video over the Internet booms - where is PR?

Last night at the Video 2.0 NY Meetup at Columbia University, Uris Hall, it was once again demonstrated how important the Internet video boom has become, especially in New York. The move toward video on the Net is a promising development in the 3-D’ing of the web, making our web experience more engaging and incrementally advancing the web as the source for entertainment and news, replacing television.  The innovation is here in New York, getting bigger, better, more integrated.

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back in the NYC buzz - new media capital of the world

L.A. is really nowhere when it comes to PR new media and Seattle isn’t even on the map. Coming back from those two places to Lindsay Lohan screaming from the headlines of the newspapers on the streets of the upper west side you realize that New York has an identity in this new communication renaissance: we’re the new media capital of the universe, as we should be. Rupert Murdoch in your face, baby. Where else would the vanguard of new media spring from?

The PR agency business is heavily concentrated in New York and Silicon Alley is re-emerging with a greater focus and new identity. Media relations has its greatest significance here because this is predominately where the media is headquartered. PR, Advertising & Marketing are duking it out for the New Media dollars - this is where the main event is.

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So Vus Dis Fuss Over My Ragan ?

If Grandma Esther were alive she would say that Strumpette was practically kvelling in the post yesterday about the new MySpace-like community for PR & communicators called MyRagan. “So vus is all the fuss with this social media,” Grandma Esther might say. “In my day we talked to each other. What happened with that?”

I don’t know, grandma. Now we create profiles and avatars and we send out little pieces of ourselves, or create personas we would like to be, and have them interact. I know how it is - you show YourFace on MySpace too often and grandpa would start wondering what’s going on here.

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Google everywhere. Caveman crib. Architects yawn.

Google this, Google that. Google to add ‘universal’ search results. According to MediaWeek, Google will pull information from across the Web in all forms - web site links, images, video, blogs, maps or even from books - then present the results on a single page. There is also a new, updated version of Google analytics for your blog or website.

Fifty-five percent of global executives either currently use blogs as a business tool or say they plan to implement them in the next 12 months, according to a study by research organization Melcrum. Survey results indicate that 63% of executives use or plan to use online video, 43% podcasts, 51% RSS, and 41% social networks. Seventy-one percent of respondents say “improved employee engagement” is the top benefit of social media for their organization, while 59% name “improved internal collaboration” and 47% “creating a two-way dialogue with senior executives.” See press release.

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PR Online Convergence Roundup

Feel an empty void and need to fill it? Try public relations. 

Jason Calacanis, the luncheon speaker here today at PR Online Convergence, says he used to have a voice mail that essentially told PR people to screw off. Now he’s speaking at a PR conference. He’s mellowed over the years since I saw him at the last boom in 1999 but he’s matured less. He likes to have fun, with others and himself. He sold his blog company to AOL for $30 million and he’s still having fun. You want to hate the guy.

But he’s from Brooklyn, he grew up in the same neighborhood I did (Bay Ridge) and I can’t do that. He’s too funny. And he’s serious when he says SEO sucks and it’s about gaming the system and it’s wrong and will disappear. He’s serious when he wonders what Edelman was thinking with its Acer Ferrari blog giveaway or the fake Wal-Marting of America. He’s serious when he speaks of authenticity, being true to your ‘voice’, creating compelling content and kung fu blogging paractices he (or someone like him) sometimes employs (and I thought I was the only one).

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Venality. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Vengeance. PR.

Los Angeles — Transparency, authenticity, full disclosure - these are buzz terms we hear every day in online PR (especially here at the PR Online Convergence conference).  There is a utopian trust in the “wisdom of the crowd” and the democratization of information and the self-correcting, self-policing Internet. These are nice concepts that go along with reading Siddhartha and marching for world peace. But this is PR. 

In reality, we are flogged by agency bosses and clients to “get results” now.  That usually means by any means necessary. Spam and telemarket the media, beg, bend the truth, call in your chits - you don’t get three ‘hits’ today that client is out the door and you are in the hot seat. In order to be successful at media relations - still synonymous with public relations in most circles - you need to be a beast, not a saint. Where is the disconnect?

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R.I.P. Press Release? Part II

Is the press release dead? The answer, sadly, is no. Unequivocally, no.

Back in Jan. 31 I blogged Part I about the imminent death of the traditional press release and the advent of the (SMR) social media press release. The post was essentially a re-hash of old news so I was surprised by how many comments it generated and the dialogue it re-ignited on the New Media Release Google group. I promised Part II after some research. Belatedly, here it is.

Sadly, the traditional press release is still widely used, deeply diminishing in its effectiveness, a huge waste of client time and money, and a big source of tension and stress between PR and mainstream media (MSM). PR still relentlessly spams media with deeply vetted, one-way, homogenized, marginal news. Most press releases thankfully disappear from the radar nanoseconds after they are released, like useless info junk. The residue remains.

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Trains, Planes & Automobiles

Beside being one of the best and funniest movies ever, it is my life today. Early morning train to the plane will get me in to L.A. a little after noon to (hopefully) a waiting car. My preferred transport these days is the subway, with an occasional cab or bus. The open spaces, no matter how congested and smogged up, will be a jolt. Ah, the freedom of the auto, a nice drive around Malibu with the top down. L.A. does have its slight, transitory pleasures.

There’s that whole L.A./New York thing that is disconcerting (is there really nothing in between) but I have the new Condé Nast Portfolio to keep me company on the flight. It looks sumptuous and imposing, a cross between New Yorker and Wired, two other Condé Nast properties.

Do we really need another business magazine? Yes! Business 2.0, FastCompany, and Red Herring, used to be big, fat, and exciting. Now they are old, tired, and skimpy.  Maybe it takes Condé Nast to resurrect the glamor and panache in business. 

Next dispatches from the left coast.

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