Public Diplomacy 2.0

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The U.S. gets an "F" in public diplomacy. That's the assessment of the General Accounting Office, which yesterday issued its analysis of the government's (futile) efforts to change negative foreign perceptions of the United States since 9/11. Here's how the report opens:

Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government has spent at least $10 billion on communication efforts designed to advance the strategic interests of the United States. However, foreign public opinion polling data shows that negative views towards the United States persist despite the collective efforts to counteract them by the State Department (State), Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), Department of Defense (DOD), and other U.S. government agencies.

Granted, Mr. Obama's relatively forward-thinking communicators have only sat in the driver's seat for several months. Hence, much of the PR ineptitude cited in the GAO analysis invariably rests on the shoulders of the previous Administration. (Gee, that's a familiar refrain.) Who can forget the insidious efforts by the Bush appointees to propagandize their way into the hearts and minds of America's detractors?

The GAO report hopefully will serve as a wake-up call to those shaping the way in which we're viewed around the world:

"Based on the significant role U.S. strategic communication and public diplomacy efforts can play in promoting U.S. national security objectives, such as countering ideological support for violent extremism, we highlighted these efforts as an urgent issue for the new administration and Congress."

Of the six recommendations the report made, I was enamored with the last, which cites "social networks and technologies" like "Facebook and Twitter" as a potential remedies for curing what ails our PR campaign to gain foreign friends and influence:

(6) Interagency efforts to adopt a new approach to public diplomacy-- Dynamic shifts in how target audiences obtain and use information have led many public diplomacy practitioners to conclude that the United States must more fully engage emerging social networks and technologies (such as Facebook and Twitter) in order to remain relevant. Referred to as "Public Diplomacy 2.0," this new approach to strategic communications is exploring ways to operate in this evolving information environment. However, substantial questions exist regarding the challenges associated with this new approach."

Gaming the PR Job Game

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When newly minted college grads inquire how to break into the PR biz, I usually respond by asking them "what's your passion" or "what really turns you on?" Answers almost always include: "I'm a people person" or "I like to run parties and events." Groan.

My question is designed to elicit something along the lines of "classical music," "helping the homeless," "city politics," "college sports," "global climate change," "mobile technology," and even "video gaming" -- all of which need and use PR (as these links show).

Most PR industry aspirants lack in-house or agency internships, so an ability to showcase a demonstrable passion or expertise can go a long way to opening doors. "Should I work for an agency or in-house?" tends to be the second most popular question from PR hopefuls.

In his post this weekend to the influential tech blog Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera visits the subject of PR in the video game realm. His opening observation hardly inspires:

"Working in the PR business is a thankless, grinding thing."

He then explored the "in-house versus agency" question:

"When looking for sources for this story, the thing that stuck out was that of the public relations professionals that gaming writers enjoyed working with, almost all were internal, not simply a contractor with an outside firm."

The internal PR reps with whom he chose to speak echoed his lack of enthusiasm for agency types. Aram Jabbari, the manager of Public Relations and Sales for Atlus USA, spoke strongly about the merits of game developers' internal PR resources.

"With an internal PR team, knowledge exchange is more rapid, and the folks tasked with communicating to the gaming public and press end up being in a much better position in terms of having an intimate understanding of the games."

Kuchera solicited a second in-house opinion from Garth Chouteau, the senior director of Public Relations with PopCap Games, who had even stronger words for internal PR:

"'I'd go so far as to say that in-house PR is virtually always better than outside support via contractor or agency,' he told Ars. 'The opportunity to completely immerse oneself in the product or service in question is always more possible from within the company proper. Sure, an agency or contractor can be a valuable source of fresh ideas and perspective from time to time, but in general, in-house is the way to go. This is probably even more true in the video games industry, where really being familiar with the products/services you represent is critical.'"

So where does passion play in the mix?

"If you're not in love with gaming as an industry, this is probably not the job for you. Enthusiasm goes a long way. 'I’ve been in love with games as long as I can remember. I started on the PC, with classic Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games, later owning and adoring just about every home console from the NES onward,' Jabbari said."

Kuchera's conclusion probably won't hearten the legions of agencies and consultancies where the opportunities for landing gainful employment typically exceed those on the client side.

"...Dealing with many people in the PR business is a painful affair...By cultivating your own PR team, hiring gamers who honestly love the product and know it well, and staying up to date on the industry as a whole, you're guaranteed to have a PR team that more effectively talks to gaming writers, the mainstream media, and the gamers themselves."

