Jay Rosen - I Can Do Whatever The F@#k I Want

“I am a tenured professor of journalism, I can do whatever the fuck I want,” said Jay Rosen (right), NYU tenured professor of journalism. Rosen was speaking at the New York Social Media Club meeting, at Edelman Worldwide New York headquarters, last Tuesday.  

Rosen was explaining why mainstream media would never undertake his current project of “Pro-Am” journalism fittingly called  Assignment Zero. The schtick is to combine ”citizen journalists” and “professional” journalists to collaborate on a giant, evolving story.  Rosen says he already has 700 people signed up for the project, nearly triple what they expected. Every edit, thought, revision is recorded on the web. All this is intended to prove … ?

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Rubel Succumbs To Twitter Twaddle As Head Glows Brighter

10:04 AM: I go to the bathroom and realize there is no toilet paper 10:08 AM: I steal toilet paper from Starbuck’s (shhh, don’t tell). 10:12 AM: I am back in bathroom and … do you really want to know what I do? Did you know that Steve Rubel went to bed at 10:02 PM Sunday night? Do you know that a guy in Italy, right now, is jabbing a pen in his ear and picking his nose?

Twitter, in case you are blessed by not having any maniacal Twits around you, is this ultra annoying little widget that informs you of every inane move and miniscule thought of other Twits around the globe. “A list” blogger, shiny head Yoda and incorrigible link whore Steve Rubel (right) is head Twit. He promised days ago on his blog never to mention the “T” word again but that has not stopped him from obsessively twitting.

Somebody stop Rubel before he twits again.

In a recent Advertising Age article Rubel gushed that Twitter “rocked the web” with an “avalanche of buzz” because blogging lumerati Robert Scoble and Jason Calacanis were now Twitting (”I am in a cab on my way to the airport” “I am buying a latte” “I just burped”). Rubel is agog that this “global phenomenon” can be viewed real-time through Twittervision.com and promises more great applications to come. Does Rubel have a stake in the company? Has he gone too far up the river … have his methods become unsound? Are there people at Edelman who actually have to sit through meetings with Rubel while he gushes Twitter twaddle?

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The Revolution According to Richard

Coming next Monday, April 2, in-depth interview with Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman Worldwide, the world’s largest independent public relations firm.

Edelman’s Me2Revolution is the big first mover and widely acknowledged PR agency leader in “social media” (we’ll call it that until a better term evolves). The Me2Revolution has been a semi-secretive skunk works that has taken serious hits for questionable blog practices for clients Wal-Mart and Microsoft.  I have been a consistent critic - on this blog, other blogs, and Edelman blogs - of Edelman’s silence and ineffective PR on its own behalf for the past year as its social media practices were scrutinized in high-profile mainstream media. Suddenly but inexorably, the ground shifted. Edelman became the story, overshadowing its clients. And the longer it was silent, or not fully forthcoming, the more we wanted to know.

There are other reasons to delve into Edelman’s Me2Revolution. PR agencies are anxious to get a piece of the “social media” pie if they can figure out what it is, how to measure it, and how to bill it.  This is like catching water in a collander as blogs, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Twitter and other community enhancing applications rise in favor and then fall off the cliff.  How do you build a foundation in social media when the Internet is an inherently transitory, ethereal place that can blow back and burn you in a flash?  

The catalyst for this interview was a blog spat. I wrote an appreciation of Strumpette that included Amanda Chapel’s evisceration of Me2Revolution and a prediction of its imminent demise. Richard took exception in a comment on this blog and insisted I check with him in the future before posting on the topic. Fine, I said, set the record straight with a Q & A here. 

The groundrules for the Q & A were simple: I ask tough questions, Edelman gives straight answers.  No prerequisites, no topic off limits. I asked Richard’s toughest critics for advice on topics to explore. I gave him seven multi-part questions and encouraged him to expand as much as he could with specifics (understanding that his competitors would like to know everything) and anecdotes.

This is an exciting and difficult time for the public relations industry. New media/social media is demanding that we alter our traditional practices to account for a new media landscape and consumers who are increasingly used to information unimpeded. We want access, we want answers, and the more bull that is fed through the Internet the less likely we are to accept it. Some question whether or not PR should even be in the social media space, and if our efforts here skirt some ethical boundaries.

“The most difficult barrier to entry for established agencies is the mental shift from talking from a set of messages to relating in a continuous dialogue. We must move from selling to listening then speaking,” says Edelman. Tune in next Monday for the full interview. Between now and then we will be examining some of the current social media public relations practices being espoused at Edelman and elsewhere. 

