Facebookers. Not bad, except for one problem: Hasbro doesn't own the application. Here's an item from Hasbro's hometown paper:

Facebook's 'Scrabulous' lacks Hasbro's OK (Providence Journal 12.19.07)

"A version of Scrabble, Scrabulous, has caught on big-time on Facebook, the immensely popular social networking site. The program, based on the board game sold by Pawtucket-based toymaker Hasbro Inc., was introduced this summer. It now has more than 20,000 users, according to a small item in The New York Times' business section. The only problem? The creators of Scrabulous, two software developers in India, never got permission from Hasbro to create the online game. According to the Times, 'they wrote to Hasbro to make sure they were not engaging in copyright infringement. The brothers say they never heard back from the company.'"

For now.

Update (Jan 16): Facebook Asked to Pull Scrabulous

New Update (July 23) : Hasbro files legal action to remove Scrabulous from FB

Labels: board games, FaceBook, Facebook aps, Hasbro, PR, public relations, Scrabble, Scrabulous, social network

When PR colleagues ask me to assess the biggest changes in public relations, the conversation invariably turns to direct-to-consumer communications. Not unlike the billions big pharma spends to prod patients toward prescription products (minimizing the physician filter), PR pros also have a new and robust capacity to speak directly to end audiences.

They too can more or less bypass the "media filter"to deliver a client's unadulterated message via blogs, video hosting sites, online communities, etc.

Now I'm not saying this is necessarily a good thing. In fact, few will dispute the public benefit offered by traditional journalistic scrutiny of subjective news and information. And in fact, the PR "holy grail" of bypassing the media filter is only partially true. When an enterprise or individual releases its message on YouTube or through SMNRs, they invariably produce a spike in the online"conversation" that may be more counter-productive to their goals than even the toughest reporter's take on the story.

Case in point: Roger Clemens' PR-inspired effort to exonerate himself from the steroid scandal through a direct appeal to his fans on YouTube. New York Daily News columnist John Harper called a spade a spade in his led paragraph on the subject:

"So Roger Clemens has taken his case to the people via the path of least resistance, with a two-minute video that he posted on his Web site. He does his best to win your sympathy, describing the hurt his family has endured from the Mitchell Report, before turning the whole thing into a video Christmas card, giving thanks at this special time of year for the blessings in his life."

Now that he has laid down the messaging gauntlet by releasing a self-produced (and optimized) video online, Mr. Clemens will allegedly follow it up with a sit down with Mike Wallace of "60 Minutes" to drive the message home. It's a one-two punch. Game the news agenda with an unexpurgated message, then do battle with the grizzled veteran of TV investigative journalism.

PR-driven content is not alone in prompting conversation in this new media landscape. All content is. Established journalists are now subjected to consumer-generated second-guessing that heretofore did not exist several years ago. Dan Gillmor recounts how the blogosphere weighed in against TIME political reporter Joe Klein for his having played fast and furious with the facts in a recent story condemning Congressional Dems for efforts to reign in Mr. Bush's illegal wiretapping program.

"Needless to say, bloggers and others who care about truth and the Constitution jumped on this outrageous stuff. No one did a better job than Salon's Glenn Greenwald, who pointed out the misstatements in great detail."

From a PR perspective, the bigger question in my mind has more to do with knowing what's the "right media mix" en route to effective advocacy. Can creating the first salvo (e.g., the Clemens-produced video) set and hold the editorial tone for subsequent coverage and conversation? Is the CGM backlash, catalyzed by the video, better at achieving true overall balance versus traditional journalistic scrutiny? (Aren't they one and the same?)

And, finally, does Mr Clemens have what it takes to make his case in a toe-to-toe with Mr. Wallace? Stay tuned.

Labels: citizen journalism, Dan Gillmor, Joe Klein, PR, public relations, Roger Clemens, steroids, YouTube

Last spring a debate erupted over whether e-mail offered an adequate means to capture the true essence of a media interview. This blogger posted about it here.

And then of course there was Blog Maverick's creative coup de grace when he responded to a negative (and allegedly inaccurate) profile of him by posting to his blog the unedited email interview he had with the offending reporter. That (key)stroke sure set his (reputational) record straight...I think.

Truth be told: today's most newsworthy newsmakers can dictate the terms of journalistic access, camera phones notwithstanding. The more in-demand, the greater latitude the media's object of desire has in managing the mode (and editorial tenor) of the interview. How many "news" organizations bend their tacit rules of engagement to land that elusive exclusive?

