Social Media is Not Dead

Rather than address the blogosphere with brilliant rhetoric and clarity regarding the Ferrari Incident, instead, Steve Rubel has declared Social Media Dead.

Perhaps he’s merely tapping into the power of social media to spark controversy to displace the conversation on Techmeme, or, just maybe, he really does believe that "social" or any other category preceding the word "media" is dead.

Jeremy Pepper calls it “Crisis Blogging to Defeat a Meme.”

Open the Dialogue captures it with, “What strikes me most is the deafening silence from Steve Rubel. Instead, he's declaring this, that or the other thing "dead."

They’re right on target. As for me, I’m here to say that Social Media, as a term and a channel, is far from dead.

Just last night, I held one of the greatest conversations I’ve had in a long time on the subject with Greg Narain, where we concluded that social media is part of the greater landscape of social tools, which is redefining the way people communicate – and its opportunity has only started to materialize. So to call social media dead in a thinly veiled attempt to mask the conversations about Edelman and Microsoft is absurd, reckless and premature.

In his post, Social Media is No Mo, Rubel states, “As we conclude 2006 and head into the new year it is my conviction that the phrase 'social media' is moot.”

Well, the term “moot” means: debatable, arguable, disputable…

He continues, “Social media, according to Wikipedia, ‘includes the online tools and platforms that people use to share opinions, insights, experiences and perspectives with each other.’ This includes blogs, message boards, podcasts, wikis, vlogs and so on. For the last few years this was all considered related to, but separate from mainstream media. That point of differentiation is now gone. In 2006 all media went social. Pretty much every newspaper, TV network and publication has wholeheartedly embraced these technologies. Newspapers have comments, RSS feeds, blogs, wikis and other forms of two-way communications. TV networks have a presence in Second Life and more. The lines have blurred.”

Is it me, or am I the only one here that sees the blaring differences between blurred and dead?
Yes, he’s correct that in 2006 most, not all, media went social. Many of the tools he described are globally deployed and utilized. But the last time I checked, only a small portion of the global population is actually socializing using “social media tools” and, most importantly, these tools are merely creating the framework for a broader, more sophisticated social media platform for the future.

Allow me to clear this up for everyone here...First, step away from the punch! "Social Media" is not dead. It is in its own definitive category, which is barely starting to inspire those that actually make it social, not to be dictated by those that deploy it.

So if anything, 2007 becomes the year where social media is a respected, official, and recognized media channel, but it is by no means mainstream, traditional, broadcast, etc. We still have a lot of work to do to get the rest of the world to join the conversation and what it will become is the real story here.

Digg this!


The Conversation Moves to Techmeme


Edelman steve+rubel social media social+media wikipedia Jeremy+pepper techmeme pr pr2.0 marketing advertising Microsoft Ferrari greg+narain tools rss blog wiki second+life

Microsoft PR Sparks a Blogstorm of Support and Outrage

Image Credit: istartedsomething.com

I just read over on Techmeme that Microsoft PR may be digging itself deeper into another potential PR fiasco. There is a blogstorm out there with dozens of bloggers, myself included, casting opinions. Many of which I don’t necessarily agree with. I had to find out for myself, so I contacted several of the privileged bloggers who already have the notebook as well as other PR leaders to discuss the topic.

Welcome to Crisis Communications 2.0.

Microsoft’s intention was right on target. Their PR thinking, on the other hand, was slightly off target, with a few key elements overlooked or underestimated.

What’s most important here is that the Microsoft empire gave a nod to the blogosphere and proactively embraced it to help launch an important product. While some are calling it a bribe, I like to think of it as recognizing the ability to reach and interact with your community of customers. It is social media marketing in its purest sense, but as any marketing campaign goes, it’s all in how you aim and pull the trigger.



One way to approach this would be to:

1. Identify a group of highly influential bloggers, some of which use Macbooks, but also hit Windows enthusiasts and open skeptics
2. Send them an ultra-fast PC running the new Windows Vista OS
3. Say something in the package that says “Happy Holidays” and “send it back, give it away, or use it as a review platform” so you’re not implying that you’re trying to buy them off (unless you believe in Guy Kawasaki’s take on bribing bloggers to get coverage)
4. Have all communication come from Microsoft and not PR – recognizing them for status and requesting an honest review – providing a publishable statement for the posts
5. Revisit step number 1 and ensure that big guys and little guys in the 2.0 and PC blogosphere are represented
6. Request full disclosure to protect the blogger’s status with their audience

