Friday's Video Views

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Bunny Untethered

Our friends at Mashable draw our attention to Energizer's new wireless charger for various mobile devices, including that i-device. Now if only we didn't have to use it as frequently.




The Next Big Q

A week doesn't go by without TechCrunch anointing some new technology or application as the next big thing. (Most have names beginning with the letters Q or V.) On the heels of Quora's recent coronation, we have Qwiki, a video search engine that grabbed the mantle of TechCrunch Disrupt in late September. In its piece on the company's $8 million round of funding, led by the "Social Network"-immortalized Eduardo Saverin, TechCrunch described it as follows: "A lot of the excitement around Qwiki is because of its ability to generate media on the fly that combines text, audio, and animated photos." You decide if this engine has legs. (Remember WolframAlpha?)




MacBoy

If you haven't noticed, MacWorld Expo is currently in full-swing in San Francisco. Here's an animated clip touting the event from MacBoy, which is not a kids version of the MacBook.


MACWORLD: iPad Legacy from William Levin on Vimeo


VYou

Long-time media industry chronicler Steve Outing offers up an idea for those toiling in PR for academia. He recommends the VYou video platform as one answer to his question: "How do public relations of a university can be more efficient with the journalists?" Separately, I plan to touch on this theme as part of a panel I'm moderating during Social Media Week. It'll look at the Future of Science News Reporting and feature Futurity, which is a site that aggregates science news from a consortium of leading universities. Here's a link for more info.




Fashion's Two-Wheeler

The fashionable edit staff at Racked were kind enough to post the trailer for "Bill Cunningham New York," a documentary that chronicles the travels and influence of New York Times's treasured and indefatigable public fashion photographer. Mr. Cunningham can often be spotted on his bike, camera in tow, wheeling around the fashionable sections of Manhattan ready to pounce on a moment's notice. I once had my photo taken by him. It was the opening night of The New York Philharmonic. Loren Maazel was my client. At the dinner following the performance, Maestro Maazel came up to me to ask how I liked the performance. Cunningham popped off a few shots of the two of us chatting. I thought perhaps I should give him my name, but didn't. It wasn't necessary. Somehow, my dinner place card had mysteriously disappeared.


Bill Cunningham New York Trailer from Gavin McWait on Vimeo


Social Media in Under Five Minutes???

Communications trainer and author TJ Walker invited me up to his NYC TV studio this week to chat up social media...in five minutes or less! Social media in five minutes??? Maybe five years ago, but today the phenomenon has too many dimensions, players and opportunities to even begin to scratch the surface in five days, let alone five minutes. Still, I was there so I winged it...in eight minutes.




What's Up Elle

The exuberant YouTuber Elle of Whats Up Elle gets playoff fever (in triplicate) with this "awesome editing" job (to borrow Mashable's words.)




Social Media Like Dating?

Finally, the PR-minded folks at Ragan.com treat us to an MOS, or rather, a WOS to gauge how social media is like dating.

Herb Schmertz & The Huffington Post

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This blog periodically looks at the immeasurable contributions an impartial media make in a democratic society, i.e., trained journalists who ferret out and expose untruths and...spin. Maybe it was my PR work over the years for two news organizations, The Associated Press and The New York Times, that fortified my position.

I'll never forget standing alongside former AP president Lou Boccardi when he told a Washington Post photographer arriving late to a DC presser to, in effect, stick it when the photographer asked Mr. Boccardi to return to the podium for a staged photo.

Then there was my heated argument with an advance man for then-NYC Mayor Giuliani who insisted we re-position the new street sign at Broadway & 43rd Street so the shooters covering the sign unveiling would have a better angle. The person for whom the sign was being dedicated, Adolph S. Ochs, would have turned over in his grave.

For a variety of reasons, the number of truly impartial news organizations is in rapid decline - both financially and from their heights of mass esteem and influence.

