Desperately Seeking Social in 2010

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Has anyone noticed any 2010 'best of" lists of late? They're impossible to avoid. The prognosticating pundits are literally coming out of the digital woodworks!

Some are prophetic, others, less so. Here's a link to a compilation of predictions from a year ago. You decide.

The re-tweeted round-ups that dominate my Twitterstream tend to focus on trends in social media, tech, advertising and news media. Rather than predict what lies ahead -- I did offer PR Newser a fresh take from last year's industry predictions -- here are ten questions I'd like answered in 2010:

1. Will a viable competitor to Twitter (besides Facebook) emerge in the real-time microblogging space?
   
2. Other than the deals with Bing and Google, will Twitter's ad-driven aspirations drive significant and sustainable revenue...without alienating its user base?
3. Can FourSquare maintain momentum and withstand a challenge by Gowalla in the geo-based social networking space?
   
4. On its fifth birthday, can Digg keep up the good kharma in 2010 or will URL shorteners like Bit.ly and j.mp, NytURL and Google and Facebook's planned entries erode its bookmarking dominance?
5. Will Facebook's re-design and inevitable revenue-driving functions compromise the integrity (and fun) of the social network for its users?
6. Will the FTC put the kabosh on the Google-AdMob deal, and will this mark a whole new effort to reign in the world's biggest advertising monopoly?
7. Can the online platform created by a consortium of leading magazine publishers, achieve the same success in drawing eyeballs that Hulu has, and will hyperlocal news sites measure up to the hype?
8. Will the erection of paid content walls take place gradually, or will one influential news organization lay down the Google gauntlet to catalyze others?
9. Can the new proprietors of AOL and Yahoo! revive their brands, and will AOL's greatly expanded content play further dilute quality journalism as we know it?
10. Will there be an iPhone from Verizon Wireless in 2010?
    

Another separate, but not unrelated end-of-the-year meme proclaimed that VC money is ready to jump off the sidelines to fuel the next big thing. Personally, I'm enamored with PaperG, the local/hyperlocal-focused ad tech start-up (and client), founded by two former Yale and two former Harvard students, that gives online publishers the tools to tap the long tail of advertisers in their markets.

My #2 son, a junior at Harvard, reports of a start-up within his midst that I find intriguing. (Wasn't there another Harvard-germinated start-up that made it big, real big?) This one conjures up the 1985 film "Desperately Seeking Susan" in which a New Jersey housewife (Rosanna Arquette) scours the Village Voice classified section to vicariously follow one man's attempt to find a girl (Madonna) whose path he fleetingly crossed.

The new social site, now in beta, is called ISawYouHarvard and it provides an alluring platform for such perchance meetings to blossom into something more. The site, one student's CS50 final project, has nearly 3000 posts since its Dec. 5 launch. Here are some additional stats. My son reports that MIT already has one and Yale is tooling with the concept too.

Question 11: Could Craig's List's "Missed Connections" be disintermediated in 2010?

Super Bowl, Social Media and ROI

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As this roller-coaster ride of 2009 slowly approaches disembarkment, many PR peeps continue to wrap their arms around the (soon-to-be anachronistic?) term/discipline/movement/phenomenon called "social media." Today's New York Times re-posted a post from ReadWriteWeb that captured some social media experts's take on SM's ROI:

"In the words of one pro, 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.' In other words, PR can get eyeballs to your site, but it can't guarantee revenue or members. That's the job of a well-designed product."

Here are a few of the notable quotables from the piece:

• Connie Benson: "Social media monitoring will provide insight across all channels, as well as making social media an active outbound marketing channel."

• Chris Brogan: "I see velvet rope networks where some kind of gating to keep out the commons will occur."

• Adam Cohen: "Marketing programs [will] focus more on activating brand advocates than general customers."

• Ravit Lichtenberg: "While the definition of ROI is evolving to better fit the world of relationships and networks, the ability to demonstrate ROI in hard numbers -- not in followers or fans -- will become a baseline business requirement in 2010."

Where's KD?)