How they launched it:
1. Microsoft’s PR Agency, Edelman, may have neglected to analyze the fallout from the Wal-mart flogs and predict how bloggers (in and around) this campaign may react. UPDATE: Word is that Steve Rubel was behind this and the idea may have stemmed from Microsoft's recent meet and greet with bloggers.
2. Selected a group of high traffic bloggers that live in the web 2.0 world and who may or may not understand the significance of Microsoft Vista in the Windows world. UPDATE: Some say they really have no idea how to even review Microsoft Vista. Many speculate that Edelman simply wanted controversy.
3. Sent the email from Edelman and not Microsoft, while others received emails from Microsoft directly. UPDATE: Depending on the caliber of blogger, there are upwards of 3-4 varying emails from Edelman and Microsoft all with different messages and approaches.
4. Incited negative posts from bloggers who felt either alienated or jealous because they didn’t receive a $3,000 notebook
5. Sent an Acer Ferrari, which isn’t the fasted notebook on the market, but it sure is the flashiest. Keep in mind that most bloggers adorn their Macbooks with stickers from their favorite sites. I’m not sure Sony would have played along here, so I will at least send Kudos over to Acer and AMD for playing ball. UPDATE: There are reports of three different types of notebooks circulating, ranging from Acer to an no-name whitebox.
6. Sent a series of emails after a few not-so-kind posts which is coming across as backpedaling
7. Most importantly, may not have asked bloggers to disclose their intentions so it was perceived more of a reward for influence as opposed to a bribe. UPDATE: After speaking with several recipients of the infamous notebook, they're were told that it was "a holiday gift" with "no strings attached" and were not offered options of giving it away or returning it after the review was completed.

What they did right:
1. To their credit they are giving bloggers a choice to keep it, give it away, or return it. UPDATE: I guess only certain bloggers received this option and it arrived after the notebook.
2. Ensured that they represented the full spectrum of A,B and C list influentials
3. Recognized that the blogophere is influential – according to Hugh MacLeod at gapingvoid.com, “a well-executed blogging campaign is an act of love.”

While many likened it to a blatant payperpost campaign, others were open minded. One of the biggest fallouts, may have been unforeseen by Mircosoft’s PR. Many bloggers dedicated entire posts to defend their standing, ethics, and perspective among their readers why any post on Vista or the Ferrari should be read as genuine and not influenced by a lavish reward.

It’s all about disclosure and less about relying on the intelligence of the reader to make a decision in your favor. Disclosure in this case, should run from Microsoft to bloggers and from bloggers to their audience. Calling it a gift was wrong and disrespectful. As bloggers, our word, credibility, and reputation are our greatest assets.

Here’s a summary of what’s going on out there:

Michael Arrington likes it – “Frankly, I’m pretty impressed, and I’m a hard core Mac guy.”

Marshall Kirkpatrick is not so impressed – “Microsoft and AMD sent out a pile of very expensive (yet trashy looking) laptops to a number of bloggers over the past week. I almost smashed mine in the middle of the street 10 minutes into trying to use it!”

Robert Scoble first called it “Pay Per Post” but now thinks the move is brilliant – “Is sending out laptops ethical? Of course! Their job is to get the product and company they represent in front of as many influentials as possible.”

Scott Beale is open-minded – “I’ll report back later on once I’ve had a chance to setup the laptop, configure Windows Vista and play around with a it a bit.”

Brandon LeBlanc at first didn’t disclose where he received the notebook, later posted – “I'm sorry if this donated laptop makes my readers think any less of me and my posting and objectivity.”

Barb Bowman loved it – “I'm convinced I have the coolest and fastest laptop on the planet.”

Mitch Denny humbly defended his ethics and credibility stating the Microsoft’s move here was less of an attempt to bribe, and more of a strategic ploy to move the dial – “Ironically I posted up this piece the day before the laptop arrived about marketeers earning mindshare rather than buying it”

Traditional media balked at this approach citing that Microsoft crossed the line as it bribes bloggers with Vista notebooks. Journalist Dan Warne quoted, “Microsoft isn’t a computer company! It’s a bit like the owner of a motorway giving journalists free cars.” John Pospisil stated, “In the ten years I’ve been writing about computers this is the first time I’ve heard of this kind of PR give away on this level.”

My opinion on the last set of quotes…the market is nothing like it was 10 years ago. But just for reference here, back in 1999, I represented a company that made a software OS for digital cameras. It was way ahead of its time, so we actually sent out cameras that could run the OS and aftermarket software and sent them to traditional reporters and online enthusiasts (before they were called bloggers) so that they could review the software in a self-contained review environment. It was far from bribery and more often called brilliant, as it actually landed a 100% review rate with all recipients. Without the review kit, we would have been lucky to hit 25% - if that.

