I posted last week about a pitch from the IAOC which was asking me to support an event they were organising. I, wrongly, claimed that the International Association of Online Communcators (IAOC) wasn’t international as all the guest bloggers etc…. were from America. They are, so I was kind of right but, and its a big but, the IAOC have held conferences in Brussels and Zurich in the last few years and only about half their membership is from the USA. – Sorry Steve
I was also wrong about Property Week not having any RSS feeds, they do, they’re just in the paywalled area of the site. If you’re reading this prop week, can you sort out and RSS feed from the “saved searches” area?
All in all, not a good week in terms of rightness. I’m going back to may cave.
This entry was written by , posted on October 17, 2007 at 9:56 am, filed under General. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Eclectic post this. Firstly, two new blogs that I’ve started to read. The friendly ghost is in the PR / Marketing / SEO / general thoughtful insight mould and (though I’m coming a bit late to this particular party) has some genuinely interesting content, in particular a post of SEO keywords.
Secondly, good friend Alan Lamb, now councilor for wetherby ward on Leeds City Council, has also launched his own blog. It’s in its infancy at the moment but he’s an articulate intelligent guy and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.
Thirdly (and finally) a friend of my mum’s is on facebook. Not because she is particularly bothered about the social networks but because “it’s a way of communicating with my children that I know they’ll actually read.” Two of her children are away, one having just finished university, the other being in her second year and it struck me how far facebook has come in such a short time.
I will be having a look at how facebook has developed its current momentum in the near future and hope to post on it soon.
This entry was written by , posted on June 11, 2007 at 9:05 am, filed under General, Political, PR. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I have to describe what blogging is and why people should do it in less than 300 words. This is what I’ve come up with, can anyone do better?
A “Web Log,” or Blog is, in essence an online diary. At the last count there were 71,000,000 and counting in existence. The influence of blogs and the technology that has stemmed from them is incredible. Across a broad range of sectors from technology to the automotive industry and politics, blogs are amongst the most influential voices in the industry.
How did this happen, and why does it affect business? It happened because of search engines and it affects business because blogs and the resultant technology involve millions and millions of people.
Blogs are very search engine friendly. Search engines look for new content. Blogs, by their nature are updated regularly, the most influential ones are often updated more than once a day. Search engines also like to provide authoritative results and they do this by measuring the number of people who have provided links to a particular website, think of a link as a recommendation – the more recommendations a site has the more a search engine wants to put it at the top of the listings. Blogs regularly link to each other’s content and so generate many more than a standard website would generate.
It affects business for two main reasons; some blogs are very influential, if they talk about a business millions of people read it. The second reason is less obvious. As more and more people gain access to the internet, the use of search engines to find news is increasing rapidly. Blogs, being so search engine friendly, are often returned in the top page of search engine results and so take on greater importance.
This is by no means a comprehensive guide to what is a complicated and subtle subject. If you would like to know more please get in touch and Sam will be quite happy to talk until you fall asleep.
This entry was written by , posted on April 24, 2007 at 3:25 pm, filed under General, Technology. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Google Earth, a fun but essentially pointless piece of software used to zoom in on your own house? Not anymore.
They will be teaming up with the US Holocaust Memeorial Museum to provide hi res satelite imagery of over 1600 villages destroyed by the fighting in Sudan.
Hats off to the team at google, this is a genuinely worthwhile demonstration of the ways in which new technology could change the world. Read the full article here.
This entry was written by , posted on April 12, 2007 at 9:23 am, filed under General. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Tim O’Reilly “Web Pioneer” as the BBC call him has published a draft version what is being christened the blogger’s code.
Amongst other things it calls for warnings on blogs likely to contain crude language and for anonymous posting to be outlawed.
He’s for outspoken comment but thinks that sites should carry badges saying “anything goes” to warn potential readers of the robust nature of the dialogue. This, I’m not to sure about I don’t want candid conversation to degenerate into slanging matches but, if riled, I could understand the temptation to make full use of the “anything goes” rules.