Dana Oshiro's RWW piece was prompted by Taly Weiss's Trendspotting blog, which held a Twitter-call (vs. cattle call) seeking 140-characterized social media trends in 2010. It arrives at a PRopitious moment in time when Pepsi has chosen to take a bye on its decade-long string of Super Bowl spots in favor of a "$20 million social media campaign" called "The Pepsi Refresh Project." (This blogger worked to support the company's Michael Jackson SB spot.)

Having handled PR chores for a fair number of Super Bowl advertising campaigns, including HotJobs.com four years running, the ROI was simple: how did we fare against other Super Bowl advertisers in terms of (earned) media coverage (mostly MSM ink & airtime), and 2) what was the level of post-game consumer awareness/site traffic as measured annually by some independent monitoring group. The bellweather for success: garnering greater attention than Anheuser-Busch, which typically outspends all other advertisers.

In reporting on Pepsi's bold move, Mashable asks the ($20) million dollar question:

Will this strategy be enough to bring back brand awareness to consumers?

I agree. It will be a most interesting exercise to compare Pepsi's new Super Bowl initiatives with its previous investments. Let's hope Pepsi's AOR shares the ROI.

Start-Up.com

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Who remembers those 20-something masters of the dot-com (Web 1.0) universe? These were smart, yet insufferably self-important snoots who claimed to have invented some doodad that the world simply couldn't live without.

Rather than focus on the utility and profitability of their products or services, they sought to bask in the adulatory spotlight of media like Red Herring or the Industry Standard.

The process went like this: 1) Conceive an elevator pitch; 2) Wrap it in the then-arcane vernacular of the web; 3) Find some notables with "credentials" to serve on an advisory board; 4) Retain a PR firm to leverage it all.

Some succeeded in spinning this elixir into multi-million dollar acquisitions. The vast majority failed. After all, how could the hiring of a PR firm take precedence over sales, marketing and operational considerations?

I'll never forget being contacted by a new business prospect called GovWorks. The company's stated mission was small: to move to the Web, then capitalize on, all the mundane transactions between government agencies and the people. Hmmm. For the PR pitch, they asked if a film crew could shoot our presentation. We (thankfully) declined. The rise and fall of GovWorks ultimately was made into a sobering mini-doc called start-up.com

Over the weekend, Vivek Wadwha, a digital entrepreneur writing for TechCrunch, the Web 2.0 equivalent of the Industry Standard, offered some useful insights on start-ups. In the piece, titled "Stealth Startups, Get Over Yourselves: Nobody Cares About Your Secrets," he touches on PR as follows:

"There is no linear ROI in PR, which can be hard for techies to understand. It’s all about relationships and patience. Once you are mentioned in one publication, then it becomes much easier to leverage that into other coverage because you have a stamp of approval. But make no mistake, PR is a never ending process. One TechCrunch article may be a good beginning but it is never sufficient to ensure the success of a company."

Back in Web 1.0, securing a piece in the Industry Standard was the equivalent of hitting pay dirt. Today, with an atomized media vying for an even more fragmented consumer mindshare, a TechCrunch story, while influential, will only take a start-up so far.

PR has always been a subtle discipline that requires smart and steady application over time. Those who believe that one high-profile story can do the trick is deluding himself or herself. Building customer evangelists also helps. As Prof. Wadwha noted in the examples of start-ups he cites:

"The sales team worked the phones and existing customers both to get feedback and leads. Word spread and the customer base grew. They expect to be profitable early next year. The company never developed a PR juggernaut but having loyal customers willing to recommend the service to others has thus far overcome that weak spot."

In other words, listen to and engage customers to unleash their groundswell of goodwill to create redeeming value. But don't forsake the multitude of media influencers either. You may not succeed in engaging TechCrunch or the Wall Street Journal, but there are myriad other outlets and individuals who over time can cumulatively make a difference.

PR Insurance

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Paul Bradshaw, writing today for Poynter Online, raises an important issue that's as old as, well, the age of citizen-journalists, i.e., less than 10 years: "In the E-mail Era, Who Owns the Interview?"

I also posted on this journalistic conundrum in August 2005 following Mark Cuban's open dust-up with The New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin.

You may remember that Mr. Sorkin wrote a critical piece about Mr. Cuban. To have the final word, the inimitable Mr. Cuban responded by posting on his blog the unedited e-mail exchange he had with the Timesman, annotated to provide better context (eg, his POV).