Now, back to Microsoft. I’ve included a few of the emails from Microsoft PR for your reference…

Here’s the intro email:

“Michael,

I’m working on getting some review PCs out to community bloggers, and wanted to include you. I’d love to send you a loaded Ferrari 1000 courtesy of Windows Vista and AMD. Are you interested?

This would be a review machine, so I’d love to hear your opinion on the machine and OS. Full disclosure, while I hope you will blog about your experience with the pc, you don’t have to. Also, you are welcome to send the machine back to us after you are done playing with it, or you can give it away to your community, or you can hold onto it for as long as you’d like. Just let me know what you plan to do with it when the time comes. And if you run into any problems let me know. A few of the drivers aren’t quite final, but are very close.

If you are game, would you send me your address and phone? I’m going to send this out next week, so if you will be travelling on the 22nd let me know where you’ll be, and I’ll send it there.”

Here’s the email clarifying its intent after a few bloggers posted stories on the subject:

“Marshall,

No good deed goes unpunished, right? You may have seen that other bloggers got review machines as well. Some of that coverage was not factual. As you write your review I just wanted to emphasize that this is a review pc. I strongly recommend you disclose that we sent you this machine for review, and I hope you give your honest opinions. Just to make sure there is no misunderstanding of our intentions I’m going to ask that you either give the pc away or send it back when you no longer need it for product reviews.

Thanks for your understanding, and happy reviewing.”

Please vote for this story at NewPR.

Tags: Microsoft Edelman pr public+relations social media press social+media bloggers blogosphere istartedsomething Robert+scoble scott+beale laughingsquid walmart wal-mart flog bribe techcruch Michael+Arrington Arrington marshall+Kirkpatrick techmeme Brandon+leblanc mitch+denny barb+bowman disclosure payperpost pr2.0 acer Ferrari amd macbook guy+Kawasaki marketing long+zheng gapingvoid Hugh+MacLeod windows vista windowsvista

Time Magazine, Web 2.0 and You

Nevermind Sacha Baron Cohen’s ability to make us laugh while holding up a mirror to our ugliest traits, Al Gore’s exposing platform to get millions inspired about environment, Sir Bono’s tireless work in Africa, Michael J. Fox’s spotlight on stem cell politics, Time Magazine’s person of the year this year is “you” or “us” depending on how you look at it.

Let’s be clear. There is bottomless well of assholes around the world to spotlight and blame for the many agonizing, unnecessary, and disturbing things that happened in 2006.

But, let’s celebrate and bask in the moment that is ours. We are Time’s Person of the Year. We have renewed the very basis of democracy, paying homage to and re-igniting the passion behind the preamble to this nation’s constitution, “We the people.” It’s all because of the World Wide Web and the visionary entrepreneurs and programmers that developed a more interactive platform for consuming, producing, and sharing content.

According to Time, this is not evolution, it’s revolution and people are changing the way people change the world, “In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.”

While the tech set has brushed the story off as a corny attempt at capitalizing on the democratization of the Web, I find it a fascinating legitimization of “citizen media.” After all, what’s more traditional than Time Magazine?

I don’t know about you, but I buy it. Here’s why…

I have fought for several years for companies to engage their customers outside of traditional PR and marketing because it was clear that their voices were growing louder with every new 2.0 site or technology that was introduced. I, like many other social media evangelists, recognized the need to build and cultivate communities. However, many businesses weren’t only reticent to accept forms of new media they were down right adverse to and petrified of the idea.

2006 was the year Web 2.0 evolved into something more than a mere buzzword. It was the year that sparked the social revolution…and a social economy.

It’s not just about ridiculously popular sites such as Myspace, Facebook and YouTube, which provided a “working” model for individuals to express themselves and show the world that they too have a voice. Podcasts, blogs, comments, user reviews on sites such as Amazon.com, video blogs, sites with content based on voting such as DIGG and the new Netscape, etc., and even Second Life, have exploded in a cosmic flurry of user generated content aka social media.

Millions of active users forever changed how we participate and define broadcast and print journalism, commerce, politics, entertainment, gaming, and business.

With an increasingly global number of architects creating the new web, 2007 promises only to expand the conversation and force continue the revolution and fusion of traditional and citizen media.

We the people, in order to form a more perfect global union, will democratize the web so that our voices will be heard and that markets will shift in directions that benefit us as consumers and producers.