This week, from the mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan or wherever, Newsweek reports that Al-Qaeda's #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri has invited the world press corps to email their questions to him via a terrorist front website:

"In the statement, released Dec. 16, Zawahiri invites 'individuals, agencies and all media' to submit written questions via one of As-Sahaab's Web forums. He calls upon the 'brothers' who supervise the site 'to collect the questions and transmit them without alteration, whether it is coming from someone who agrees or disagrees.'"

By feigning media access, the organization cultivates an image of civilized engagement among the unsophisticated masses, all the while perpetrating, planning or propagating unspeakable acts of violence.

"Jarret Brachman, a former CIA analyst now in the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point describes this as playing to the YouTube generation. 'It completely fits Al Qaeda's communications strategy over the past two years, which is how to get people more invested in the movement.'"

And Zawahiri is not alone in gaming the court of public opinion by playing the "freedom of the press" card. A free media today seems more of a propaganda tool than a requirement to qualify as an upstanding member of modern society.

Think Putin, Ahmadinejad, Assad and all the other despots who've gutted their nation's free media, without any real consequences. Perhaps they're emboldened by the First Amendment transgressions of this administration, or TIME Magazine.

Labels: Ahmadinejad, Al Qaeda, al-Zawahiri, First Amendment, freedom of the press, journalism, media, PR, public relations, Putin

What happens when your old-fashioned PR agency, I mean publicity shop, sets up the interview, and then walks away hoping for the best? And what happens when the interviewee, a newspaper gossip columnist, is incongruously asked about his employer's increasingly vital digital business strategy?

The answers can be found in Jeff Bercovici's Mixed Media blog today on Portfolio.com. In the post, the ever-astute Bercovici recounts the exchange between George Rush -- one half (literally) of the Rush-Molloy dishing duet -- and Judith Regan, a frequent subject herself of the columns. In it, Mr. Rush pontificates on just how his boss's boss's boss Mort Zuckerman expects to monetize the New York Daily News website. (BTW, this blogger helped Mr. Zuckerman with the PR chores during his acquisition of that NYC tab.)

In the interview, Mr. Rush suggested that the Daily News might wall-in some of the newspaper's web content in a pay-per-play scenario not unlike The Times's TimesSelect. That latter experiment was discontinued in September resulting, in part, in record increases of visitors to NYTimes.com. Perhaps Mort wasn't paying attention, but all trends are pointing to a free (better search-optimized) content model driven by commensurate increases in ad revenue.

Even the owner of Mr. Zuckerman's arch rival has plans to tear down the pay wall at the Wall Street Journal (to ostensibly open up the visitors' floodgate).

As for George Rush, whom I know and admire, why don't you give me a call and we'll talk through how to navigate those sticky wickets. Don't let your agency leave you in the lurch like that again.

Labels: george rush, gossip, Jeff Bercovici, Judith regan, new york daily news, portfolio.com, PR, public relations, Publicity

Everyone knows how much incremental (earned?) media those expensive Super Bowl or Oscar spots generate for those betting their ad budgets on these telecasts. At $2.7 mill for a 30-second Super Bowl spot, we should hope so! (BTW, Fox says its inventory is almost sold out.)

Many marketers no doubt count on that PR pop to justify their multi-million dollar investments. They retain PR firms to "leverage" their clients' creative to end up on the list of "most recalled." In fact, the noise for this year's game already has started. Perennial big bowl bettor Budweiser floated Ferrell (at left) to whet the media's appetite.

As the marketing disciplines blur, we're seeing more and more ads created explicitly to set mainstream and citizen media's tongues-a-wagging (versus only reaching the audience du moment).

Climbing today on the Digg charts, we find the publicity backlash from the Iowa TV spot created by the PR provocateurs for their most dangerous candidate Mike Huckabee. In this case, the head of The Catholic League, appearing on the Giuliani Channel, took issue with the crass/cross subliminality of Huckabee's holy hucksters.

Then we have that wonderful Burger King spot that's climbing the YouTube fave list. It shows customers' reaction to the staged disappearance of the Whopper from the BK menu. Talk about authentic! (Boy I hope these MOS customers aren't eventually revealed as actors.)