In today's Poynter piece, Mr. Bradshaw was the interview subject who actually requested permission from the reporter to post the full text of the raw email exchange. Her response:

"...the notes did not constitute a standalone story and [she] explicitly stated that I did not have her permission to publish the interview."

Bradshaw pressed further and received another rebuff:

"...she apologized for any confusion and said to feel free to write a new, original and different story with the answers to the interview questions. However, I did not have permission to use her questions. I also did not have permission to use anything the journalist had written, including e-mail discussions about the original interview."

Back when RSS was not even a glimmer in some programmer's eye, we too tried to buy some insurance to protect against, God forbid, the likelihood that our client would be publicly skewered to satisfy a journalist's pre-disposed story line.

The outlet in question was "60 Minutes." To protect our client, we requested that CBS news allow us to videotape the interview ourselves. At the time, apparently no interviewee had ever made such a request of the pioneering investigative news magazine.

After a few days, the CBS News producer came back with a ruling: our cameras could roll only when his cameras rolled. The deal was done. Of course, syndicating that raw footage, if it were ever necessary, was an entirely different proposition than it is today when anyone has the means to feed footage (or anything else) from their desktop.

Bradford also cited the story The Times's Brian Stelter co-authored in which he interviewed Jason Calacanis regarding Twitter's now defunct, but then controversial "Suggested Users List." Calacanis took it upon himself to publish the full email exchange on his influential blog. Looking back, Mr. Stelter reflected:

"As a journalist, having the transcripts of e-mails with a source be published isn't necessarily the most comfortable part of the job, but I can't object very strenuously, either. An interview is a give and take, after all, and the advent of the Internet has given interviewees an increasing amount of control. Dave Winer, I believe, calls it 'sources going direct.'

"I try to say nothing in an e-mail that I'm going to regret later. The episode with Jason -- which I had forgotten about -- has not changed how I function."

Even so, PR peeps, the practice of capturing a client's interview -- via email, videotape, digital audio, flipcam, whatever -- should be standard operating procedure now that you have the ability to set the record straight, if need be. I would only recommend that the journalist be informed of your intentions in advance, so no bridges are burned.

The Times Square Feeds

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My friends over at NYConvergence today posted on the Times Square Alliance's (formerly Times Square BID) plans to further democratize the always hyperbolic New Year's Eve ball drop. No fewer than "five separate story lines" will be video-streamed live online to anyone anywhere with a broadband Internet connect.

At the risk of dating myself, it was in 1998-99 and again in 1999-2000 that my friend Peter Kohlmann of the Times Square BID hired us for ostensibly the same reason. We worked alongside his perennial agency Howard J. Rubenstein to give the 92-year-old event a global TV (versus global digital) footprint.

Instead of feeding the tourist-driven video footage online - was that even possible then? - we uplinked live shots from a six-camera shoot to multiple international satellites for broadcasters around the globe to downlink (versus download) and air in their programming as they deemed editorially fit.

We also had to deploy our global PR network to convince each foreign broadcaster of the merits of using the free footage. Dozens did -- from Japan to Brazil to much of western Europe.

The client rationalized the added production expenditure like this: what better way to showcase the wonders of New York's Times Square to millions of potential new tourists who would drop millions of potential new dollars into the pockets of thousands of NYC merchants?

As for me, I wouldn't be caught dead in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Peter K. was kind enough to send me a packet of original confetti and a certificate of appreciation marking the Millennium ball drop.

Unconventional Taste

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It started with Fox's "terrible and shameless promotion" during the 4th game of the World Series.

America had its first trailer-length glimpse of James Cameron's $300 million epic "Avatar," which seemed to produce the opposite effect for many. The Times's Carbetbagger David Carr tweeted:

@carr2n: These wall-to-wall Avatar promos are not having the desired effect on me. Looks, um, dumb. 8:26 PM Nov 1st from TweetDeck

Ouch! Mr. Carr's 130K+ followers...and their followers...and their followers took notice, and the sobering stage was set. Shades of Kevin Costner's "Waterworld" and Warren Beatty's "Ishtar?"