A week ago I posted a link to the trailer of Andrew Rossi's new documentary "Page One: A Year Inside The New York Times" chronicling a year behind-the-scene of one such journalistic enterprise. The Daily Beast attended the Sundance screening of the film and had this to say:

"Rossi’s film raises questions about the simultaneous crippling and dynamic state of journalism today—is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a reporter? Is Twitter a valid news source?—but it is ultimately a love letter to the Times, and to the kind of old-school journalism where facts are diligently checked, sources are given a chance to respond, and a level-headed sense of reason prevails over flashy, traffic-driving headlines."

It may be odd for a PR person to share his longing for old school journalism in an age when so many opportunities abound for my colleagues to bypass the filter and speak directly to consumers.

Who in our business of a certain age can forget those paid advertorials at the bottom of The New York Times's vaunted editorial page? Mobil's long-time head of public affairs Herb Schmertz built his legacy on the back of what was considered at the time a most novel approach for sharing a corporation's POV.

Today, the idea of a corporate-created original "owned" content for direct-to-constituent consumption is quite de rigeur, if not old hat. What's unusual in my mind is that new media empires are rising based on this model. And I'm not talking Fox News or MSNBC.

A quick read of the world's most popular weblog will give you a good sense of where journalism is headed. The Huffington Post makes no excuses for the fact that the majority of its content does not come from professional journalists. It's aggregated from other noteworthy sources, but more significantly includes original posts from newsmakers whose voices traditionally were only heard through a journalistic filter.

In fact, one might even conclude that the content carried on Huffington Post may be the most pure form of expression that exists today. One gleans the subject-expert's POV in his or her own unexpurgated words.

In the old model, journalists were the subject experts by virtue of the beat system. I mean who knows more about trends in consumer electronics than Mossberg or Pogue? The head of SONY Consumer Electronics, that's who!

The HuffPost model has attracted a who's who of esteemed contributors who, btw, are not paid for their musings. More importantly, they do not pay to have their perspectives published. So how is it that HuffPost will "grow its revenue six-fold over the next three years?"  The lede in a recent ClickZ piece featuring HuffPost's chief revenue officer Greg Coleman read:

"IBM's healthcare director had an article published on The Huffington Post last year about primary care, and conducted a back-and-forth discussion with readers in the story's comments section. It's an example of a growing component of the media firm's ad revenue pie, and what Huffington Post president and chief revenue officer Greg Coleman calls the site's "calling card" to advertisers and agencies."

Now here is where I began to ponder the possibilities. Sure. IBM is a most authoritative source on a range of subjects. And the piece in question no doubt addressed a core IBM area of expertise. Nevertheless, IBM paid for the play, as do other forward-thinking content-driven companies (if Greg has his druthers).

Many purists will scoff at what appears to be an overt crossing of the line that separates advertising and editorial, but I'm not so sure. Here's how Mr. Coleman described it to ClickZ:

"The ability to really get our advertisers to engage in the conversation in real-time, whether it's blogging directly on The Huffington Post or engaging in the comments...where they're naturally going to be retweeted with the company's hashtag...the level of interest we have in this marketing form is gigantic," said Coleman.

Intrigued by this "marketing form" and its implications for the sustenance of tomorrow's "journalistic" enterprises, I decided to send a note to one of HuffPost's senior executives whom I've met socially. In it I said:

"I was a little surprised to hear Greg talk so matter-of-factly about sponsored content, which, to some purists, might be considered an oxymoron."

The senior executive replied:

"As you know, 'sponsored' content allows companies and brands to express themselves in the real-time debate about important issues. If they follow our guidelines, this kind of content will make a valuable contribution to the discussion."

I looked for "the guidelines" on the site, but couldn't find them. Nevertheless, the revelation of Herb Schmertz's New York Times advertorials and the conversation/debate they spurred should not be overlooked as media seeks to reinvent itself. Add a social element to the content, and those company-created conversations are carried further and wider.

Can our democracy survive without traditional reporters plying their trade to uncover injustice and wrongdoing? No. But the unfettered voices we discover on Huffington Post and elsewhere have a place in the media mix -- whether they're paid or not -- just so long as each is properly delineated as such.

Friday's Video Views

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What the Heck Should I Make for Dinner?

The video team at Fast Company visited the National Retail Federation's annual confab to bring us this (high-res) video in which one of the world's largest food manufacturers has created the G-rated version of "What the F*** Should I Make for Dinner" I wonder if there's a point in our lives when too much technology doesn't make sense?