It's interesting how the folks at Crispin have built their agency by creating buzz-worthy (e.g., news-generating) advertising. Who'd a thunk an ad agency would understand what it takes to succeed in PR? A cautionary tale.

I'm still hoping that one day, a forward-thinking cosmetics or fashion company jumps on an advertising idea I had years ago for the Oscar telecast. It goes like this: all nominees in the supporting actress category pre-tape a TV spot for the company. Immediately following the award, we cut to commercial...featuring the (exasperated) winning actress (preferably in her designer gown) finishing her thank you speech. Hey, that might just work.

Labels: advertising, Budweiser, Burger King, Crispin Porter, Fox, Freakout, Mike Huckabee, Oscars, PR, public relations, Whopper

And this from down under: the two gossip columnists, oops I mean journalists, from Australia's leading national daily added to the PR profession's holiday cheer with a little item today titled: "Tis the Reason Not to Slave in PR."

Lest any of you think that pitching stories to journalists will (or should) fall by the wayside anytime soon, here's a glimpse of the "favourite correspondence" from "perky" PR types written to The Age's "Diary" columnists Suzanne Carbone and Lawrence Money (pictured):

"Emails that begin with: 'Hi, hope you're well …' and mention 'touching base', 'giving you a heads-up, 'running a picture and a blurb' and 'let me know what you think. A lass named Sarah from a music company managed the quadrella: 'I hope you're well. Just touching base. I was wondering if we might be able to get a mention for the show into the Diary on Monday with a picture and blurb?' You have to admire her confidence in specifying a day. 'Please let me know what you think.' Sarah, in this case, no news is bad news".

The list of PR's many faux pas ends with the perennial favourite -- the veritable #1 on the holiday hit parade:

"Now we come to something that really pops our cork: the Follow-up Phone Call (if it was a pizza, it would be called Annoyance Supreme). "Hi, this is So and So from Perky Agency, just ringing to see if you received my email." Listen up: if the email didn't bounce back, that means we got it. But now it's in DELETED ITEMS. Don't call us, we'll call you. But we hope you're well."

For the record, Diarists, periods and commas typically reside inside the quotation marks. Happy holidays.

Labels: Australia, Diary, Lawrence Money, PR, public relations, Suzanne Carbone, The Age

Why should he run for President? The man's won an Oscar, an Emmy, and a Nobel Peace Prize for goodness sake. What's more: all came his way without the extreme angst and unrelenting attacks that accompany a Presidential run.

With those auspicious accolades under his belt, Al Gore now plans to shift into high gear to save our planet. Starting in 2008, his Alliance for Climate Protection expects to spend some $100 million per year to "...spur public demand for climate change action."

While $100 million per year may seem like a drop in the bucket compared to what the auto industry (or Exxon Mobil) spends to preserve the status quo, I'm hoping the very media savvy Mr. Gore strikes the right chord to get the job done. In his words:

"'The planet doesn't have a PR agent,' Gore told the Associated Press last July. But now it will, because the Alliance for Climate Protection is going to use the modern techniques of messaging to get the scientific evidence in front of people all over the world."

In February, the ACP will launch its "unprecedented media campaign on the scale of the Regan [sic] era 'Just Say No' to drugs crusade." The Martin Agency, known for its Geico and Caveman ads, won the bid in September to handle the three-year, $300 million media blitz. Here's a peak. And here's a consumer-generated eco spot from Mr. Gore's Current.TV.

"The VP saw a gap for mass communication. He saw a need for an unprecedented campaign on global warming," says Brian Hardwick, director of communications for ACP.

Hopefully no Karen Hughes here (nor her rumored, but thinly PR-credentialed successor).

I'm sure glad Mr. Gore's behind this, and not dilly-dallying with a Presidential run. After all, if he did decide to run, wouldn't he have to step down from the boards of Google and Apple? Then where would the campaign financing be? Actually, it appears that the success? of "An Inconvenient Truth" is fueling the forthcoming ACP media blitz, not to mention Mr. Gore's inherent newsmaking ability.

Labels: "60 Minutes". advertising campaign, Al Gore, Alliance for Climate Protection, Apple, environment, global climate change, Google, media campaign, PR

I'm not sure if it's the time of the year, or whether the onset of cooler temperatures catalyzes a change in corporate communications chores. This week we learn of three significant departures from the upper echelons of our professional calling:

• Twenty-year News Corp. veteran and its spokesman Andrew Butcher departs the Murdochian empire to head back to Australia.
  