Please help keep this story popular at NewPR.

Time person year social media social+media web2.0 web+2.0 second+life secondlife lonelygirl15 lonelygirl podcast blog netscape digg time+magazine bono magazine sacha+cohen myspace youtube amazon facebook 2006 2007

San Francisco NewTech Meetup - December 2006

With over 700 members, the SF NewTech Meetup continues to gain in popularity as the Bay Area geekdom enjoys its forum for having new tech demoed directly to them each and every month.

SF Win, Silicon Valley Newtech, among others provide a venue for emerging companies to reach a sampling of their target demographic, without having to exhibit at an expensive Web 2.0-style conference.

Held at CNET on Second St. in San Francisco, SFNT hosted a crowd of about 100 guests, including fellow tech entrepreneurs, programmers, bloggers, as well as Cnet’s Rafe Needleman.

First up…



Dan Beltramo, co-founder, Vizu.
Vizu's “Answers” service enables businesses to create a market research poll, which is distributed to various sites and blogs with a market-specific audience/demographic of visitors the researcher wants to poll at an affordable price.

Vizu also requests that the research be available for publishers as a way to monetize interesting content. Per their site, “Vizu Answers is an innovative, reader-friendly way to monetize your Web site traffic. It's easy, pays well, and provides high quality content.”

--



Travis Chow, founder, Neighboroo
Neighboroo has many potential partners in this space, with Zillow the most prominent.

Neighboroo is an easy way to learn about neighborhoods. That’s basically it. Enter a location, and you’ll receive information about stats and eventually city highlights. The potential is exceptional…and all based on UGC. Its primary market is best suited for folks shopping for real estate in new areas.

I ran a search on where I live, and here’s the result.
--



Auren Hoffman, CEO of Rapleaf
Rapleaf is a personal reputation system for the Web – much like the industry-standard ebay rating, put portable. Sites including SwapThing and When2Date are integrating the Rapleaf system.

The site describes it perfectly, “Rapleaf is a portable ratings system for commerce. You can look people up before you buy or sell, and rate them afterwards.
Rate people and they will be encouraged to rate you back. Before long, your Rapleaf profile will reveal you for the honest person that you are. After all, it is more profitable to be ethical.”

--


Jeff Kirschner, co-founder/Creative Director of Razz.
Razz enables consumers to mix sound content (voice, effects, beats) into their phone conversations and onto their personal web pages (read: social networks ala Myspace, etc.) There's also a downloadable mobile-phone application that lets you include your creations into a live conversation -- dubbed "in-call entertainment."

They also announced the RAZZ Idol competition.

--

SF NewTech is ripe for sponsors who wish to connect, on the ground, with the local tech-set. Smart marketers should take note of these types of opportunities that can get them *into* the conversation, versus being outside of it.

If you’re interested in presenting, contact Myles at info@sfnewtech.com.

Tasty beverages once again sponsored by the emerging tech law firm of Jacobs & Ferraro.

Yummy pizza thanks to the Forbin Group.

Fine wine courtesy of FutureWorks PR, a tech/web PR and social media agency.

sfnewtech meetup sf+newtech sfwin siliconvalley silicon+valley web2.0 web 2.0 web+2.0 cnet vizu neighboroo rapleaf swapthing ebay when2date razz jacobs ferraro futureworks futureworkspr forbin+group forbin group

December Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup

With over 100 people in attendance, the Silicon Valley NewTech Meetup continues to run strong. Entrepreneurs, VCs, IT professionals, bloggers all congregate each month to not only network with one another, but to also see the latest in the online frontier.

First up…



boorah.com – Eric Moyer, co-founder

Boorah.com makes it easy to find a great restaurant by presenting a summary of user and professional reviews in a way that has never been done before. The service offers a unique, searchable database of restaurant locations, cuisines, cost, and hours of operation coupled with the ability to make online reservations. Boorah supposedly simplifies the process of dining out whether you're a "foodie" or just an average Joe looking for a fresh new place to eat.

The Boorah system uses patent-pending Natural Language Processing technology to find, summarize and present information from across the web in a way that is far more useful than it's ever been before.

I guess we’ll see if NLP outweighs P2P (peer to peer with sites such as Yelp.com)




--

stickydrive.com - Sol Lipman, co-founder

I met Sol at a recent SF Beta event. His idea is pretty cool. It’s basically a flash platform that you take with you. What that means is that users of portable, aka thumb aka USB, drives can take applications with them so that they can fire-up everything they need as long as a PC is handy.