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Blog Bubble Bursts And Leaves A Big Mess

Mainstream media (MSM) is having a grand old time beating up on bloggers these days.  The catalyst is ”The Cult of the Amateur,” a book due out in June (great pre-launch book publicity here, by the way), that is giving MSM journalists a platform to condemn all bloggers as morons, idiots and worse, amateurs. Andrew Keen, the author of The Cult, argues that “citizen journalists” or amateur bloggers, depending on the prism you view the blogosphere through,  are filling up with the Internet with so much junk that it is burying all useful information or creative thought under a mountain of garbage that is negatively impacting the culture. Not the culture!   

Yes, in the good old days - a couple of years ago - we believed that this cheap and easy web publishing format would revolutionize and democratize the creation and dissemination of information. The bloom is off that rose.  

There are now more than 55 million blogs, or 175,000 new blogs created every day, or two new blogs every second, according to Technorati.  Although I don’t buy the ‘Kill them all and let God sort them out’ mentality of the latest blog piling there are reasons why the blogosphere has become particularly ugly and crowded these days. 

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Mr. D Lives! Simon says Menu Foods kills kitties … pet owners rise up and sue the bastards…

Tuesday morning Mr. D went into the vet for the operation to insert a feeding tube. He had a 50/50 chance, the Vet said, and she gave us the option of ending it. We wouldn’t do it, of course, and hoped that Mr. Darcy, despite his very Maine Coon-ish gentle nature, would be a fighter (see last post). He made it through the operation and now he’s being fed increasing doses and retaining his food. These are good signs. If he keeps up this pace Mr. D could be coming home Friday. Simon, left, will be waiting for him, with Schuster and Elizabeth and Jackie Chan. As you can tell, Simon is cautiously optimistic about Mr. D’s condition but still worried. 

Menu Foods killed at least 7 animals to test tainted food in the massive, deadly pet food recall. To determine if their food was indeed tainted the company rounded up 40-50 animals (why can’t it give an exact number?) and gave them what they believed to be tainted pet food. At least 7 died in that test, said the FDA, as reported in USA Today,  so they figured they had a problem on their hands. Was there no better way? Why don’t we round up 50 random people, give them Flank of Mad Cow injected with avian flu and see what happens. Simon does not approve of this kind of crude, lethal testing on kitties, although he honors their sacrifice and valor. He wishes he knew their names. 

Simon applauds the work of Gina Spadafori, editor of the blog PetConnection. He says she is doing a great job as the central repository of credible news - keeping a record of sick and dead pets. She is rounding up and commenting on news coverage daily, updating the list of tainted pet food.  All this archival information will be valuable. The first lawsuit is in the works. Phoenix, a tabby, became sick and had to be put down, says the complaint, which could become a class action. Dawn Majerczyk of Chicago says that the company knew about the deaths and did not order a recall. Menu Foods of Canada was completely unprepared for this, even though they had been testing for some time.

The company did serious, probably lasting, perhaps even irrepairable damage to itself by not communicating effectively, if at all, with angry and confused pet owners. Brands like Iams, Eukanuba, and Nutro now have to prove why they are worth a premium, if they should be trusted at all. Bad PR. Dead animals. Angry pet owners. Makes for a potent class action brew, if nothing else, Simon says.

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Mr. Darcy Faces Death As Pet Food Recall Grows

We don’t know if Mr. Darcy will make it.  He is still jaundiced and shows signs of kidney failure. He needs to be force fed in small increments every half hour. Monday we have to make a decision about inserting a feeding tube in him and there are no guarantees that this will work. Mr. Darcy stopped eating a couple of weeks ago. His weight has dropped from 17 lbs to 9 lbs. He has all the symptoms of being a victim of the bad food from the massive pet food recall announced yesterday.

Mr. Darcy is an eight year old Maine Coon with the most sensitive nature of all our cats. After Elizabeth came into the cat family Mr. D, as we call him, went into a year long funk but today Mr. D is the only cat Elizabeth allows in the house at night. The other three – Simon (he’s the most studious and adventurous), Schuster (only natural if you have a Simon, besides he’s a total goofball), and Jackie Chan (he does his own stunts) - are relegated to the comfort of the heated floor on the back porch.

 

The dynamics of the cats occasionally shifts and it is possible that Mr. D., recently aced out of his top cat perch by Jackie Chan, may be ostracized by the males and cut off from food. Or this could be all psychologically induced and delayed retribution for his abandonment (we left the cats with caretakers for a few months). Who knows. You can ask a cat how he’s feeling all day and not get more than ‘meow.’ We are not sure what the caretakers fed Mr. D but we know that he threw up the Nutro we tried to feed him yesterday before we knew about the recall. That didn’t help.

 

Menu Foods, the Canadian distributor of the tainted cat and dog food has a highly inadequate web page  with a phone number that is either busy or overwhelmed. It only has sparse information on the growing list of 60 million tainted cat and dog food cans under dozens of labels. It is shocking to see that the same ”low quality” pet food is being packaged under Iams, Nutro, and Eukanuba labels - supposedly higher quality brands that charge a premium.