• Chrysler retools its communications function as top PR man Jason Vines roars off into the sunset. (Don't count on a trip to the junkyard. He may be pre-owned but he's certified to be back in the biz soon.)
  

• eBay spokesperson Hani Durzy bids farewell to the online auctioneer after five years. He's joining a "strategic communications consulting firm." (So glad he didn't choose a non-strategic firm.)
  

Each announcement has a back story. For News Corp, Butcher's replacement is Teri Everett who'll re-lo to the Big Apple from La La land. Like Butcher, she'll report to Rupert's trusted communicatons consigliere (and a Democrat?) Gary Ginsberg.

As for Chrysler's corp. comms. chief who made his name at Ford, word has it that his departure will put the chill in media access to the newly privatized automaker. Not true, said the new, relatively green anti-freeze:

"We will continue to have a responsive and dedicated team in Auburn Hills, that won't change," said David Barnas, who on Monday took the lead for internal and corporate communications.

And eBay, well, what is there not to say about eBay? One of my favorite online communities, the company has weathered its share of PR challenges of late. Think Tiffany. What surprised me were the comments Mr. Durzy's departure generated in one piece about his leaving:

"...to tell stories and to work with the media. More like "to tell fibs and manipulate the media" or "I never saw his picture before. I can't believe his nose isn't bigger."

Change is inevitable. Too bad there still one thing that doesn't show any signs of changing: the animosity shown toward this profession.

Labels: Chrysler, corporate communications, eBay, News Corp, PR, public relations

Stu, a head's up. The City of New York put out a news announcement today via one of the proliferating number of paid wire services.

The release, about a city appointment, not only included a quote from Mayor Bloomberg, but it featured two Google-delivered contextual ads. Moreover, one of those ads attacked one of Mayor Mike's high-profile pet programs. It linked to an organization calling itself Stop NYC Congestion Tax!

Geesh. I'm not sure I'd want my client announcements to be tainted with someone else's message, especially if that message ran counter to my client's POV. And that's true even if the news release distribution company paid us to use its service.

Labels: Google ads, Mayor Bloomberg, news release, NYC PR

Could it be that Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock's new movie may have surreptitiously captured Osama Bin Laden on camera? Just consider the marketing potential if it were true.

Spurred by this tantalizing tidbit, the Buzz Brothers Weinstein snapped up the U.S. rights to distribute "Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden." Good news for my friend Matt Frankel who just joined the motion picture company as its new head of communications. It'll be partly up to him to see that the sighting secures a box-office bonanza of media play. From MSNBC.com:

"Whether this is just a genius publicity ploy or if Spurlock actually found bin Laden has yet to be revealed, but the answer should come next year, when the documentary is slated to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival."

Separately, but not entirely unrelated, The New York Times's Public Editor Clark Hoyt yesterday told the tale of the how one former White House PR man's new book burst onto the buzzmeter.

Several weeks ago, Scott McClellan's editor released an advance excerpt in which the deposed PR man/author supposedly confirmed that the Bushies directed him to lie about the illegal outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. (This is news?) Apparently so...big time.

"Discussing the excerpt later, Peter Osnos, the founder of PublicAffairs Books, said, 'As you do with every book, you need to get their attention.' Boy, did he ever get it."

I suspect that Mr. McClellan's literary agent, when shopping the book, played fast and loose with this most newsworthy nugget in seeking to seal the deal. In the end, the book's PR value trumped its literary value on its journey to the Amazon. Wouldn't you agree, Judith?

Both cases seem to affirm that a project's publicity potential (aka "mediability"), versus its artistic, cultural or historical attributes, nowadays are all that's needed to garner the green light. "Will it play in Peoria" has given way to "can we publicize it in Peoria?"

Oh. One last example. I was watching the ubiquitous Jerry Seinfeld last night on one of the countless talk shows on which he's appeared to promote his new movie. During the interview, he was asked how the movie came into bee-ing.

Mr. Seinfeld told the story of nervously sitting next to Steven Spielberg at a dinner party. When there was a lull in the conversation, Jerry, on a whim, casually suggested a "'B Movie' about bees." (In other words...a movie about nothing.)