Swisher: "Matador Casual"

Lots of videos coming out of this year's rejuvenated CES Show. (Remember when CES had lost some of its mojo to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3)?) We were treated to snippets of AllThingsD's Kara Swisher's interview with Twitter chief Dick Costolo. Well, this week the WSJ was kind enough to post the entire interview here.




VZW's iPhone

So now the fun begins. Here's the first TV spot from Verizon for its CDMA-enabled iPhone.




TV: King of All Media in 2011

Holy iPad! The folks at Deloitte give the thumbs up to television as the medium that will continue to dominate our lives n 2011. Here's a clip from the consulting firm's TMT (Technology, Media and Telecom) group.




CopyDesk.com

Just when you thought copy editing was a relic of the past, here's a clip promoting the 15th annual conference of the American Copy Editors Society (ACES).




"The Black Mamba"

Remember that (astroturfed) video clip of Kobe Bryant leaping over a Ferrari on a the rooftop of some building? Well our friends of Mashable have stumbled across what may be Kobe's next viral star turn on YouTube.




Funny or Die

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan must be getting pretty boring. Here's some dumb ass soldier playing a stupid grenade trick on his brethren in arms. (Not funny.)




The Trevi Fountain It's Not

Here's a viral video taken from a mall camera in which a texting woman does her best Audrey Hepburn imitation from Roman Holiday. Consumerist now reports that the woman in question is weighing a lawsuit against the mall for releasing the clip (and hurting her pride).

Defending Reputation Defender

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"Google is not God, it is not the First Amendment, and it's not the truth," said Michael Fertik, founder of Reputation Defender, re-named last week Reputation.com. "It's probably the best machine of the last 10 years, but it's just a machine." -- CNET (1/20/2011)

Reputation.com founder Michael Fertik

I recently had an opportunity to meet up with Mr. Fertik, the Harvard-educated New Yorker who founded Reputation.com, the best/only-known service for anyone worried about his or her Google persona (which is everyone, right?)

As someone who has made a career managing reputations - from individuals to institutions - I was compelled to inquire about the methodologies deployed by Mr. Fertik's company. Those endless radio spots had something to do with it, I'm sure. You know, the ones that send chills down the spines of dentists everywhere by linking a sudden drop in new patients to that embarrassing page one result in a Google search of the dentist's name.

The spots are hard to miss and may be fueled by the company's January 2010 investment from heavyweights Kleiner Perkins and Bessemer Trust.

Knowing a bit about the painstaking work entailed in trying to decipher Google's ever-changing algorithm in an effort to de-elevate the negative and elevate the positive, I tweeted my natural skepticism about Reputation.com's claims. The company, to its credit, was listening and contacted me to organize some time over the phone with Mr. Fertik.

Six weeks later, Mr. Fertik called. He confirmed that until recently the company had focused exclusively on the individual. From SFGate: "Tens of thousands of customers pay the nearly 4-year-old company upward of $9.95 a month to take charge of their online identity and privacy." More recently, however, Reputation.com has turned its attention to the enterprise whose reputation management duties have historically resided within the public relations domain. He mentioned that companies are willing to pay "from $100K-$1MM" to clean up their online acts.

I probed him about Reputation.com's technology and its approach to conversation mining for the enterprise, i.e., capturing, deciphering and re-shuffling the ranking of reputation-critical online information. After all, there are countless companies that specialize in SEO, let alone semantic and sentiment analysis.(See my previous post.) He insisted that Reputation.com is different.

We had to cut the phoner short, but we promised to regroup shortly. Six weeks later I reached out again and we agreed to meet for drinks in New York City. I was very impressed by Michael's passion and commitment to solving the daunting challenge of managing online reputations (and Google). While I found his answers to be (purposely?) vague at times, I did appreciate his candor in acknowledging that his company is just scratching the surface of this Herculean task. And it wasn't for a lack of PhDs from Carnegie Mellon, Stanford and the like among his 110 employees or so.

