Five on Friday - five fabulous web tools of the week (12.06.09)

June 12th, 2009

It’s that time of the week again! - Here are my favourite web 2.0 tools of the week.

1.Google squared lets you square a search term, what i mean by square is present information on the search term in a grid. The searches work better if you are looking to get multiple answers. Check out the example for Roller Coaster.

2. Feed Stats brings you visualisations of a user’s FriendFeed activity. Just enter any FriendFeed user’s nickname and see their posting behavior.

3. TiltShift Generator is a very cool online app for editing images, it has some very nice effects including the ability to blur out the image - Recommended.

4. Obsurvey allows you to create surveys using the obsurvey tool. When you have created your survey, you are given a link to a webpage (a URL). You can send this link in an email to the targets that you want to answer your survey. View an example

5. Tiny chat allows you to create your own chat room and invite people through one simple link. You can also embed your chat room on your blog and in myspace. Tiny Chat can also be used to host video conferences with your participants.

More of the same next week.

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Five on Friday - five fabulous web 2.0 tools of the week (29-05-09)

May 29th, 2009

Hello all

Your regular ‘Five on Friday’ host isn’t here today, so I’ll be your captain for the week, steering a path through the sea of web 2.0 tools.

To kick us off, we have a recommendation from a reader:

1. Twiogle - It’s a great search engine that indexes Google and Twitter, easy to use, simple and it also has nice video, book, blog, and image functionality. Top job!

2. Yasni - In at number two, and another recommendation from our loyal readers, Yasni is a people-based search engine,  with more than 10 million visitors worldwide each month. Imagine Google meets Friends Reunited.

3. Tweepler - We’re going back to Twitter for number 3, and specifically organising your Twitter feed. Tweepler is a processing tool that allows you to classify your new Twitter followers in one of two ‘buckets’. ‘Follow’, meaning you wish to follow them back and ‘Ignore’ meaning you don’t want to follow them and can archive them out of the way, reducing Twitter noise.

4. FileTwt - This is a useful application allowing Twitter users to upload a file and tweet about it automatically. It also allows users to send file links as direct messages for sharing private files.

5. Trackle -  Finally, with all of our web profiles and accounts, we need a tool to keep track, and this is it. Trackle tracks all of your personalised information on the web and then indexes it by category. The service is built using algorithms that provide a layer of intelligence meaning timely results with notification via web, email or SMS.

Posted in Blog, Content, Digital media, Industry events, Journalism, Liberate Media news, PR | No Comments »

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#PRdebate: Can PR step up to the digital challenge?

April 22nd, 2009

I attended the NMK - What happens to online PR debate last night, and it was a very interesting and worthwhile session. Big thanks to Ian Delaney and Jenny Tyler at NMK for organising.

The session was structured as an Oxford-style debate on the issue of ‘has the PR industry lost its capability to lead clients in a New Media Landscape?’, with Roger Warner of Content and Motion and Antony Mayfield from iCrossing in the ‘yes’ camp, and Stuart Bruce of Wolfstar and James Warren of Weber Shandwick in the ‘no’ camp.  Mike Nutley, editor-in-chief at NMA chaired the discussion.

I should also point out that a great many of the agencies that ‘get’ online PR and social media were there too. However, there was a real lack of client-side attendance, which meant there was a heavy bias towards the PR angle and argument, which was always going to win the debate in such a crowd. Please read Roger Warner’s write up for a different and more digitally-focused point of view.

As you can tell by the panel, it was a meeting of strong opinions, but i was surprised not so much by the differences discussed on the night, but more by the similarities. Obviously, the two sides had differing opinions on many of the issues, but overall I felt the vision for the future of online PR, digital communications, call it what you will, were similar. Let me make it clear that both sides made a good argument for digital or PR to lead clients in a New Media Landscape, but what i took from it was that it will in fact be a mixture of skills coming from both sides that will win out, something that i totally agree with.

For exampIe, I agree with the ‘yes’ debaters that you need specific skill sets in an online environment, and that not all PRs have this, but I also agree with the ‘no’ side that the art of communications, not the way in which we reach our audience, is the key factor.

From a personal point of view, i also found it difficult to choose a side. I come from a traditional PR background, but what we’ve been trying to do with Liberate Media over the last three years is very far from traditional. We are part of a newer breed of PR agencies that are trying to break free from the shackles of traditional agencies in terms of our set up, approach and skill sets. So from that point I agree traditional agencies cannot lead unless they bite the bullet and evolve. But from a communications stand point, i also believe this blend of skills, be it PR, digital or journalism will be the future not either - or.

This part of the debate was also flavoured with the point that PR has become media relations in many cases, and this is why digital must lead as media relations alone is not relevant. This has been an issue, but taking the PR panel members as an example, it’s certainly not true in their cases, and i would argue to a greater degree that more of an emphasis has been put on strategy and communications development in the leading PR agencies over recent years to move away from this problem. And at the top, i don’t think this is a major issue.

So, where does that leave me? Well, if by ‘the PR industry’ you mean traditional agencies or ‘the dinosaurs that run PR who don’t get the significance of digital’, as James Warren put it, then i agree PR has already lost. But if we’re talking about the growing band of smart new agencies and the intelligent approach of the larger  agencies of which a few were represented last night, then no. These sorts of comms professionals know they still have a lot to learn, but they are building digital skill sets by hiring in experienced individuals or looking beyond the boundaries of what would traditionally be PR. Yes, the social media specific agencies and digital agencies have a lead in understanding the environment, but they also need to skill up in terms of comms strategy and delivery. Something that they have also been doing over the last few years.

Who will win? Well, it’s simple really, the winners will be the agencies that get this blend of skills right, be they digital or PR in original orientation.