If you land at an agency, don't be disheartened. You will no doubt derive much satisfaction through exposure to a wider range of industries, techniques and, of course, people. In the interim, here are some non-conventional online resources that might help stir your passions.

• The Flack round-up of PR job sites
• Path 101
• Brazen Careerist
• Road Trip Nation
• Heather Huhman on Twitter
  

Happy hunting.

Obama's Controlled Jump Shot

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So it appears the newbies in the White House press operation have discovered the lowly VNR. This much-maligned means for managing the message for TV news consumption and regurgitation has reared its ugly head according to ABC's Jake Tapper and now, TV Newser.

The packaged piece in question features a relatively innocuous White House visit by the UConn Varsity Women's Basketball Team. Rather than asking for pool coverage from one of the TV news operations, the White House set out to produce and distribute its own (and the only) video record of the portion of the meet-up that everyone pined to see - the Obama shoot-around with the team. From the pool report of the incident:

"The pool was held back from the stroll down the drive and around the corner, and couldn't see the court. Poolers could hear periodic cheering coming from the other side of the bushes."

"Now we all know why," Tapper writes. "Obama White House officials decided to do their own media report on the visit, complete with cuts, interviews and chryons identifying who's speaking."

Now we all remember the kerfuffle a couple of years back when the Bushies used fake TV reporters to advance its policy objectives. It even prompted a Congressional hearing where famed VNR company chiefs Larry Moscowitz and Doug Simon, and others, were summoned (or did they volunteered?) to defend the long-standing PR practice. I kind of remember PR Watch also playing a role in drumming up the frenzy over these so-called faux reports.

But unlike the previous administration's nefarious use of this tactic to advance its many ill-conceived and quite consequential (and controversial) policies, it seems rather silly to complain about receiving hand-out footage of the 6 ft. 2-inch Forward-in-Chief sinking a jumper from the top of the key.

Tapper concludes:

"Is the goal to ultimately replace the pesky photographers who film what they want to and not what they're told to (not to mention the annoying reporters who ask uncomfortable questions about, say, detainee policy and bank bailouts)?

Do you want your OTV? (I'll bet there are a few takers out there.)"

Next time, I would only advise the White House PR team to forget the chyrons and just make the raw footage with nat. sound available. Also, be sure to clearly identify the source!

Media Relations Summit All a Twitter

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The last two years took the Bulldog Reporter Media Relations Summit to the Beltway and the Bay area. This year, it was the Big Apple's turn to host the annual PR/media confab.

Two Dans keynoted. I missed Mr. Rather, but I'm told he offered a sobering assessment of the current state of journalism, while Mr. Abrams waxed on his new PR consulting model that taps journalists (many out of work) as "experts" to advise on crisis issues and mainstream and social media strategies.

I caught Mr. Abrams' keynote in which he described himself as a "walking living breathing axis of evil," i.e., lawyer, journalist and now PR person. I also grabbed some sound with him immediately following his preso. Here's the audio clip.

In addition to "2500 freelancers," Abrams Research (wisely) chose to also align itself with some established agencies including Abernathy MacGregor, Dan Klores, Qorvis and The Horn Group. He said he was inclined to channel specialized assignments to these agencies when his network of freelancers is not be suitable.

On Monday, I attended the panel discussion about the state of corporate blogs featuring Kodak's Jennifer Cisney, RealNetworks' Lacy Kemp and moderator Debbie Weil. I also sat on the Twitter panel alongside Mr. Abrams' colleague (and Daily Beast contributor) Rachel Sklar, PR 2.0's Brian Solis and Sally Falkow.

For the corporate blogging panel, Weil raised the question about what restrictions, if any, did the companies place on the content. Kodak's Cisney said she's never been told what not to blog about, but explained that her three blogs are non-controversial: passion for photography, reviews/product-specific and how to grow one's business (B-to-B).

RealNetworks' Kemp admitted that her company advised her to avoid the company's current litigation or any material news. She explained, however, that RealNetworks built a separate litigation site on which news stories -- "good, bad and ugly" -- were posted for all to see.

Later that day, we convened our Twitter panel before a packed house. The session eventually got around to Ford's social media chief and prolific Twitterer Scott Monty. (Don't they all?) One meme revolved around the use of a personal versus corporate brand name on Twitter. All agreed that Scott's persona was a fab asset to the only big-three automaker that refused a Fed bailout.