Where I am fully behind him is his zero tolerance stance on anonymous posting. If you aren’t prepared to put your name to it, don’t write it.
Anyway,see the full article here.
This entry was written by , posted on April 10, 2007 at 4:55 pm, filed under General. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Thanks to WordPress’ new domain mapping service this blog is now at www.northernpr.co.uk as well as its traditional address. I was just experimenting to see how easy it was for the technically illiterate (such as myself) and the answer is “very”. The whole thing has cost me somewhere in the region of £10 (the dollar exchange rate helps alot) and took approximately 5 minutes spread over 48 hrs.
Well done wordpress, you never cease to amaze me.
This entry was written by , posted on December 21, 2006 at 1:25 pm, filed under General. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
When you think of the forward thinking organisations that have embraced Web 2.0, you don’t automatically think of religeon. But there are a fair number of religeous blogs out there, I saw this whilst messing around – it’s quite an eyeopener.
It strikes me that social media offers a space where the kind of questioning that happens when young people start to explore faith is alot easier and less embarrassing. So when Rowan Williams says that women clergy have not “renewed the church” in the way it needs renewing, perhaps he’s barking up the wrong tree. What if sex is irrelevant and all he needs are clergy who have myspace profiles?
This entry was written by , posted on November 17, 2006 at 1:15 pm, filed under General, PR. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m on Holiday as of this afternoon. I’ll think of a few good posts while I’m away.
This entry was written by , posted on August 25, 2006 at 2:34 pm, filed under General. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
WordPress just deleted my post so I’ll have to write it again. (exasperated sigh)
Over the last few days there has been a confusing array of good publicity that is actually bad, and pad publicity that is actually good. (along side the regular and less confusing stuff.)
It’s bad but actally good to call bush crap, but it’s bad but actually bad for your batteries to blow up. It’s bad for your batteries to blow up but it’s good when those of a competitior blow up etc…
It struck me however, whilst reading an article in the York Press, that astroturfing can be used as much to generate artificial outcry as artificial support. The article was about York’s first ever adult club and it is a prime example of this tactic. The article featured several quotes from councillors and residents (all aged 60 + with crusty, old sounding names) alongside a quote from the advert for “attractife confident [girls] aged between 18 and 35.” It also contained opening times, the opening date, the name and the location of the club.
I couldn’t work out whether the subtly managed outcry was diabolically clever or simply diabolical but it struck me that pubilitcy is all about context. If 50 cent had boycotted hoodies for some macho reason like he though it wasn’t cool that he couldn’t look people in the eye (or whatever) it would have done many times more harm than the government’s hate a hoodie campaign.
Publicity’s value depends on who’s saying what, when. So there really is no such thing as bad publicity just context dependent publicity. (I doubt, however, that this will catch on as a soundbite.)
This entry was written by , posted on at 9:46 am, filed under General, PR. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
This, in a way, ties in with the anti astroturfing campaign, (which I support.)
The phrases “Grass Roots” and “Viral Marketing” are quite carefully chosen to talk exclusively about organic support for a product person, group or concept. It seems to me that alot of people who don’t get this are jumping on the bandwagon without really understanding wher the bandwagon is heading or, in some cases which band wagonb they are jumping on.
The monetisation of Youtube is just one example of this. A virus passes from one person to another in an uncontrollable and unpredictable way, the only way to stop it is to stop people interracting. Trying to control it is surely playing with fire.
I worry that trying to manipulate this kind of thing could produce a serious backlash and despite, for example, Youtube’s promise of comment moderation, I can see some campaigns taking a real hit.
To stretch the metaphor one final time. I challenge anyone who has ever taken a fall on astroturf not to wish that they had been playing on grass…
This entry was written by , posted on August 23, 2006 at 9:38 am, filed under General, PR, Technology. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.