I decided at the time not to pursue a piece on Reputation.com, until today when I stumbled across CNET's take on two companies playing in the reputation management sandbox, Fertik's among them. Here's an excerpt from Tom Krazi's piece, "A Primer on Online Reputation Management:"

The work done by consultants in this field requires them to study Google's ranking results very closely, and over time Reputation.com has identified "hundreds" of ways to influence Google's rankings, Fertik said. However, many of those are only applicable in very specific cases, or for short periods of time, or too much trouble to be really worth the effort, he said.

Still, Reputation.com says it has identified "a few gems" for getting things done in Google that it naturally declines to disclose. "What we have to do is spend as much time in useful observation as possible, and hope and verify that our beliefs are right," Fertik said.

The topic is especially ripe right now. Huffington Post yesterday posted a piece from Dorie Clark titled "How to Repair a Damaged Online Reputation," the automation of which (most digital cognoscenti concur) is easier said than done.

With Google taking it on the chin of late, I was encouraged to hear from Mr. Fertik that he and his associates are turning their attentions to the social-spheres. I plan to keep an eye on Reputation.com's progress.

Re-Cycled Media Monitoring

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(Real-Time) Twitter Activity for #LessAmbitiousMovies

The New York Times today followed Bobby Maldonado as he headed out to work in our nation's capital in the darkness before sunrise. His job: reading, capturing and sharing with his bosses at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce every important news story or blog post relevant to the issues they're facing.

"Mr. Maldonado, 26, is one of the dozens of young aides throughout the city who rise before dawn to pore over the news to synthesize it, summarize it and spin it, so their bosses start the day well-prepared."

My oh my. Some things never change. Of course, the business function of capturing and sharing on a daily basis pertinent pieces of news or commentary, remains a core PR function that helps newsmakers stay one step ahead of their "competition." Access to real-time information = power.

In the case of the U.S. Chamber, the competition means anyone who supports President Obama's efforts to protect the American people from the business interests that took this country to its knees some two years ago and continues to thwart progress.

"For Mr. Maldonado, who said that 'the information wars are won before work,' that means rising early to browse all of the major newspapers, new polling data, ideological Web sites and dozens of news alerts needed to equip his bosses with the best, most up-to-date nuggets.

'Our executives walk into meetings and they’re doing battles, whether it’s on health care or cap and trade, and information is power, and my job is to make sure they’re armed with the most powerful information,' he said. 'It’s reading the 1,000 stories in the papers and Hill rags, and finding that one needle in the haystack that’s going to matter.'"

The Times piece took a look at other Beltway media monitors -- on all sides of the political spectrum. In fact, there isn't a major corporation in the world that doesn't task its agency or in-house communications department with keeping a finger on their industries in today's always-on cacophonous news and social media ecosystem.

What has changed are the tools and systems we (PR pros) have at our disposal to make the job more efficient. What also has changed is the nature of the news itself, i.e., a continuous onslaught of digitally delivered and shared information that can render the daily morning read (and resulting narrative) irrelevant by the afternoon.

Those in positions of power might be better served if their paid monitors delivered news and info several times during the day -- with stories prioritized by their potential to catch fire.

Some of the news and social media mining/monitoring companies - many offering proprietary interfaces (dashboards) and an automated ability to reflect sentiment analysis -- include Radian6, Vocus, Converseon, Invisible Technologies, Crimson Hexagon, Trackur and too many others to mention. Here's a link to 100 or so.

The Chamber, not unlike its private sector brethren in the business community, astutely recognizes the value of this service for gaining an upper hand in influencing the media narrative. Perhaps the progressives in the Democratic Party should take a few cues here?

Friday's Video Views

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Creative Chaos

One of my favorite authors and storytellers Malcolm Gladwell treats us to his opinion of what makes creative people tick. Thanks to my friends over at Big Think for posting.




Birthday Circa 2011

So what if you turned over your eight-year-old's birthday party to an ad agency? Adweek's AdFreak blog shows us. (Love this.)