Even so, this blogger had to ask what would happen if Scott decided to depart Ford, taking his 20K+ followers with him?

Scott caught wind of the meme, being the good listener that he is, and offered the following:







l. to r. Sally Falkow, Himler, Rachel Sklar and Brian Solis


Scott Monty Tell @peterhimler that it's no different than when the Ford CEO leaves. #mrs09
about 20 hours ago from TwitterBerry

Of course, I was then compelled to ask:

Peter Himler But are you followers transferable?
about 18 hours ago from Power Twitter

...to which he replied:

ScottMonty @peterhimler When we're effectively leveraging @Ford @FordDriveGreen @FordCustService @FordMustang @FordFiesta, etc. they are.
about 18 hours ago from web in reply to PeterHimler

OK I can buy that, but I still think there's something to having a real name fronting that Twitter feed.

That evening, my Digital Dumbo friend @KMaverick and I co-hosted a Tweet-up at a conveniently located and aptly named venue: SocialBar | NY. Stopping by were @LeeOdden, @briansolis, @katiepaine, @tiffanypr, @cvvalencia, @KDPaine, @davearmon, @ivylee, @stacymgreen, @albertmaruggi, @howardgr, @Summer2, @Josh_Sternberg, @TCHayes, @Lisa Cruz, @LisaRedShoesPR, @webmetricsguru, @dfriez, @CatherinVentura, @jblhcomms, as well as Keith Little, Greg Radner, Brian August, Devin Brown, and too many others to remember.















l. to r. Howard Greenstein, Brian
Solis, Katie Paine, Lee Odden

l. to r. Greg Radner, Katie Paine, Albert Maruggi

l. to r. Stacy Green, Joe Ciarallo
(B-day boy) and Kristin Maverick

For the second day luncheon keynoter, I sat with three esteemed reporters from The New York Times: Saul Hansell, Tara Parker Pope and Andrew Ross Sorkin, (pictured below l. to r.). All were adamant that PR peeps read "the paper" before endeavoring to engage. Email is the preferred channel. Do NOT follow-up an email with a phone call.

Mr. Sorkin told the audience that he receives 500 emails daily and has 30 voice-mail messages waiting for him when he arrives to the office. With some 320,000 people now subscribing to Deal Book and many times that visiting his pages, you can understand why.

With regard to Twitter, Ms. Parker Pope strongly advised NOT to contact her her via that channel, and relayed an instance when she was pitched a story via her Facebook account. It sounded as if that FB friend was no longer one.

When asked about how he derives his story ideas, Mr. Hansell said he uses a wide and varied number of sources. He did cite PaidContent , Silicon Valley Insider and Techmeme as among the media outlets he follows.

Finally, I talked with Bulldog Reporter publisher (and show organizer) Jim Sinkinson, in from the Bay area. Here's an audio clip of our conversation. More on the conference can be found on Twitter (hash tag: #MRS09)

Caught with My Head in the Cloud

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Here's how last Thursday started for me (via Twitter):

PeterHimler Gmail is like so misbehaving right now!
11:05 AM May 14th from Power Twitter

PeterHimler I'm wondering today what's worse: a cyber-terrorist attack or a Google tool fail?
11:26 AM May 14th from Power Twitter

This was the paralysis that I (and millions of others) felt when Google's productivity tools and its news and video channels simply ceased to function. The company on which so many have grown helplessly dependent estimated that "14% of its global user base" were affected by #googlefail. (See the trough in the image here?)











One poster to PC World advised in hindsight: "Don't get stuck in the cloud," while another saw the fail's silver lining: "Why Google's Outage Wasn't a Complete Failure." It's the latter post that this PR blogger found worth a look:

"Now, I don't want to give the impression that I'm on a Google soapbox here," wrote JR Raphael on PCWorld.com the following day, "typically, trying to get answers from that place is tougher than resisting regurgitation at the sight of Paris Hilton's face. Google is not known for its transparency or accessibility to anyone (ever tried to get someone from the company on the phone?)."

He went on:

"Google screwed up. No question about it. My morning was a mess because of its error, and countless other people were equally peeved. But the company actually communicated with us. Its people told us what was going on. They apologized and promised they were taking action."