A couple of weeks later, Cameron's PR team orchestrated a titanic exclusive with the conversation-catalyzing "60 Minutes." This put the film squarely on the map, but the $300 million price tag, and that early Twitterized reaction to the trailer, left a tainted taste. Then the film's marketing partners kicked in, most notably Panasonic, which ran its own network spots showcasing its flat screens. The McDonalds' spots are rarin to go.

Critics heading in to last week's first screenings all had the conventional wisdom: a boffo price tag and less-than-stellar buzz. If there ever was a film that was queued up for a panning, this was it. (Schadenfreude's big in Hollywood.) But guess what? The two key industry trades broke the review embargo with these words:

Hollywood Reporter "Bottom Line: A titanic entertainment -- movie magic is back! A dozen years later, James Cameron has proven his point: He is king of the world."

Variety "The most expensive and technically ambitious film ever made, James Cameron's long-gestating epic...delivers unique spectacle, breathtaking sights, narrative excitement and an overarching anti-imperialist, back-to-nature theme that will play very well around the world, and yet is rather ironic coming from such a technology-driven picture."

Who'd a thunk? Could that early negative buzz have actually helped propel this film beyond anyone's imagination?

Sure enough, there was James Cameron sitting this morning with Meredith Vieira on NBC "Today" and the New York Post running two features -- its own and a two-page spread from The Sun newspaper, both owned by News Corp., the parent of 20th Century Fox, which is releasing Avatar. Talk about synergy!

David Carr, who may have surreptitiously set the movie's early negative tone, today created another related bit of a firestorm by drawing his readers...and their readers..and their readers' collective attentions to the Wall Street Journal political bias in its news hole. That column prompted an unusual retort from WSJ editor Robert Thomson.

Even so Mr. Murdoch, I wouldn't worry about that so much. At least The Carpetbagger seems to be coming around on Avatar. And that's the real elephant in the room right now.

Tiger's Vexing Twexts

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When last I checked, Tiger was still trending on Twitter. Today two London papers poured more fuel on a fire that just refuses to go out. The Guardian's "Organ Grinder" blog postulates:

"Why Tiger Woods PR disaster could scare brands off sports stars for good"

While The Times of London published no fewer than six tales of the Tiger today alone. The Guardian, in true British newspaper hyperbole, writes:

"Let's get one thing straight: Tiger's situation is no ordinary brand collapse. This is the high watermark for individual brand disintegration."

The blogger goes on to report the demise of individual athlete sponsorships:

"The Tiger Woods saga is the final nail in the coffin for other sports stars hoping to use their athletic prowess to bag double their wages in sponsorship and endorsement deals and associated perks."

I find this highly improbable (as a New York Yankee fan thinking of Derek Jeter). One of the multiple Times stories fingered Tiger's management team for breech of its reputational duties:

"The rumours have prompted questions over why Woods’s once-slick management team have allowed the scandal to get out of control, as his online promotional machine appeared to have ground to a halt."

When I penned my Tiger post, in the aftermath of his blog post, I took the position that perhaps he does have a right to be left alone. This was before the revelations began piling up, e.g., ten women not one, including a porn star detailing her tryst, a voice-mail message, a sexting exchange. What else is there? Oh right, Playgirl trying to confirm nude Tiger pics. WTF.

I heard my left coast buddy Howard Bragman on New York's 1010 WINS yesterday morning suggesting that Tiger should have come to Jesus a week ago, but now it's much too late for a "simple" interview to stop the bleeding (my words, not his). Here are his words:

"Last week he had a big PR problem. I think it's really changed this week. Now my gut is that he's got a life problem. There are some major issues he has to confront."

Two thoughts on this:

Even if Tiger came clean a week ago, through let's say a presser or single media interview, could that have prevented or lessened the damage caused by the groundswell of crowd-sourced revelations that have emerged since?

And by not being so readily available -- rightly or wrongly -- isn't Tiger, or rather, his PR consiglieres, in a stronger position to dictate the outlet and the terms of an interview should (when) it eventually come to pass?

Just saying.


Update (7pm) - Tiger announces on his website he's taking an "indefinite break from professional golf. I need to focus my attention on being a better husband, father, and person."