Page One-->Sundance

If you follow the writings and tweetings of The New York Times's David Carr (@carr2n) or Brian Stelter (@brianstelter), you will not want to miss the Sundance-bound documentary "Page One: Inside The New York Times." Filmmaker Andrew Rossi spent a year following reporters on the Media beat as they chronicled the wrenching changes that impact the very news organization for which they work. Separately, here's a fresh look (from PBS MediaShift) at the tremendous strides The Times has made reinventing itself in an age of social and distributed media.




Times-a-Changing

And while we're talking The Times, Beet.TV caught up with its circulation chief Ray Pearce at CES where he revealed that The Times's iPad app has been downloaded some 1.5 million times since its April debut. This of course set Twitter tongues-a-tweeting. Now just wait to see what happens in the Twittersphere when the Times paywall goes up.




Samsung's Wireless Refrigerator

Electronic Post-it Notes, G-Cal sync, Twitter, Pandora and Epicurious...all on your fridge. Mashable thought it was a bit overkill, but I wonder. It's just one of the cool "gadgets" that emerged from CES last week.




Beer Cannon

This was NOT showcased at CES. (Maybe next year.) Here's an iPad app that should appeal to most 20-somethings I know.




Down Under: Redefined

You've no doubt read about the torrential rains and historical flooding in Australia. With a "highly recommended," Boston video man Steve Garfield drew my attention to this real-time clip shot on a hand-held in Toowoomba, Queensland that gives you a decent sense of nature's raw power. The clip has elicited some 3.5M views since it posted on YouTube at the beginning of this week.

Reliable Source?

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Here's a new one. One of the most influential voices on the media in the media Howard Kurtz, now of the Daily Beast, formerly of the Washington Post, still of CNN, late Tuesday offered "a whopper" of a correction for a column he wrote back in November.

Kurtz, who raised a few eyebrows this week for defending Sarah Palin after she was caught in the cross-hairs of her own making, published an interview he conducted with Rep. Darrell Issa. He's the Republican Congressman planning a series of investigations aimed at undoing the progress this President has made since taking office two years ago next week.

Darrell Issa (R.-CA)

Today we learn that it wasn't Rep. Issa at all with whom Mr. Kurtz spoke, but rather his spokesperson. Mediaite posted Mr. Kurtz's explanation:

"That afternoon my phone rang, I heard the words 'Darrell Issa' and I thanked the congressman for calling. I asked why 'you' made various statements about the president and congressional oversight, and he responded. I called him 'Congressman' several times during our discussion. I later emailed Bardella, on Nov. 24, and said: 'Hey, thanks for getting me the congressman so quickly. He mentioned the minority having sent 46 letters to the chairman or subcommittee chairmen and getting only six responses. Would you have some or all of the ones that drew no response? Thanks.'

Bardella sent the followup information I requested.

On Nov. 29, after my story ran on The Daily Beast, I got a note from Bardella saying there had been 'a little confusion' and “it wasn’t the congressman you spoke with, it was me speaking in his capacity as his spokesman.'"

Mediaite correctly wonders why it took so long for Mr. Kurtz to reveal the error in his ways.

"...I got busy with other things and I let it slip, and that was a mistake on my part."

I suppose that's possible. On the other hand, if Rep. Issa's paid spokesperson accurately and articulately captured his boss's position, it probably mattered little whether it came directly from Issa's mouth. The spokesperson clearly was authorized to deliver the Congressman's POV, which Mr. Kurtz dutifully captured and reported -- though incorrectly and inexplicably attributed to Rep. Issa for which Mr. Kurtz today is taking it on the chin.

Many of my clients wrongly believe they have to serve up their CEO with every interview request, when in fact any in-the-know senior executive of authority with strong communications skills will more often than not appease the reporter. We see this daily at the White House press briefings.

Also, it's simply not scalable to have one's CEO handle all interviewing duties, though in a crisis, you probably don't want your PR rep as the public face of the company.

Battle of the Mobile Spokespersons

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Unfortunately, I won't be attending the much-hyped presser in NYC today where Apple chief Steve Jobs will presumably be joined by Verizon Wireless president Lowell McAdam (and maybe Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg) in an effort to finally put to bed the interminable rumors of an iPhone for VZW. After all, how much conjecture can one person endure? Personally I thought Bloomberg's June 29 report of the marriage would have ended the uncertainty once and for all.