--



twiki.org - Peter Thoeny, founder

TWiki is an enterprise collaboration platform. It is a Structured Wiki, typically used to run a project development space, a document management system, a knowledge base, or any other groupware tool, on an intranet or on the internet. Web content can be created collaboratively by using just a browser. Users without programming skills can create web applications. Developers can extend the functionality of TWiki with Plugins.

--

zemble.com - Johann Moonesinghe, co-founder

Zemble.com is the social networking website that helps you interact with your friends through text messaging.

You can text message large groups of friends from your phone by sending just one text message, and it goes out to the whole group. The service also allows you to choose if you want to respond to the entire group or just the person who sent you the text.

Users can use Zemble to organize their (lives) with robust event-management features including a social networking calendar.

--

Location provided by: DLA Piper

Wine provided by: AndrewLane Wines

Beer provided by: mepath.com - health advice meets web2.0

boorah stickydrive twiki zemble dla piper andrewlane mepath.com andrew+lane svnt silicon+valley newtech meetup eric+moyer sol+lipman peter+thoeny johann+moonesinghe web2.0 web+2.0

Engage or Die! ROI vs. ROP in Social Media

This isn’t an attempt at sensationalism, this is a clear message for all businesses, in every market - Engage or die! If you don't, you're competition will. Those who engage with customers and markets will cultivate loyalty in ways never before possible. Traditional marketers will lose, unless they embrace new media.

The key however, is finding ways to measure everything in ways that mean something at every level of corporate communications.

In any given day, I will sell, evangelize, educate, and defend social media to clients and business prospects. But then again, I seem to have to do the same for PR – as to this day, most executives have no concept of how PR works, nor the understanding of how it helps them.

But either way, when it comes down to it, businesses want metrics.

Last week, I had the opportunity to meet with a new player in an already crowded consumer electronics marketplace. It was a fascinating experience, because while it’s considered by many experts to be a commodity play, this company happens to be one of the oldest, most trusted brands on the planet.

While we discussed PR opportunities, both traditional and 2.0, their greatest enthusiasm unveiled during potential ideas surrounding social media and the ability to engage their customers in conversations. More importantly, it was a glimmer of hope as it revealed that they too, might have held reservations about the potential for success.



Last week, Factiva invited a group of Social Media Practitioners, Bloggers, Corporate Program Managers, and PR consultants, to discuss metrics in Palo Alto and what was important to them as influencers, their executive team, and clients. Jeremiah Owyang hosted the roundtable and Daniella Barbosa from Factiva made it all happen.

This post isn’t intended to serve as a summary of the discussion. Jeremy Pepper, Jeremiah, Christopher Kenton, and Daniela Barbosa, among others, have already captured it brilliantly.


Jermiah Owyang

My platform for the event was many-fold, as I wasn’t there simply as a PR person. I’m also a blogger, and more importantly an advisor to many tech companies in a variety of industries including enterprise, consumer electronics, and Web 2.0. With each hat I wear, my answers vary.


Stowe Boyd, Greg Narain, Daniella Barbosa

My goal here is to emphasize key observations and critical points that must surface in order help social media permeate into day-to-day marcom campaigns – including skeptics and evangelists alike.


Jeremy Pepper

Here are some of the questions we discussed and attempted to answer?
- Do you believe Consumer Generated Media is important and should be measured?
- Who is creating Social Media? What are they creating? And is “the who” more important then “the what?”
- If you are producing Social Media, how will you measure ROI?
- Do you think that Social Media needs a structured, mutually agreed upon measurement techniques and metrics (e.g. MSM's ad value equivalence and article impressions) to make monitoring a more serious practice?
- So what should be measured, and how do you want it delivered?

I think we all agreed that CGM (the term) is dead. Let’s just call it social media, and absolutely, it’s critical that we track it. We call can agree that customers, peers, competitors, basically, everyone can and is generating social media. But it’s not just about who, it’s about “what” they’re saying.

In this case the “I” in ROI becomes much smaller than previously factored. And, while we’re at it, ROI for social media, should be measured in terms of “ROP,” return on participation. Why? Because ROI is iffy at best when measuring the true value advertising, branding, event marketing and especially PR.

The mistake that most executives make is that they try to tie everything to sales. Advertisers link everything to circulation and page views. PR people tie column inches and online articles to ad value. How does any of this apply to social media?