He compared it to Amazon's recent #PRfail:

"Compare the whole thing to Gmail outages of the past, where often, no explanation has ever been given. Worse yet, compare it to Amazon's now-infamous gay book glitch from last month. That little mishap directly affected far fewer people than the Google outage, yet the outrage was enormous and anything but fast-fading."

Recognizing the degree to which customer service and PR have grown inextricably intertwined, JR parted with these thoughts:

"Customer service in the online tech world has a long way to go, and Google is far from a model of perfection. But its steps this week moved in the right direction, and for a company shrouded in mystery, that's something I'm happy to see. I can only hope that Google, Amazon, and others notice what a difference it can make to treat their valued customers like valued customers -- and, little by little, move toward becoming even more open and honest with us all in the future."

Now I just have to figure out whether the email I received from Facebook last week was legitimate. It invited me to re-set my password after I fell victim to a malicious phishing scheme from which I flamed all my FB friends. I thoiught so at the time and gratefully tweeted the following:

PeterHimler Kudos to Facebook for alerting me to malicious software and allowing me to reset my password. Do not click on FB messages that say check: 121.im
3:01 PM May 14th from Power Twitter

Later that night, however, I was told that the FB email message may also have been fake -- an extension of the phishing scheme. Groan. I definitely need to get my head out of the cloud.

Social Media Round One

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Volvo's recent decision to hand the reins of its social media, SEO and digital PR programs to WPP's esteemed media buying agency Mindshare has tongues-a-wagging and fingers-a-pointing.

Brand Republic and others reported the surprising news that reignited the debate over which marketing discipline is best suited to deliver clients' growing digital dreams.

Mat Morrison, global digital head, Porter Novelli:

"Media agencies hear the phrase social media and think ‘we can buy that’. That is a big mistake. Smart PR agencies see it as protecting a client’s reputation online. There is no way in hell a media agency is incentivised to look at those things. It is a battlefield and media agencies are getting in there."

Carolyn Watt, business director, MindShare:

"The role of SEO as part of an integrated digital PR and social media solution is about how we take a client brand and establish its presence in the digital space. It allows you to put an ROI measurement on something PR agencies have traditionally found difficult to measure."

In more simplistic terms: it's the data-driven quants versus the fact-based storytellers. Do clients accord greater value to analytics-driven media-buying firms with their ability to quantify a campaign's ROI? Or do they appreciate more the core PR competency of creating compelling and cogent content? (And why can't they have both?)

Andrew Bruce Smith add his opinion on Social Media Today:

"...In my experience, media buying agencies have access to much better data on which to base their approach...I also think their planning skills are generally better than PR firms (perhaps because they are using better data?)...And it is up to PR firms to realign their skillsets and resources around what clients really value. (Having spent a week in New York, the phrase “digital land grab” seems to be one of the most overused on both sides of the Atlantic – but PR firms generally aren’t the ones doing the grabbing)."

This next quote will chill PR peeps everywhere:

Both Forrester and MindShare business director Carolyn Watt dismissed these concerns. ‘Just because we are a media agency does not mean we don’t understand the power of PR,’ said Watt, who has hired two PROs for her team.

In reality, the industry has spawned hybrid agencies that take both a quantitative and qualitative approach to using social media to deliver value. (And I'm not talking about PR firms that promote blogger engagement as social media expertise.)

One friend who heads such a firm, Rob Key of Converseon, had this to say:

"Social media still falls in the netherworld between marketing disciplines. There is, however, a new generation of firms that have successfully combined these previously distinct competencies to offer both accountability and creativity. Still, many more PR firms will lose out on social media client assignments if they resist building or borrowing these tools from across the marketing aisle. Media services bring a level of analysis and measurement that PR firms haven't yet mastered. And in this environment, brands are expecting social media campaigns to be able to report on ROI in pretty sophisticated ways. "

Here's the perspective of Duncan Forrester, Volvo’s UK Head of PR (and the man who hired Mindshare):

“It’s about partnering with an agency who really understand the Volvo brand, its customers as well as the online audiences and influencers. It’s also about partnering with the right agency who can deliver on the brief.”

PR firms certainly understand that, or at least I think they do.

Rocket's Rep

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My old friend and former Burson-Marsteller colleague Gene Grabowski took the spotlight yesterday in a New York Daily News profile regarding his latest high-profile client Roger Clemens.