Nonetheless, this blogger is less interested in the cryptic press invitation that wafted into the public domain late last week. (Though it did create the expected media histrionics.) I'm more attuned to how AT&T plans to preserve its integrity in the face of the long-expected news of the cultish iPhone's non-exclusive ubiquity.

The New York Times's Jenna Wortham provides a glimpse of the impending battle in a piece today titled "AT&T and Verizon Trade Taunts Over iPhone." In it, the respective company spokespersons fired the first salvos:

"I’m not sure iPhone users are ready for life in the slow lane,” Mark Siegel, an AT&T spokesman, said in a company statement. He suggested that Verizon’s version of the iPhone would not be as fast because of the network technology the company uses.

Verizon replied:

“AT&T is known for a lot of things, but network quality is not one of them,” said Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless. “Typically companies try to call attention to their strongest suit.” Mr. Nelson added something that had the ring of a playground taunt: “It must be backwards day at AT&T.”

There may be something to AT&T's claims that its network is faster (though clearly with more dead zones) than its new and formidable rival. CNET's Maggie Riordan reports via Beet.TV that VZW's iPhone will not run on the company's much-ballyhooed 4G network...at least not yet. Still, AP (via Bloomberg) reports that VZW could sell "8-12 million" iPhones, a good many of which will be AT&T defectors.

While VZW and AT&T do battle, Apple shouldn't lose sight over the strides Google has made in the mobile space. Its Android operating system has now overtaken Apple i/OS and it does run on 4G. WSJ's Digits today reports

"Despite the fact that in its last quarterly report Apple said it sold a record 14.2 million iPhones, much of the buzz in the last part of 2010 centered on Google Inc.’s Android.

Andy Rubin of Google tweeted in December that 300,000 Android phones were activated every day—about 27 million a quarter. ComScore recently reported that Android-activated phones elcipsed the iPhone in smartphone subscriber market share late last year."

Thus far, 2011, the year of the mobile device, is shaping up to be rather exciting. Let's hope AT&T has more up its sleeve to take on Verizon, and that Apple doesn't lose its mojo to Android.

Business Insider just posted an iPhone comparison here.

Photo credit: Kent German/CNET

Conversation M̶i̶n̶i̶n̶g̶ Declining

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Over the years, this blog has examined how ordinary citizens and eventually bona fide newsmakers -- from NGOs to CEOs to politicos -- have the capacity to create, manage and syndicate original content, in effect giving them mostly unchecked control over their "media" personas.

The advent of blogs, sponsored Facebook sites, Twitter feeds and YouTube channels has enabled savvy communications counselors to relegate traditional journalists to a co-starring, supportive or even absentee role in the reputation-management equation.

We saw an early glimpse of this several years ago when Mavs owner Mark Cuban took issue with a story that resulted from a New York Times interview he had granted. The audacious Mr. Cuban subsequently took to his blog to reprint the unedited email exchange he had with the reporter, but with his own comments/corrections posted against the sections he felt were inaccurate. That blog post reverberated more loudly than the original Times story.

Some politicians have proclaimed their disgust with the "lamestream" media, turning instead to their own controlled outlets to communicate directly with their constituents. Last week, didn't incoming Ohio Governor John Kasich ban the media from covering his inauguration? (A public outcry led to a reversal.)

And who among us is not aware of Alaska's former half-term governor's declaration to refrain from granting serious news interviews? She now propagates her opinions exclusively on her blog/Facebook page, during her paid gig on Fox News, and in that TLC wilderness show, which the cable network this week (thankfully) chose not to renew for a second season.

This weekend, Ms. Palin suddenly finds herself in the media's crosshairs stemming from the heinous crime against an Arizona Congresswoman whom she literally targeted during the 2010 mid-term elections. Thus far I haven't seen her pop up in a mainstream outlet. Rather, her handlers are working overtime to whitewash the steady stream of vitriolic comments on her Facebook site.

One enterprising Brit decided to take a real-time look at the method behind the madness in managing Ms. Palin's reputation via this, her primary media vehicle. Most of what was quickly expunged was not unexpected:

A negative comment saying, "YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE, YOU EVIL WITCH" - at 17:19PM.

