Monday Morning Coming Down

I am pleased to be doing the “Week In Review” column on Strumpette, starting today, with analysis of two of our favorite subjects, Edelman and Wal-Mart. Check it out.

We have our own magazine: Go to Blogger & Podcaster now to get your free inaugural, online edition. You can read the magazine in a cool reader online format that makes it fun and replicates the print copy. Robert Scoble, ubiquitous uber blogger, is on the cover, there are “how to” features, reviews on new technology, event previews, and ads that talk to you. Of course there are several podcasts to support the print and online copy. Congratulations to publisher Larry Genkin for jumping out there with a much needed new mag.

Rubel gets serious. A chastened Steve Rubel took a few days off fom his blog last week to do some sans-blog soul searching after a dustup with PC Mag editor Jim Louderback.  A 4/23 post on the The Participation Ladder sparks discssion of how many people in the blogosphere are inactive and spectators, as opposed to joiners and creators.  In response to Rubel’s twitter about office dress etiquette: wear your shirt out on dress-down Friday, Steve. Be a wild man.

Yankee go home. Where are the Yankees going in two years? See New Yankee Stadium Construction for progress on the new Yankee Stadium on the site across the street from the old stadium.  I hope we don’t have to wait two years for the Yankees to show some new life and start winning ball games. 

Podcast expo set. The Podcast & New Media Expo is set for September 28-30 in Ontario, California, for a very reasonable $249 for full access to the entire event.

crayon does Coke. crayon has launched its “Virtual Thirst” competition for Coca-Cola and in the process sparked robust discussion on its social media press release (SMR). More on this later in the week.

Jumping Off The Cliff

BusinessWeek’s “Virtual Life” Tech Special Report out today envisions a totally immersive 3-D web that offers a rich panorama of experience to rival our physical lives.

Much experimentation is already happening in Second Life.  Companies are realizing beneficial B-to-B applications - virtual meetings, showrooms, presentations. Products are planned to be launched and tested, stores are opening, real estate is bought and sold. There is elaborate entertainment, family reunions, all kinds of activity in a populated and interacting world of stresses, clashes and unabashed optimism for a bright and rosy future.

Gartner says the 80% of active Internet users will have a virtual life by the end of 2011.

Enter public relations. For a hint of where this is going check out Business Communicators of Second Life   -  about “how to communicate and participate in 3-D environments” and ”how to use and create 360-degree content for new online spaces and the emerging 3D web.” How do you create a word-of-mouth program for avatars? How do you mesh the virtual with the physical for a truly mashed up  PR program? These are questions we are not apt to ask ourselves now.

There is huge unrealized potential for public relations in the virtual world. But it requires tactics and strategies that are in many ways directly opposed to the way things are done in the static world.

I met yesterday with Adam Broitman, director of emerging & creative strategy for Morpheus Media in New York.  Morpheus is busy building its Second Life platform for the VirtuaLive.tv event at Canal Room, May 10. See previous PRBlogNews post on event. Adam gave me a tour around Morpheus Island in SecondLife. They purchased their Island, are sculpting and landscaping it. They created a cool little waterway with a grafitti splattered tunnel and a stage that floats in the air where Buddahead will play May 10.

It’s all an experiment in Second Life but the virtual web is inevitable. The pioneers will be prepared for it.

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“The divide between the publishers and the public is collapsing. This turns mass media upside down. It creates media of the masses.

How does business change when everyone is a potential publisher? A vast new stretch of the information world opens up. For now, it’s a digital hinterland. The laws and norms covering fairness, advertising, and libel? They don’t exist, not yet anyway. But one thing is clear: Companies over the past few centuries have gotten used to shaping their message. Now they’re losing control of it.

“Want to get it back? You never will, not entirely.” –businessweek 2006

Boon In Brooklyn Blogs Builds Mystique, Says Vinnie

Vinnie Caldaroni, retired Pizza man in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, was not surprised yesterday when told that Brooklyn has some of the bloggiest neighborhoods in the U.S.

“Wadda you kidding? Of course. We got everything,” said Vinnie with a wave of his hand, although he was not so cavalier when told that actually Clinton Hill was the bloggiest neighborhood in the U.S., with Park Slope almost as bloggy, according to  research by outside.in of 3000 neighborhoods to come up with the 10 “most blogged about.” Harlem was #8.

“They got brownstones over there, wadda you expect?” said Vinnie. Since he retired from the pizza business Vinnie and his friends take the bus to Atlantic City (”You go on Tuesday’s they give you free quarters to gamble”) and occasionally “sell schmatas on eBay.” But now he is going to tell all his friends to start blogging so Bensonhurst can be #1, where it belongs.

“Now if the Yankees get some pitchin’ maybe we’ll be somewhere,” said Vinnie. He started to walk away and came back and whispered in my ear. “So what’s a blog?”

“Brooklyn is Brooklyn. There’s no place like it in the world. And when you travel to other places in the world you really realize that. They got nothin’.” - See Mike Smollar, 59, photographed in his home in Bensonhurst, in Seth Kushner’s The Brooklynites .