Those of us in the space are actively finding ways to measure ROP – and many of the processes are painfully manual. Services such as Technorati, Buzz Metrics, Blog Pulse, Buzz Logic and Alexa help, but wouldn’t it be incredible if there was a Techmeme or Tailrank for tracking conversations based on key words? Now that’s a winner right there! It’s the only service that could measure “conversations” and we all (or we should all) know, that markets are conversations now more than ever.

ROP is specific to the measurement of “participation” which is, at the end of the day, what separates social media from traditional marketing. ROI is a metric when marketing at customers. ROP measures conversations with customers and customers conversations with others.

After all, social media isn’t only for companies that “get it.” In fact, my greatest challenge is trying to help those companies that need it, understand and embrace it to not only succeed, but also survive.



Some of the ideas that were introduced for measurement include (through my creative mashing-up of many of the ideas tossed out there):
- Relevance
- Influence and reach
- Community, engagement, participation, comments, etc.
- Demographic
- Sentiment/tonality of the post
- Ranking, via Alexa, Feedburner, downloads, etc.
- Blogroll
- Meme, tracking conversations
- Readers and loyalty

Based on the voting, the following were the results:





Photo Credit: Jeremiah Owyang (see more from the set)


The Results, Photo Credit: Jeremy Pepper

#1 Participation – Engagement
#2 Influential ideal, memes, path
#3 Relevance
#4 Sentiment / Tone

According to Jeremiah, “Measurement depends on what the business goals are. Some folks tied measurement back to hard ROI: (Does Social Media shorten the sales cycle/reduce cost, and does it increase revenues).”

However, most of the discussion focused only on measuring bloggers. To me, bloggers only represent one, albeit highly influential, piece of the social media landscape. However if we’re talking about social media as it relates to CGM, then services such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, flickr, Yahoo Groups, LinkedIn, among thousands of others are also relevant for metrics.

One important observation regarding bloggers is that it’s not just about the most influential bloggers out there, it’s about the “magic middle.” These are the people who recognize valuable content and in turn share it amongst each other. With the right tools, conversations can then be tracked throughout the traditional marketing bell curve, while inside the tornado, riding the cluetrain, crossing the chasms along the way.

Perhaps the most critical element of any of this is to combine existing metrics with new measurement standards in order to make this whole process tangible and easier to embrace. ROI + ROP.

Engage or die!


Andy Lark

Here’s a partial list of attendees courtesy of Factiva’s Glenn Fannick
- Stowe Boyd, BlueWhale Labs /
- Andrew Lark, Founder, group lark
- Ed Terpening, VP Social Media, Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Blog Index
- Christopher Kenton, MotiveLab,
- Jeanette Gibson, New Media Communications, Cisco
- Brian Solis, FutureWorks PR / PR2.0,
- Ian Kennedy, Product Manager, Yahoo, flashpoint
- Jeremy Pepper, Social Media, Weber Shandwick / POP! PR Jots
- Jory Des Jardins, Co-Founder, BlogHer, LLC;
- Mike Manuel, Strategist, Voce Communications, Media Guerrilla
- Andrew Vignolo, Director, Market Trends & Analytics, Levi Strauss & Co.
- Jeff Beckman, Director, Worldwide and U.S. Communications, Levi Strauss & Co.
- Tony Obregon, Director of Social Media, Cohn & Wolfe



For more pictures from the event, please visit the stream on flickr. You can also visit Jeremiah’s set on flickr.

Please keep this story relevant, vote at NewPR!

Roi rop social media social+media factiva pr bloggers metrics jermiah+owyang daniella+barbosa jeremy+pepper cgm web2.0 web+2.0 technorati buzzlogic techmeme tailrank alexa feedburner stowe+boyd greg+narain brian+solis pr2.0 pr+2.0 blogher Andrew+lark grouplark group+lark lark marketing advertising marcom communications public+relations

New Media Release #12 - The Evolution of Press Releases

Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, and I recorded the latest edition of the New Media Release NMRCast for Shel's award-winning For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast. Welcome to NMRCast episode #12, a 28-minute podcast recorded live from the San Francisco Bay Area.

The full complement discusses the entries of Fleishman Hillard and Edelman to the social media news release party; Chris provides an update on the integration of microformats into the social media press releases standard; Tom responds to a colleague’s question about whether journalists want a new type of press release; Chris covers progress toward planning a social media new release summit.