Removed by 17:21.

Two negative comments, one suggesting that her publicity team must be working overtime to make her not look guilty and one from a British poster saying "Guns and nutters don't mix..."

Removed by 17:26.

But it wasn't until this disturbing comment that the inherent dangers of a neutered fourth estate becomes painfully apparent:

A commenter posted the following at 18:12:

"It's ok. Christina Taylor Green was probably going to end up a left wing bleeding heart liberal anyway. Hey, as 'they' say, what would you do if you had the chance to kill Hitler as a kid? Exactly."

Christina is the nine-year-old girl, born on 9/11, who lost her life in the murderous melee. The British blogger waited for this truly deranged comment to be removed from Ms. Palin's Facebook page. She waited and waited and waited. The comment remained live on the site. Here's what the blogger wrote:

"I don't really know what to make of this. Sarah Palin has the right to edit her Facebook profile - it's not technically a public platform, it's a privately owned space. But the fact someone has a right to do something doesn't mean it is always a good idea, and I think that someone who aspires to public office has an especially strong responsibility to try and engage with the public at large - not just those who agree with them. But still... she's not currently in any form of elected office and she can do what she likes.

But I find her team's editorial judgement to say the least... odd."

After reading this, I can't bring myself to agreeing with the talking heads who lash out at those for assigning some of the blame for this tragic incident on Ms. Palin. Minimally, as one commenter briefly noted, "guns and nutters don't mix." Also, nutters and newsmaker-producers don't mix.

Link to full UK post here.

Friday's Video Views

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Intel's Paper Chase, Digitally Rendered

I remember working with Intel in the nascent days of the Pentium chip. Our challenge was to convince consumers (i.e., prospective PC owners) that processing power mattered. My, have we come a long way as this video from Intel demonstrates. (via mashable)




Fox Digital Guy in Recline

Glad to see TheWrap producing original video. Here's an impromptu clip with Pete Levinsohn who heads digital for Fox Filmed Entertainment. It was shot at CES this week.




CNBC's Facebook Obsession

AllThingsD's Kara Swisher posted three clips from CNBC's "The Facebook Obsession." Hey, didn't she appear in the hour-long special? Here's the first clip.




Comedy Central's John [sic] Stewart's Facebook Obsession

And CNBC is not the only cable network weighing in on Facebook this week. Jon Stewart took a not-so-kind shot at the "Anti-Social Network." (via TechCrunch)

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Droid's For Me!

With the battle heating up over which mobile O/S will prevail, I saw this video and decided that I will forego Verizon's iPhone (even with the new Mac App Store) in favor of a Droid. Here's why:




Golden Voice

Now only did this poignant video catch fire (1.5M views and counting), but it fueled a tug-of-war between NBC Today and CBS Early Show over which would be the first morning show to capture a reunion between the subject of the video, Ted Williams, and his 90-year-old mother. Williams may have had a happy ending, but the Columbus Dispatch, which captured the raw footage and fed it out via AP, ticked off a few folks by pulling the clip from YouTube.

Vintage Technology

Having just reactivated my turntable, I couldn't resist making a late addition to today's video views:

AA's Travel Woes

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New York's LGA 12/26/2010

Having just endured a Mother Nature-inspired nightmare vacation travel scenario co-starring United Airlines and US Airways, I find myself especially attuned to the foibles of airline travel today.

The big carriers, in spite of some clever viral spots from Jet Blue, still don't seem to appreciate their customers.

Sure, who knew the NY metro area would be paralyzed by a freak snowstorm on one of the busiest travel days of the year?

To make matters worse, stranded United Airlines travelers had to strain to communicate with Philippine-based UA booking agents, most of whom had no idea it had even snowed in New York. (It wasn't until I met 18-year UA veteran agent Kristee Barker at United's customer service center in the Denver terminal that my faith was partially restored.)

After that whole experience, plus the $23 per-checked-bag, premium prices for extra legroom, credit card purchases for anything solid to eat, and the many other schemes carriers use to exploit their captive customers gives me pause in an era when customers supposedly rule.