The piece, which appeared on the sports pages of the NYC tab, cited Gene's current PR specialty -- sports stars behaving badly:

"Grabowski is no stranger to ESPN; he has appeared on its radio network in recent months to comment on Michael Phelps' bong picture and Alex Rodriguez's steroid use."

Since when does the retention of a PR man merit media interest beyond the trades? Maybe Grabowski ascension beyond the traditional behind-the-scenes advisory role precipitated the coverage?

The Levick crisis counselor is now a cog in the story. ESPN Radio's top-rated "Mike & Mike Show" not only interviewed Clemens, but they handed the mike to the Rocket's PR man - Grabowski. Both segments were pegged to the publication of the book, "American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America's Pastime." The authors: four Daily News reporters.

Given Mr. Clemens' much-criticized star-turn on "60 Minutes," in which he vehemently denied using steroids, perhaps adding his PR man to the media mix helped amplify the message. Also, name an athlete whose talents for turning a phrase equals that for physically scoring (no double entendre intended).

Nonetheless, I find it unusual for a reporter to talk with a newsmaker's PR rep when the newsmaker himself avails himself for an interview. I guess ESPN's top talkers deemed this affable PR man enough of an insider, in spite of his background as the communications chief for a food industry association.

I remain a stalwart believer in clients remaining front and center, as long as they have the skills to go toe-to-toe with their journalistic inquisitors. Clemens does a decent job:

"I know what your polls say, [but] I've been getting great responses everywhere I've gone in the cities I've traveled to. All I can do is be me and give them the message I just told you about that steroids are bad for these kids. You don't want to have anything to do with them the way they tear your body down," he said. "But I can't defend a negative. When you've got somebody that's out there that is really just crawling up your back to make a buck -- which is what this is -- other than speaking out, what else can you do?"

Or as Joe Torre quipped on a different ESPN radio program:

"There's a side of Roger that makes you want to hug him," Torre added. "He's been that guy that everyone's paid attention to and nobody's ever questioned, so it may be a point in time where that has to sort of run out the hourglass."

So what about reputation redemption for a famous 23-year-old life-long sequestered swimmer who's learned about life the hard way? There's a glimmer of hope, with an assist from his coach...not his PR rep:

“The trade-off is he [Michael Phelps] missed some experiences that other people had,” Bowman said. “I guess the question is, what do we do after that? And I think that’s what he’s working on now, expanding his horizons beyond swimming.”

Forget Journalists. It's the Algorithm.

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As PR 2.0 twists and turns its way into PR 3.0, we are constantly reminded of our growing role as producers of content that drives awareness, opinion, and action.

Cases in point: the Twitterization of the Skittles home page, the de-listing of one's Facebook friends for the sake of a Whopper, and the first appearance on YouTube by the president of Domino's USA (and he hopes his last).

We now have options that transcend the arbitration of journalists to allow an increasingly tethered public to directly receive and/or discover our text, still images and video messages by way of their desktops, laptops, Blackberries and iPhones.

Even so, the news business is not going down without a fight. This weekend, Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd and even President Obama extolled the virtues and value of dedicated news professionals in a Jeffersonian democracy. None offered a remedy for slowing the deterioration of their role in preparing the main course that once satisfied the public's appetite for news content.

"If we lose the last major news-gathering operations still standing, there will be no news on Google News unless Google shells out to replace them. It won’t." Rich wrote.

I've previously shared my feelings about the value of quality journalism. So instead, I wish to draw your attention to an unsettling piece from Friday's Wall Street Journal that in my mind is an insidious development on the road from journalism 2.0 to 3.0. (No, it's not WSJ.com's micropayment plans.)

It involves the confluence of three big digital drivers: advertising, algorithms and content creation:

"...former MySpace Chairman Richard Rosenblatt has spent the past three years refining a set of algorithms that it uses as a guide for mass-producing content that it publishes on its many Web properties."

As I understand it, Mr. Rosenblatt's company, Demand Media, creates content, not based on a journalistic assessment of what's news or newsworthy, but instead on an algorithm that matches (and attempts to monetize) consumer and advertising demand for a given topic. The Journal's Emily Steele writes:

"Demand's system works by analyzing data from thousands of sources, ranging from search engines and online advertising networks to Web analytics firms and the million domain names Demand Media owns. The algorithm finds search phrases with three common characteristics: demand from audiences, demand from advertisers and an ability to generate traffic."

The company then entices thousands of journeyman freelancers with an offer of "$20 per article or video" to produce the "in-demand" content. The vetted pieces are posted on a Demand Media site and syndicated across other websites, with ad dollars to follow. At least that's the model.