 

This is a public relations disaster for the affected brands. Pet owners are a highly emotional bunch who don’t easily forget. There is no readily available information from any of the affected major brands, the manufacturer is overwhelmed and unprepared. Supposedly, they had been testing the food for some time to try to pinpoint the exact cause of the problem. They should have been better prepared. They better get their act together fast.

 

Schuster (left) is sad about Mr. D’s condition and he is praying for his reccovery.

 

PRBlogNews New Media Lab Opens With MyMediaRoom

Thanks to everybody who has been sending in their new ideas for beta testing. This is a time of potentially great innovation in public relations and it’s good to see how many new trails are being blazed. We will highlight innovators and what they are trying to achieve through the PRBlogNews New Media Lab. Want to pitch PRBlogNews? See guidelines or make up your own rules.

Jonathan Arehart - MyMediaRoom 

Jonathan Arehart (left) did it right. A few weeks ago he sent around personal emails to bloggers to facilitate a discussion on “hyper-local” communities. The query was tied in with his new venture MyMediaRoom - a templated web portal for non-profits, smaller municipal organizations and groups who want to keep schedules, post events, and engage in dialogue.  Recently, Jonathan announced Commutal (described below). I have a particular interest in Jonathan’s venture since I have been managing a hyper-local community site, BrinnonInfo.com for six years. I do it with an eight year old copy of Dreamweaver and a rudimentary understanding of code. It is a frustrating, laborious process.  Jonathan is looking to take the sweat out of the backend so groups can focus on content and community. Blog discussion about MyMediaRoom here. Q & A with Jonathan follows.

 

 

 

 

PRBlogNews: What kind of success/obstacles are you facing?

Jonathan Arehart: We are having a lot of success with non-profits. People are learning about media rooms and how easy it is now to manage this content. On the contrary, there is a bit of a learning curve for some who might not be used to writing press releases or distributing that content. Our challenge is to make that whole process easier. Traditional wire services are good, but not good enough for the types of people and organizations we are targeting. Their audiences and needs are much more pragmatic. Local news is most relevant locally.

How is MyMediaRoom different from Commutal?

Think of MyMediaRoom as the publishing “back-end.” Organizations setup a media room with MyMediaRoom to manage their media content ( e.g., press releases, events). Commutal is the community. We call it “The Local Community Network.” Commutal is where business and trade groups bring their members online to share news, events, and other content via a community site. So this opens the doors for very targeted distribution of your media content from the organization’s end.

For example, now I can write my press release, immediately publish it on my web site via MyMediaRoom, and then share that press release with my groups via Commutal. If I’m a web design firm in Washington, DC, I could publish a new white paper through my local Chamber of Commerce along with a web design trade group. Commutal is the platform to make this possible.

Pick one “MyMediaRoom” - can you tell me what kind of impact this is having in the community, and do you have feedback about usability?

Our model setup is taking place in our own local community here in Northern Virginia. The Prince William County-Greater Manassas Chamber of Commerce  is deploying our group platform for its 1,000 business and non-profit members to share their news and events. The staff is working smarter by eliminating paperwork and redundancies. One local non-profit, the Center for the Arts  has realized an immediate benefit from using MyMediaRoom. Their staff has found it very easy to quickly get content out to their visitors such as event listings, event photos, and announcements.

What are your business plans with these properties?

We are aggressively bringing new groups online. This consists of formal associations in local communities like Chambers of Commerce as well as trade and industry groups. Our plan is to be the platform for these groups to create and build news communities around their members. This will be scaled out to include local ads, reviews, expert articles, questions and answers, and coupons/deals.
 

Blogging by the book & social media for the masses

Handbook for bloggers and cyber dissidents  (1.6 mg pdf) by Reporters Without Borders is an excellent guide to the blogosphere from the legal, ethical, and moral imperatives of bloggers to the nuts and bolts of how to choose and use a blog platform, and how to get picked up by search engines and aggregators. The Handbook is written with a world view, so there is discussion about technical ways to get around censorship. According to the report, China is the world champion in omniscient and effective Internet censorship,  closely followed by Vietnam with its cyber-police and spies in Internet cafes. 

Social media: An exhaustive list of social media platforms that can be integrated into websites can be found here on the ‘Web Strategy by Jeremiah’ blog. There are over 72 comments on this post so far and a lot of good feedback on how to winnow down the list of possible platforms to use.  Clearly, it is a crowded field with many contenders jockeying for competitive advantage, and still heated discussion about what qualifies as social networking. The post is so active that somebody suggested turning it into a wiki, although the author has had problems with wikis (vandals).

Who won the Vloggies? What, you missed it? Didn’t know there were awards for video blogging? See And the Vloggies winners are for the 2006 honorees in over 30 categories. The best female vlogger was Nontourage; best male was Josh Wolf. The Alive in Mexico vlog features stories of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, and links from Alive in Baghdad, which won best group vlog. There is no info yet on the 2007 Vloggies.

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