In This Edition:
Weblo’s social media release, produced by iStudio and High Road Communications, affiliated with Fleishman Hillard
iStudio’s blog post about the Weblo release
Fleishman Hillard’s Ed Lee blogs about Canada’s first social media news release
Edelman’s announcement of the debut of StoryCrafter
Edelman’s Phil Gomes offers blog posts—part one and part two—discussing Edelman’s StoryCrafter
The microformats website
Tom Foremski’s post, Do journalists want a social media news release? from Silicon Valley Watcher
Social Media Release Wiki (contribute your case studies)
The new Social Media Release site, home of the social media release requirements
Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion (please join!)

Download the file here (MP3, 12.9 MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

Please vote for this story at NewPR!

social+media pr onlinepr newpr pr2.0 socialmediaclub chris+heuer brian+solis futureworks publicrelations public+relations socialmedia smpr seo smo shelholtz forimmediaterelease fir socialmediarelease edleman storycrafter istudio Fleishman+Hillard Phil+Gomes weblo hrelease smr shel+holtz tom+foremski siliconvalleywatcher press+release media news+release

Traditional vs. Citizen Media - It's Social Darwinism in Action

I'm sure there are many out there who ask or are asked this question, and many have not yet found a consistent answer.

The question is, what's the difference between a journalist and a blogger? Is a blogger a journalist and is a journalist a blogger?

The answer isn't so simple because the conversation usually spins down a maze of different avenues. But, let's keep it straigh-forward, with the intent of answering the question.

Bloggers have earned the title of "citizen journalists" whether we like it or not. The idea, is that content and the ability to publish it is so great now, that by default, content creators have become media - not just consumers, but contributors. Therefore blogs, camera phones, tags, pages on social networks, etc., have become part of the citizen media movement, and it has become an undeniable force. So much so, that savvy marketers are creating specialized campaigns that not only reach traditional media, but citizen media as well.

Once the sole dominance of traditional news media, many bloggers are now privy to valuable information, and combined with the ability to instantly publish information, bloggers are scooping reporters more often than not.

Let's be fair though. The best journalists are in a completely differently league than most bloggers. They're trained in the art of journalism, they adhere to values and ethics that bloggers are only starting to realize, and they understand the differences between fact and opinion and the value of sources. While many journalists have successfully crossed over to blogging, most, have been completely blindsided by citizen media for many reasons.

Now everyone is scrambling for survival and those who get it, are already competing for the future. So, to be clear:

A jounalist who blogs is a blogger.

A journalist that blogs and also writes for traditional media, is a journalist and a blogger.

If a journalists writes online without integrated social media elements such as comments, trackbacks, etc., then they are a journalist.

In turn, people who blog are bloggers, but they are not journalists.

However, the most important gem here is that, at some point "traditional" journalists will become extinct. They, and the publications they represent, will evolve. It's Social Darwinism. Therefore, in some respects, every journalist may very well become a blogger.

Social media is a powerful medium and we can not control it. We can only participate. But nowadays, participation is marketing and opinions carry a lot of weight, whether sourced from journalists or bloggers.

Please vote for this on NewPR!

Add to del.icio.us

blogs bloggers journalist journalism reporters journalists media socialmedia social trackbacks citizen citizen+journalist citizen+media social+media social+networks darwin darwinism

Women2.0's Converting Your Passion into a Real Business

by Alison McNeill of FutureWorks

I attended the panel and mixer at Stanford University called “Converting Your Passion into a Real Business.” The event was sponsored by women2.0, bases and Entrepreneur27. A great mix of folks made up the panel including:

Liz Gannes: Reporter for GigaOM. She mainly focuses on consumer-oriented startups and other technology stories.

Tim Johnson: Sr. Director of Corporate Marketing at jangl, Inc. jangl allows users to talk anonymously on your phone (on any phone). For example, many use it with services like match.com and it lets you chat with and meet people without them seeing your phone number, etc.

Nick Douglas: Former editor at Valleywag, now writing for The Huffington Post and working on a personal video project.

Amy Andersen: Founder and CEO of LinxDating LLC. Amy helps “sophisticated eligibles” link up by matching marriage-minded Silicon Valley men and San Francisco women to create a perfect match. Awww.

Shannon McClenaghan: President of JimmyJane, which sounds innocent enough, but was definitely the talk of the night! JimmyJane develops and manufactures accessories which integrate design and sexuality; their goal is to be the sophisticated consumer’s brand of choice for sexually-related products.

Christopher Surdi: Co-Founder and President of Global Educational Program. The program gives higher educations institutions resources to manage professional study tours, giving students personal company visits, etc.

Ariel Poler, TextMarks CEO, was the panel moderator of the evening. It was a very straightforward layout with introductions from the panel followed by questions posed by Ariel. Some included, “What is the passion that brought you to your work now?” and “Can all passions be turned into moneymakers?”