"One holdup is that most of Demand's individual sites lack the big audiences major marketers need to warrant big ad deals, says Jean-Philippe Maheu, chief digital officer at WPP's Ogilvy North America."

The advent of automated content creation, based on an ad-driven algorithm, takes the notion of news as a commodity to a whole new low, i.e., that of an automated commodity. Or as VivaKi Ventures' Tim Hanlon notes:

"It seems like you are backfilling search results with content after the fact versus being an organically created, legitimate or interesting source of content beforehand."

Pictured above: Rocky Mountain News newsroom, February 27, 2009, its last day of publication after 150 years (Getty Images)

Stress Reduction

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The lead op-ed in today's New York Times features U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner explaining in his own words the rationale and machinations behind the bank stress tests whose results will pop big time later today.

Already, the Treasury Dept. selectively leaked some of the test's more tantalizing tidbits in an effort to temper the anticipated tumult in domestic and world markets.

The Times's op-ed page editor's acceptance of Mr. Geithner's submission was a no-brainer. After all, Mr. Geithner, the ultimate authority on today's lead story, was willing/eager to share his unadulterated opinion -- exclusively -- with a news organization whose influence continues to hold sway over the national news agenda. (I wonder if he followed the prescribed op-ed submission procedure? Nah!)

Did Mr. Obama's PR consiglieres consider offering Mr. Geithner's prose to the Wall Street Journal's editorial pages? Probably not, given those pages' political proclivity, i.e., today's Journal carried a first-person piece by Karl Rove making a thinly-veiled case for yet another right-wing reactionary to join the Supreme Court. Anyway, Mr. Geithner had his turn in the Journal back in March.

Could the administration have better advanced its POV by solely posting Mr. Geithner's words on the U.S. Treasury's website or by direct communications with the millions of Americans in its database? Probably not. MSM still has the capacity to catalyze the conversation, though the deployment of d-to-c options should not be mutually exclusive. You'll notice that Treasury did build a special sub-site to explain its economic stabilization plan.

Anyway, let's see if the administration's PR maneuverings in advance of today's roll-out achieves its goal of reducing market stress.

Apple Inc: No Comment

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I went to sleep last night with TechCrunch reporting that Google was in late-stage talks to acquire Twitter. I woke up this morning with TechCrunch reporting that Apple is in late-stage talks to acquire Twitter.

Co-founder Evan Williams reportedly rebuffed Google's overtures. TC has a "normally reliable" source who says that Apple expects to announce the deal in June...if there even is a deal.

To its credit, TechCrunch does hedge with the following:

"Twitter is strongly signaling that it doesn’t want to sell at any price right now. The founders took significant money off the table in the last round valuing Twitter at $250 million, we’ve heard, and are aligned with investors to see Twitter through to the end."

Boy, the PR folks at Apple must be keeping busy, or maybe not. Does this rumor rise to the level that warrants a company response? Should the Cupertino communications corps be required to answer the TechCrunch-catalyzed reporters' calls and emails? I bet a prominent Wall Street Journal newspaper piece would give them sufficient motivation to craft a statement.

Well, the Journal did weigh in, sort of. Kara Swisher of All Things D posts "Ignore the Twitter Buyout Rumors." (She seems to revel in tweaking -- as opposed to tweeting -- her competitors.)

"Oh, the very notion of Apple and Twitter is a Techmeme dream-ticket, sure to be chewed over for days on end. (I once considered doing a post that just said “AppleTwitterAppleTwitterAppleTwitter….” for 1,000 words to see how much idiotic traffic I would get.)"

On Friday, I presided over a PRSA panel featuring some hefty bloggers including Curbed, HuffPost, Mashable, BusinessWeek and Inhabitat. While we all pretty much agreed that many A-list bloggers have entered the mainstream - in terms of the quality of their journalism and influence over the national news agenda -- we still wondered why a story in one of the big mainstream media outlets continues to supersede blogs in the eyes of corporate America.

Why does a print hit in The Times or Journal still have greater PR cache than an online-only piece? The latter clearly reaches a wider audience with its link-driven capacity to go viral. Isn't this what really matters?

As for the conjecture from TechCrunch, few would argue with Michael Arrington's ability to get tongues-a-wagging. It's just not the tongues of Apple's PR department...for now.