The debate continues on Twitter: #PRDebate

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, Digital media, PR, Social media | 2 Comments »

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Trade press concerns about blogging

April 17th, 2009

The digital marketing trade press has embraced blogging to varying degrees. While Haymarket has recently relaunched many of its magazine websites and simultaneously stepped-up the intensity of its blogging, other publishing houses are yet to rollout blogs for their flagship titles. Magazines such as NMA and Marketing Week, for example, are still without blogs.

What’s apparent is that some trade publishers have been nervous about blog content undermining the value of their magazine and online editorial, often failing to grasp where blogging can add value.

Having been following the progress of the Haymarket blogs and watching what other trade publishers are doing, as well as discussing the practicalities of blogging with journalists in our sector, I thought it might be helpful to offer some insight into some of the shared concerns, and for what it’s worth, my views on how these problems can be addressed…

* New demands for journalists to produce magazine and online content are high enough. Adding blogging to the list will lead to poorer quality of writing and less time for investigative reporting - this is a genuine concern that is shared by every trade editor I speak to, and journalists are similarly reluctant to take on extra writing responsibilities. Compile this with the recent redundancies that have taken place across most trade media, and the average journalist is over-worked and over-stressed.

However, this line of argument is missing the point about the role blogging plays in news consumption, and failing to acknowledge what magazine audiences want nowadays. Blog content can be equally as important as magazine coverage, if not more. Now is the time for publishers to be re-evaluating their content priorities.

* If content is now being broken online and followed-up in the magazine, what can we write about in a blog?- every new blogger worries about finding subject matter to write about, but journalists shouldn’t really have this problem! As a former trade journalist I know so many stories never make it into the magazine, or you have fascinating conversations with contacts that you wish you could do something with editorially. A magazine blog can be the perfect place to write about titbits of information that might otherwise get lost, or to start debate on subjects that you might feel passionate about. Although magazine editorial guidelines will most likely still need to be adhered to, the blog should be a place where journalists can publish independently and have a bit more freedom with subject matter.

* Blogging just doesn’t draw in the level of traffic that we’d like -magazines that have tested the water with blogging, but not dived in wholeheartedly, often cite this as a reason for delaying the launch of a proper blog. There can be many reasons for a magazine blog not taking off properly, but frequently the reasons are that the blog is hidden away on the website and not signposted clearly enough, that content is not interesting or updated frequently enough, and that measures have not been put in place to share the content socially or allow for comment and conversation.

* There’s no budget for professional blog set-up or consultancy, so we’re looking into it ourselves - it’s clear that times are tough for the trade publishing industry, and having worked on a trade magazine, I know what a battle it can be to make money available for these sort of projects. I would argue that this is a sign of a blog not being given the priority it should be, but that isn’t offering a useful solution to the problem.

Launching a magazine blog is a serious business (well it should be) and it’s important to bring in experts who know what they’re doing. It’s crucial that you have advice on the platform you’re going to use, as well as how it’s going to be designed and optimised etc. Particularly within the digital marketing industry, I’m sure there are companies out there who would be willing to advise the likes of NMA etc on a blog strategy for free. Now is a time to make the most of your contacts!

* We’ve already added ‘comments’ to our stories, so why do we need to blog? -this is probably the lamest excuse that I’ve heard for not blogging, but it’s come up a lot in conversations that I’ve had! If you’re a reader of sites such as NMA.co.uk and Revolutionmagazine.com etc, you’ll know that stories very rarely receive comments. Ticking this box is not a reason to delay launching a blog.

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Google and Twitter - the rumour mill grinds on

April 8th, 2009

The web’s soothsayers have been talking about Google acquiring Twitter for some time, but last week, the rumours seemed to have a bit more substance thanks to stories of a Google/Twitter deal and potential acquisition talks that started on TechCrunch and spread rapidly, as you would expect.

The original TechCrunch story has been updated three times, including an official denial from Twitter on Friday, and further discussion from various sources that agree or disagree that acquisition talks are going ahead.

What most people seem to agree on is:

1. Google wants a deal, but initially focused on real-time feed of Twitter updates to speed indexing, as it currently has to index each Twitter user periodically to look for updates. This is apparently the main point of the current discussions, and certainly makes sense for Google at least when you consider global visits to Twitter approached 10 million in February, up 700% from the same time last year, according to comScore, and this figure is only going to keep growing, which leaves Google with a big issue.

2. Twitter’s current valuation is $250 million following the recent round of funding

3. Twitter values itself at much more, some sources say closer to $1 billion at least

4. Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have already sold Blogger to Google five years ago

So why would Google want Twitter? Well I think this quote from Jeff Mann of Gartner Research that appeared in Forbes sums it up well: “Twitter’s value is in its content, growing by 6 million tweets per day. Twitter is attractive because it has built a service that attracts this much volume, creating a constantly growing, twitching, seething real-time source of comments, news and opinions.”

Beyond that, Twitter is the real-time search engine for breaking news and comment, it’s also not a bad reputation engine and Google undoubtedly wants a piece of this, as mentioned in my post in March.

Why would Twitter want to work with Google? Well, beyond having done it before, Twitter has so much potential as a revenue generating platform, but seems to be having trouble in realising this potential. Could Google be the answer to get the business model moving?

Whatever the eventual result, i think it’s going to take longer than a week to resolve, and since the story first broke last week there has been much discussion, an example of which can be seen in this Paid Content article, but little in the way of movement. As we know, these things don’t tend to move quickly.

So, do i think Twitter will be acquired? Probably, but probably not this year until they have developed a few more valuable services, proved revenue generation and got that all important valuation up.

Posted in Blog, Blogging, Content, Digital communications, PR, Social media, Social media site inspection | No Comments »

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