Archive for October, 2007
Liberate Media 1st year party photos
October 30th, 2007
As promised, photographic evidence of Liberate Media’s first birthday celebrations last week. We take full responsibility for the alcohol-induced state of our guests! Please take a look through the gallery in your leisure..
As promised, photographic evidence of 
Liberate Media celebrates 1st year
October 29th, 2007
It’s been a busy but very rewarding year for Liberate Media, and an evening of shenanigans was definitely called for!
On Thursday we celebrated our first birthday at Bar Red in Soho with an eclectic mix of clients, industry contacts and journalists - all who’ve shown us incredible support from day one.
Guests included Arjo Ghosh from Spannerworks, Marty Carroll from Foviance, James Booth (founder of Tangozebra), Justin Pearse, Danielle Long and Alex Farber from NMA, Jane Wakefield from BBC Technology Online, Neil McGuiness from Creative, Paula Byrne and Eugene Lacey from Pushbutton.tv …and the list goes on.
With further business growth on the cards, we’re optimistic that 2008 will be just as exciting for us. We’re proud that our client portfolio has been built entirely through word-of-mouth, and pleased with the positive reaction that we’ve received to the small consultancy approach.
Throughout this week we’ll be sharing multimedia coverage of the party with you, and a videocast offering our insights into what the future holds for the UK PR industry as a whole. So please keep watching and reading!
Many thanks,
Wendy & Lloyd
Technorati tags: liberatemedia, anniversary, spannerworks, tangozebra, creative, bbc, nma, foviance
Facebook gets Micro-investment
October 25th, 2007
Microsoft has paid $240m (£117m) for a 1.6% stake in Facebook. This may seem like a mighty price for such a small stake, but it is important for two reasons.
1. Microsoft has beaten Google to the punch, securing a stake in the fastest growing social network in the world, as confirmed by ComScore’s figures below:
![[Faceoff]](http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/images/MK-AM501_FACEBO_20071024212544.gif)
2. Microsoft, which already provides banner advertising on Facebook US, has now secured long term international advertising access to one of the largest (50 million active users) social networks, becoming the exclusive third-party advertising platform partner for Facebook.
It is important to remember that as social networks become increasingly popular, many people are using their accounts as their door way to the web. Microsoft recognises that if its advertisers have access to these user’s through their web gateway - then the opportunities to sell are enormous. Furthermore, thanks to the user information provided through Facebook profiles, advertising can be targeted more precisely than most other online advertising channels.
Google knows this better than most and its charge to monopolise the online ad sector has taken a significant hit with this announcement. Although I don’t think they will be unduly concerned due to their considerable headstart in the sector.
This deal also answers one of the hottest valuation questions on the web today. How much is Facebook worth? The answer: $15 billion or £7.3bn…currently. This is why Facebook turned down Yahoo!’s $1 billion bid last year.
Not bad for a social networking site that started in a university dorm room less than four years ago, and hasn’t broken even yet.
The BBC has the full story.
Technorati tags: microsoft, facebook, google, online+advertising
The Madeleine McCann blogging stats
October 23rd, 2007
Barely a day goes by without my RSS feeds for Sky News, BBC News, The Telegraph etc leading on a story about Madeleine McCann…and I think it’s fair to say this has been the case for the past three months.
The story is a PR phenomenon, and the traditional news organisations have gone for it hook line and sinker. But I wanted to see if the same was true of the blogosphere.
The below graph shows the number of blog posts on Technorati mentioning ‘madeleine mccann’ over the past 30 days, and the figures are clearly beginning to dip in comparison to the number of journalist stories on the subject. Google News reports more than 4,500 articles on the issue over the past month.
However, a search for ‘madeleine mcann’ on Icerocket over the past three months pulls up quite different results. On average, 217 posts a day have appeared on the subject, for the past three months.
There is an obvious obsession with the story, among journalists and bloggers alike, but it seems the blogosphere has tired of the story a little more quickly than traditional news outlets.
Could it be that the blogosphere is realising that a very different ’stickiness factor’ applies to blogs, than to tabloid newspapers or online news channels? It could well explain why the blogosphere has moved on more quickly from the Madeleine McCann story, in order to keep readership.
Technorati tags: madeleine+mccann, icerocket, technorati, news+agenda, journalism, blogging, pr
October 18th, 2007
If you’re a regular reader of our blog you’ll know that it’s been a hectic but successful first year for Liberate Media.
The PR and digital media industry is evolving at an exciting pace, and from day one it has been our focus to keep Liberate Media at the forefront of this change.
As a result, we’re currently looking to expand, and have a number of opportunities to grow the services we currently offer, both in terms of PR and the wider realm of digital communications. We’re looking for experienced communicators to join our senior team, and although a background in PR would prepare you well for a role with Liberate Media, we’re also eager to hear from applicants with other digital media and communications backgrounds.
So, if you like the look of the blog and consider us an interesting company to watch, and think you could bring an exciting new dimension to Liberate Media, then please get in contact. We’d love to hear from you.
Technorati tags: recruitment, liberate+media, consultant