To hear Mr. Seinfeld tell it, Mr. Spielberg "got very excited" and immediately called the second leg of the Dreamworks troika, Mr. Katzenberg, who also got very excited. The movie apparently had no plot or not much else going for it, except for one element: Jerry Seinfeld. More specifically, it was too deceptively delicious to pass on this publicity-producing prospect.

Labels: buzz, Jerry Seinfeld, marketing, media, Morgan Spurlock, Osama Bin Laden, PR, public relations, Publicity, Scott McClellan, Spike Feresten

Thinking about jettisoning your career in PR? I know many PR pros in New York who either gave it up or were very close to doing so in the wake of 9/11. "What was the point?" we asked.

Standing with my colleagues as the twin towers crumbled through my office window left its mark.

One respected corporate communicator who did take the plunge (and an 80% salary reduction) was BusinessWeek's veteran mouthpiece Robert Pondiscio.

His former colleague Amy Duncan interviewed him about his five-year journey teaching fifth graders at a South Bronx public school. Dead Poets Society, Lean on Me, Dangerous Minds...it wasn't. Here's the video.

School for thought.

Labels: Business Week, non-profit, Pearson Education, Pondiscio, PR, public relations

In the "Mixed Signals" blog on ZDNet, writer Rupert Goodwins today turns his critical eye to an IBM-issued press release heralding the latest nanotechnological development on the chip-making front.

In his post, titled "IBM's supercomputer chip breakthrough more PR than IT," Mr. Goodwins dissects the news with reportorial flair. His conclusion: "It ain't so. It ain't even close."

Now about that news release. Other than posting the headline and lead verbatim on the ZDNet blog, which likely spread glee to IBM's PR department (who reads beyond the first two paragraphs of a story anyway?), Mr. Goodwins observes that the release was picked up cross the Web on face value no questions asked:

"But on the face of it, what we have is one extremely hyped-up press release and an entire Web of people happy to take it at its word rather than hit Google - or, heavens to Betsey - actually call a competitor to ask if this is actually true."

A few weeks ago, I drafted a "news release" for a client without any intention of it getting "picked up" in the news media - or at least the mainstream variety in which so many clients still aspire to be featured. It was written explicitly for the search engines and online news aggregators. And sure enough, that SEO-enabled release established a respectable digital footprint that will have a long, if not indefinite shelf-life (and hopefully a prominent place in Google's organic results rankings).

As for the IBM release, Mr. Goodwins naturally wags his finger at the PR department and absolves the researchers of any malfeasance:

"The people who'll feel this the most keenly are the researchers, who'll have to go to conferences of their peers and explain that no, they didn't tell IBM's press office to print all that guff. That they've done good and important work, I do not doubt. But this will have done their reputation among their fellows no good at all."

It begs the question: does an optimized news release bypass the (valuable) journalistic scrutiny that traditional news releases historically endured? Is the "crowd" in the blogosphere up to the task of assuming journalism's checks & balances function?

To IBM's credit, the news release headline did equivocate a bit: "New IBM Research Technology Could Enable Today's Massive Supercomputers to Be Tomorrow's Tiny Computer Chips."

Labels: chip technology, IBM, ism, journalism, microprocessor, Mixed Signals, news release, PR, public relations, Rupert Goodwins, social media news release, ZDNet

A while back, I wrote about the virtues of my home page: MSNBC.com. The site drew its content from all sorts of credible journalistic enterprises, mixed in with original reporting and lots of video, and had the wherewithal to continually update the page throughout the day.

Isn't that the Utopian news model that Jon Landman described to Beet.TV when explaining how The New York Times's integrated newsroom worked?

"If something is ready, you publish it. And you publish it in whatever form is...forum is available at the moment. Usually that's the web because it's available all the time."

I recently upgraded my home computer, and thought the new machine might want to have a new home page. (No I don't see RSS readers doubling as news home pages.)

I had heard about the Michael Wolff-Caroline Miller concocted Newser, mostly because my buddy Laurel had created a franchise with the same name, e.g., TV Newser, PR Newser, etc.

So over the last several weeks, I've defaulted Newser in a test drive as my home page. Now I kind of enjoy its Hollywood Squares interface that not only allows the viewer to adjust the number of squares (remember L x W = A), but there's also a bar that adjusts the content from hard news to soft, as in today's lead story -- from Bush's mortgage freeze to Jennifer Love Hewitt's bathing suit size.