Good Journalism and PR

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At the gym this morning, I happened to catch a CNN promo for its Campbell Brown climate segment: "Climate Conspiracy? -- which called the very science behind global warming into question. Huh? Sweeps month was last month, wasn't it?

It's clear that CNN, and most of the MSM, have fallen prey to a still-unknown partisan who strategically leaked a decade-old email to catalyze the current controversy concerning climate change.

Whomever was behind the leak should write it up as a case study and submit it for a Silver Anvil or PR Week Award. The conversation it has spurred has succeeded beyond anyone's dreams. (I'm sure the partisans who leaked the typewriter news that debunked CBS News's diligent reporting of an AWOL George W. Bush also felt the same way about their PR success.)

Just this morning, the Washington Post published a ghost-written op-ed on the climate leak carrying the byline of someone with less-than-a-little knowledge on the subject. Media Matters and others called out the newspaper for its own editorial contradictions. But it's too late. The strategically timed meme has taken hold.

Many PR pros, most notably those operating from the Beltway, might welcome a media that so easily succumbs to such PR chicanery. I'm not one of them.

It's one thing to create and syndicate original content directly to audiences for the purposes of advocating a POV (with sponsors clearly identified). It's entirely something else to pull the wool over the eyes of a lazy, indifferent, or careless journalist to advance one's perspective.

In working over a period of eight years to have the World War II Memorial built on our National Mall, I will never forget the equal attention the news media afforded a very small group of adversaries. They had two WW II vets opposed to the Memorial on the Mall. We had millions in favor of it. Yet the news media gave equal space to each, and often more to the squeakier adversaries.

From then on, I have learned to prefer (and appreciate) a skeptical fourth estate's scrutiny of the "story" with which they're confronted, versus an echo chamber of media that glom onto the meme of the day. Why? Because editorial bias can work both ways. With the fact-based set, at least there's a compulsion -- on both sides of the PR-media equation -- for grounding in reality.


Photo (REUTERS/Yves Herman): Protesters in Copenhagen

Stupid Car Tricks

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Over the weekend, astute PR observer Jennifer Van Grove took to Mashable (with a HT to the Chicago Tribune) to speculate on the authenticity of a video "fast approaching viral status." Said video, shot on the streets of New York City, shows a wayward wrecking ball broadsiding a Dodge Minivan, flipping it on its side. In the caption, it's noted that the driver "escaped with only minor injuries."

Now this is not the first time, now will it be the last, that a big-branded marketer has turned to the miracle of video mixing to auto-generate some buzz. Who can forget Nike's spot showing Kobe Bryant vertically leaping over an oncoming Aston Martin:



It's clear: both videos are fake. Ms. Van Grove rightly asks why we didn't see any NYC media coverage of the flipped Minivan. I suppose the more important question is whether the marketers behind these news-like productions are obligated to reveal their association. Granted, such a reveal might put the skids on the videos' ability to go viral and become mediable, defeating their intended purpose.

As the FTC grapples with full disclosure and consumer deception, shouldn't we as PR professionals insist on identifying the sponsors of the content we release, feed, or post publicly on our clients' behalf? How is a video posted on YouTube different from one we'd distribute via satellite for local broadcast news consumption?

Out of the Woods?

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I started three blog posts in the past week, and abandoned them all. I simply couldn't keep up with the fast-moving conversation.

The first post involved the White House party crashers, and specifically the public pronouncement by the couple's "publicist," one Mahogany Jones, whose Twitter handle (@huslinNstiletos), now dismantled, trumps her My Space page.

"We will begin doing press and media next week providing exclusive interviews and press junkets. If you would like to be considered in our media circuit we request that you hold your proposed published profile until then."

Yes. I'm holding the media cards and if you want access, do as I instruct.

I also liked that The Times used the climbing couple's Facebook page on its front page as a credible information source.

The second post, also in the immediate aftermath of another boffo "news" event, attempted to parse the Tiger Woods imbroglio. I wrote:

"I suppose the question is not whether Tiger and his wife had some sort of domestic dispute -- that much is clear, especially if you believe TMZ, which I do. (Remember who broke the Michael Jackson story?) The bigger question, in my mind, is whether a celebrity as revered as this paradigm of paradigms can successfully resist the natural evolution of a classic crisis. Will his personal plea for privacy prevail upon the public? I mean didn't John Travolta, after the squirrely death of his son, dodge a bullet?"