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MLK & RFK Brothers In Battle

Rough day? Put it in perspective. The day before he was assassinated Martin Luther King gave a speech in which you are certain he knows he will be killed shortly. You can see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, he carries it in his body. He’s been to the mountaintop, seen the promised land, he is ready to be taken.

The next day Robert Kennedy has to deliver the news of Martin Luther King’s death to an audience in Indianapolis. He quotes his favorite poet, Escalus, recounts the death of his brother, and asks for understanding, love and compassion between all people.

It would be difficult to find two better examples of public speaking under pressure, calling on something deep within, to connect emotionally and spiritually to an audience. MLK & RFK -their time with us was way too brief. 

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“C” List Blogger And Proud Of It

OK, I admit to pangs of competitive jealousy to join the “B” list, but what’s wrong with hanging with the riff-raff on the “C” list? PRBlogNews is in the “middle authority” group, according to Technorati, with 10-99 blogs linking in the last six months, placing us on the cusp of the second quartile of the C list. See news on this from Kineda - a decidedly “A” list blogebrity.

To put this in perspective, Steve Rubel  (top “A” list PR/marketing blogger) probably has more links in to his blog in an hour than I do in a month. I have many rationalizations (excuses) for this, of course. Although PRBlogNews has existed in one form or another for a couple of years (the average blog has been in existence for 228 days), I revamped this blog six weeks ago and began blogging in earnest then. Consistency and longevity are key components to a popular blog. 

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They Kill Cats, Don’t They?

First off, Mr. D is going to make it.  For those who did not follow the first PRBlogNews post on the pet food recall, Mr. Darcy is a eight year old Maine Coon who weighed 17 pounds.  He stopped eating and grew jaundiced (you can tell by the inside of his ears and mouth) and showed all the symptoms of being afflicted with the killer pet food (see Pet food recall continues to widen, Reuters, 4/20). He dropped to eight pounds and the vet was not at all sure if he would make it. His chances were 50/50 at best.

We had a feeding tube inserted but he would vomit his food. The tube came out and he had to go under anesthesia to have another inserted. He stopped breathing during the procedure. Then he came back. The area around his tube grew infected and he was raspy with a hint of pneumonia. He recovered from that. Vet bill: $2,400. We figured Mr. D used up three of his lives; he has six left.

All this is by way of saying that IAMS makes a stupendous blunder in its full page ad in the “A” section of The New York Times today. The ad is wordy and pointless on an orange background that is difficult to read. There is not one picture or graphic in the ad. The last thing mentioned is the web site.

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Rubel Denies Leaving Edelman For Twitter Rehab

Loose Twitter twaddle may have gotten ”A list” PR blogger Steve Rubel in hot water but he vows to remain at Edelman. 

Rubel had to publicly apologize yesterday to Jim Louderback, Editor in chief of PC magazine, for twitting that he threw PC magazine in the trash. Louderback wondered aloud in a guest column on Strumpette that perhaps his 11 million readers were not important to Edelman clients and maybe PC magazine should boycott all Edelman pitches.

Agghhh. That’s media death to a PR firm that pitches PC magazine for a variety of consumer tech clients. The shiny head Yoda had to Google “Apology 101″ and approximate contrition on his blog, but that does not begin to address the issue here.

Rubel’s posts have recently grown more cautious and dour as the Blog Bubble Bursts and clients are reluctant to throw good money into the PR 2.0 blackhole. Value is now trumping experimentation as the economy constricts and that old monster, fear, shrinks budgets.  

So what is Rubel’s value? He recently posted that he was deleting pitches on his computer and that made him feel like a journalist.  On a recent Twitter he dissed CNet. Media relations is obviously not his strong suit, and he is unaware of how many Edelman clients depend on PC magazine and CNet to reach their audience.

Asked by PRBlogNews if there is any truth to the reports that he is leaving Edelman, Rubel replied: “Zero. What reports? Strumpette? Please.”

The real question: If Rubel has no direct billable accountability, as a tarnished brand, has he become expendable to Edelman?

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Shared Grief Through The Internet

I was checking out the new social media-ized USA Today yesterday when the incredible numbers from the Virgina Tech massacre started flashing. From then on I was glued to the computer for dribbling details, any images, any words that could patch this tragedy together and give it some perspective.

An ABC affilate in Virginia had a live broadcast feed so I experienced the redundant tragedy-hype of Anchors trying to fill space, ”worst ever … ” “shock, horror, disbelief” until there were details but they never seemed to come.  The network websites have developed into fairly decent TV surrogates with the added features of message boards, polls, photos. USA Today has seen its registrations increase 380% since it added blogs, user comments, and enhanced user profiles last month. 

The cell phone video with crackling gunfire in the background was a central captivating video on most news sites. Then there were the queries on Facebook, the hundreds of comments that were the ache of people alone, needing to express grief and shock, even if it was one of many and went out to an unknown audience you will never meet. And then we see the picture of the shooter. He’s just a kid.

Even words seem false. It is like Oklahoma City or Columbine, when you feel the enemy within. There is nobody to lash out at, nowhere to put your anger. Last night I walked around Columbia University campus, a place I feel is my querencia, a power spot I can claim to connect and re-spark. But there were dark corners on campus last night and it did not seem so safe.

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