Nonetheless, my verdict is now rendered. Newser is a snoozer. Worse. I can't even have my beloved MSNBC.com back since the someone decided to do a massive re-design that left me wanting more. Geesh, they could at least make the type bigger, and I'm on a 20" flat panel!

The biggest issue I have with Newser is its update frequency, or rather lack thereof. For example, today, sitting prominently in the Charles Nelson Reilly square, is yesterday's news that the stock market is falling on credit worries. Yet, the market today is experiencing quite the opposite on hopes of another Fed rate cut.

If Mr. Wolff's editorial team is too busy to keep the site's home page current, I am forced to look elsewhere for a more dynamic news aggregator to greet me each morning when I boot up, and during the day to keep my information appetite fully satisfied.

Labels: ABC News, Beet.TV, citizen journalism, Jon Landman, Michael Wolff, MSNBC.com, Newser, NYTimes.com

Ahhh. The beleaguered gadget guru. I truly sympathize with those keyboard commandos who are charged with sorting through the myriad mailbox-filling missives that breathlessly tout the latest gizmos this (and every) holiday season.

At least CrunchGear didn't close the door completely on the frequent source of butter used on the bread it digests and regurgitates for its early adapter consumers.

In his rancorously titled post this morning, CrunchGear's John Biggs outlines the do's and don'ts of engaging him:

"Dear PR People: All I want for Christmas is no lying."

Huh? Do we lie? Annoy, vex, drone on, misrepresent, abuse the English language, stutter perhaps, but lie? Whatever the case, for those who regularly grapple with how best to engage an A-list blogger, John's seven-step tutorial may be harsh, but it offers some useful advice. He pointedly concludes:

All of us are trying to do our job. Fortunately, my job is more fun than yours: I get to share cool products with cool people. You, on the other hand, have to face down bitchy clients and pushy reporters at the same time. In some ways, maybe your middleman position is becoming extinct and maybe you need to rethink your strategies. Maybe companies should put info releases into their product timelines, bypassing the big PR houses completely. I’d subscribe to an HTC RSS feed if I knew it featured phones, phones, and more phones without all the extraneous noise. Merry Christmas, and to the PR guy who asked me a few months back during a Bulldog Reporter session if I knew that “embargoes are really there to mess with us,” bite me. Hopefully you get a pink slip in your stocking and let others with considerably more savvy take your place.

Consider this CrunchGear's annual gift to the PR profession.

Labels: blogger relations, CrunchGear, gadget guru, John Biggs, PR, product PR, public relations

The powers-that-be at Facebook deserve some credit for capitulating to the criticism of their Beacon marketing program. The activists at MoveOn diverted their attention from the political realm to expose the vagaries of opt-in and opt-out as it applied to this Facebook privacy-challenged monetization initiative.

Under the Beacon program, Facebook merchants had the ability to share news of their sales with the Facebooker's friend feed. At first blush, it seemed like a reasonable way to extract added revenue from the social network's growing number of marketing-minded merchants. Here's the initial thinking from the Facebook news release:

"Beacon offers an interesting new way for us to deliver on our goal of bringing more bidders and buyers to our sellers' listings," said Gary Briggs, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, eBay North America. "In a marketplace where trust and reputation are crucial to success, giving sellers the ability to easily alert their network of friends – the people who already know and trust them – to an item for sale has the potential to be a powerful tool."

On further inspection, however, we learned that Facebook automatically enrolled its booming community in the exploitive program unless members chose to physically opt out of it. This means that when you purchase a holiday gift, for example, the retailer could notify your virtual "friends" about your good taste.

"I saw my gf [girlfriend] bought an item I had been saying I wanted … so now part of my Christmas gift has been ruined. Facebook is ruining Christmas!"

This dynamic works quite well for music, as my friends at Amie Street have learned, but I'm surprised that Mr. Zuckerberg and company didn't have the foresight to recognize the PR pitfalls in extending the model to all purchases. (Must be the marketers who've taken hold of the reins there.)

Anyway, they retreated...thanks to a growing chorus of online grousers. Beacon now requires opt-in. Nonetheless, some marketers are beginning to recognize Beacon's downside. Will this misstep have greater consequences?

Updates on 12.4:

Scoble
Quittner

Labels: Amie street, Beacon, FaceBook, marketing, MoveOn, PR, Quittner, Robert Scoble, social networks