Tim Johnson, Amy Andersen, Shannon McClenaghan, Chris Surdi, Liz Gannes, Ariel Poler

While the dialogue was interesting and optimistic, I’m not sure if it was exactly what some of the attendees were looking for. This became apparent with the Q&A from the audience when someone asked, “I want to start my own business, but I’m not sure where to begin.”

I think this is the kind of discussion many were looking for and wanted specific answers regarding funding, etc., but I don’t know if this was the intention of the event. It was fascinating to listen to the trials and tribulations of the panel’s journeys nonetheless.

When the topic of women being entrepreneurs came up, the male panelists kind of slouched back in their seats and let the women take over. While Amy Andersen said, “It is difficult to be taken seriously as female entrepreneur,” no one had any concrete advice on how to overcome that. I think it is an individual battle for women entrepreneurs and they all overcome it differently, so maybe there is no real answer.

My favorite “sound byte” of the night, if you will, was when Shannon from JimmyJane said, “It is never a good time to start a company, so you should just do it now.” So go- convert that passion!




Nick Douglas


Alison McNeill and Joanne Wan (co-founder of bub.blicio.us)


Liz Gannes

For more pictures, jump over to the flickr stream.

Tags: valleywag huffington+report nick+douglas jimmyjane shannon+McClenaghan amy+andersen linxdating chistopher+surdi GEP michael+cerda jangle ariel+poler textmarks women2.0 women+2.0 2.0 women entrepreneur27 stanford bases women2 upcoming:event=130379 liz+gannes gigaom jangl linx+dating tim+johnson

New Media Release Cast #11 - The Evolution of Press Releases

Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz, Tom Foremski, and I recorded the latest edition of the New Media Release NMRCast for Shel's award-winning For Immediate Release (FIR) podcast. Welcome to NMRCast episode #11, a 29-minute podcast recorded live from the San Francisco Bay Area and Kansas City, MO.

We discussed reactions to the social media release concept; announced an upcoming social media release summit; and invited PR pros to post their case studies to the social media release wiki.

In This Edition:
- Social Media Release Wiki (contribute your case studies)
- The new Social Media Release site, home of the social media release requirements
- Google Groups mailing list for New Media Release discussion (please join!)
- How to Write a Social Media Release #1 and #2

Download the file here (MP3, 13.4 MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

Please vote for this story at NewPR!

Tags: social+media, pr, onlinepr, newpr, pr2.0, socialmediaclub, chris+heuer, chrisheuer, briansolis, brian+solis, futureworks, publicrelations, public+relations, chris heuer, socialmedia, smpr, seo, smo, shelholtz, forimmediaterelease, fir, socialmediarelease

Converting Your Passion into a Real Business

Women 2.0 (a division of Entrepreneur27) and Stanford BASES are hosting their next event focused on individuals who went against tradition and took big risks, resulting in careers that they really enjoy. In many cases, these entrepreneurs actually “created” or joined real business based on their passions, allowing them to earn a living doing something they love.

Event: Converting Your Passion into a Real Business
Date: Tuesday, December 5, 2006 from 6:00PM to 8:00PM
Location: Stanford University, Room 420-040 in the Quad (map)

From the vlogging/blogging community to seasoned entrepreneurs, our panelists have done everything from covering internet celebrity smut to running an adult luxury goods business!

» Nick Douglas, Valleywag Immediate-Past Editor (Currently with Huffington)

» Shannon McClenaghan, JimmyJane CEO
» Amy Andersen, LinxDating Founder and CEO
» Christopher Surdi, Global Educational Program (GEP) Co-Founder & President
» Michael Cerda, Jangl CEO
» Moderator: Ariel Poler, TextMarks CEO

Panelists will share their stories with us and talk about how and why they decided to do what they did - with topics such as getting started, getting funding, and how to run a successful business.

Free with a valid student ID and $10 without (some exceptions apply). Please register here. Food and drink will be provided.

What is Women 2.0?
Women 2.0 connects like-minded, motivated young women to swap energy, ideas, and experiences with each other. They promote the collaboration and growth of women in entrepreneurship, technology, and business and provide opportunities to interact with other successful women from a broad spectrum of industries.

Tags: valleywag huffington+report nick+douglas jimmyjane shannon+McClenaghan amy+andersen linxdating chistopher+surdi GEP michael+cerda jangle ariel+poler textmarks women2.0 women+2.0 2.0 women entrepreneur27 stanford bases women2 upcoming:event=130379