I soon sidetracked away from this, only to take a mulligan yesterday with an entirely new post that started:

"I've been thinking about Tiger. I mean who in our profession hasn't? The clamor to exploit the travails of one of the world's most beloved athletes and role models..."

I intended to go on to ponder whether Tiger really needed to satisfy the salacious and insatiable curiosity of today's media mob. Didn't he have a reasonable argument when he issued this statement:

"But no matter how intense curiosity about public figures can be, there is an important and deep principle at stake which is the right to some simple, human measure of privacy. I realize there are some who don't share my view on that. But for me, the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one's own family. Personal sins should not require press releases and problems within a family shouldn't have to mean public confessions."

As most of the PR punditry castigate Tiger Woods's PR consiglieres for not resorting to the standard crisis playbook, e.g., divulge everything quickly, I just had to wonder whether the same rules apply in a victimless and intensely private matter?

Sure, the media, and by extension the public, continues to chomp at the bit for more scurrilous details, but is this a reason for Tiger to provide them? Some in our midst will opine that the media will continue to dog him until he fesses up, and his reputation will suffer commensurately.

Personally, I think he has said enough, and he should now let his game speak for the rest. Time and professional focus will heal the pain.

Update (12/4):

• The New York Times editorial page hears from four legal experts on Tiger's right to privacy.
• Washington Post piles on.

Disclosure

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I hate it when friends quibble, and it's worse when it happens in front of a public on whom each relies for professional sustenance. Today's case in point: PR Newser's Joe Ciarallo cited Melanie Notkin (@savvyauntie) as an example of the confusion created by the FTC's newly enacted social media guidelines (to disclose paid sponsors).

Mr. Ciarallo follows Ms. Notkin on Twitter. (Who doesn't?) Between Black Friday and Cyber Monday, he noticed a number promotional Tweets from this savvy auntie. Some did not disclose the commercial relationship Ms. Notkin has with her tweeted subjects. Some did.

Well, given that paid sponsorship drives Ms. Notkin's social media brand's business model, the notion that she has done something unethical did not sit very well with her. If you ever met Melanie, and I have a few times, one would know that she has high ethical standards. Nonetheless, the allegation caused a firestorm in the comments section of PR Newser's post. Ms. Notkin writes:

"Your article is now on the web, and potential sponsors wanting to work with me will see your damaging reporting and if they don't read these comments, will not want to work with me. That's potentially very damaging to me, my business and my reputation."

It's less a question of Ms. Notkin's ethics, which again are above reproach, and more about what exactly satisfies the FTC's call for disclosure in a micro-media context? It's easier for blogs but on Twitter, the phrase "This is a paid commercial announcement from so-and-so marketer," alone takes 65 of those precious 140 characters. Should every promotional tweet or blog post reveal the paid underwriter? Mr. Ciarallo writes:

"I'll stick to the facts, which is that not all of your Tweets contained disclosure. You yourself said, "I am proud to say that I disclose at least 95% of all Tweets related to a sponsor." Why not 100%? Whether or not that is a violation of the new FTC guidelines is for them do decide, not me."

Surely, as Ms. Notkin notes, there are many worse offenders in the social-spheres who purposely propagate for one product or another without any qualms about not disclosing their commercial relationships. Ms. Notkin writes:

"Why not spend your energy reporting on those who do NOT disclose 95% of the time instead of those of us who take disclosure very seriously."

Good point. Separately, Ms. Notkin should also recognize that blogs and microblogs are rather ephemeral media channels, Twitter especially. Sure, we need to listen to the conversation to engage antagonists (and encourage protagonists), but in a measured way. Confrontation can sometimes work against those wishing to quell a percolating problem, i.e.,

"Give me a break. This was poor reporting, misleading to your readers, and damaging to my business and my reputation. Shame on you."

I know MediaBistro's blogs are popular, but this extended and colorful comment string probably precipitated this blogger's interest in the story.

Full disclosure: Ms. Notkin and I first crossed paths when she worked in marketing at The New York Times, a client of my agency's at the time.