I therefore had some satisfaction when I received this email today from another of the major airlines that has adopted a "customer last" approach en route to "profitability:"

Now this is a real sticky wicket for AA. Having played a role at the outset of third-party online booking sites through my PR work to launch Orbitz, I would say that American doesn't help itself by banning Orbitz from making bookings. To compound matters, as of January 1, Expedia dropped AA while the airline's presence on the behemoth Sabre booking system, used by most travel agents, is under threat. A veritable perfect storm, if you will.

I do give the airline some credit for this email to its AAdvantage card holders, but this is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, in order for AA to get back on course. (Think Cablevision's recent capitulation to News Corp.) I'm keeping a watchful eye on how American chooses to navigate these most turbulent skies.

Sustainable PR

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James Franco Survives

In a provocative blog post titled "How B2B PR will fail in 2011," Bliss PR's Elizabeth Sosnow pondered whether B-to-B PR could survive with the same old service offerings to which it has long grown accustomed.

She observes that in the B-to-B space "The number of [trade] reporters is shrinking at an alarming rate." Yes and no.

Sure, the traditional trade pubs are struggling or no longer wield the clout (or is it Klout?) they once enjoyed. But we've also seen an explosive proliferation of niche B-B blogs whose influence rivals, and in many cases, surpasses that of the trade pubs that for so long owned the ability to catalyze coverage in mainstream news outlets.

Bliss PR's Elizabeth Sosnow

Elizabeth went on to list:

"...the current products that PR believes will solve the problems of a changing environment: Bylined articles. Social media. Newspaper quotes. Trade shows. Media pitches. Press releases. TV appearances. Messaging."

She then asks:

"How long do we think these will truly meet the evolving needs of reporters and our clients’ targets?"

I RT'd her post, which prompted an exchange on whether content creation and syndication is the answer to our industry's identity crisis and long-term viability. I truly believe it is.

Those who follow my various musings will know my feeling that in spite of all the changes we've endured these last few years, client goals remain the same: each desires a positive branded presence in the media. Of course, the media itself looks remarkable different than just five years ago, and the means for achieving that media presence has evolved.

I suppose if you bucket our "offering" into four categories of media, you'll get a better sense of how the industry will sustain itself moving forward:

• Earned Media - Yes folks. My clients (and yours too) still value (and pay for) our ability to convince a journalist to report on their products, services and POV's. This core competency is not going away anytime soon. Just check out the audio clips from PCNY, the club I run, to hear directly from journalists advising on how best to engage them.
  

• Paid Media - As the lines blur between the various marketing disciplines, many PR folks will find themselves in positions to advise on ad spend. And it's not just TV spots or print display. Paid media also entails SEM (Google AdWords), paid product placement in TV/web/mobile programming, blogger incentive programs, promoted Twitter trends, etc.

• Shared Media - Today, the Wall Street Journal reported on the Washington Post's newly created subsidiary SocialCode to help businesses build their fan bases on Facebook. Buddy Media has built a hugely successful business helping companies tap Facebook's sharing DNA. While Facebook may be the gorilla of the social media set, countless other communities of online "sharers" exist and can be activated to help clients build their brands.

• Owned Media - As more and more individuals consume, create, curate and share their news and information via digital devices, it is incumbent upon the modern communications professional to help his/her clients build their digital footprints. Sure, it's always nice if Wired magazine pays attention to your client's cool new app, but a compelling video demo of that app can have extra sturdy (and controlled) media legs when Stumbled Upon. (Didn't Stumble Upon just surpass Facebook as a feeder of social media traffic?) And isn't good story-telling our industry's most notable and valuable deliverable? Here's a recent look at how fashionistas have created their own(ed) branded content.

Elizabeth summed up her post as follows:

"Our product is now content. Here’s what PR content is becoming:

• Blogs
• Infographics
• Songs
• Customer stories
• Podcasts
• QR Codes
• E-Books
• Curated – or aggregated — streams of information
• Statistics
• Video

Take a careful look at that list. How many of these elements are in your planned 2011 PR programs? Can you afford a lack of experience with these products?"

No. We can't.