PodCampNYC2 Announced – It’s in Bklyn!

PodCamp2 NYC is in Brooklyn.

PodCamp NYC Wows The Masses , April 9, 2007, was a revelation for me. In one location teeming with idealists and raw talent I saw the personification of all that was wrong with the public relations business and why PR would fail at social media. Among the 1,000 or so scraggly masses I ran into at PodCampNYC there was only one other PR person and he was purely ‘underground’ – his day job was with a big agency in Washington D.C. If PR could recognize and harness this Podcast/Blogging/Video talent we would have a real revolution on our hands.

Fat chance. In the seven months since that seminal event social media for PR has zoomed like a rocket and fizzled like a Challenger o-ring disaster. Steve Rubel says we should try talking to human beings again. It is encouraging that Rubel is finally getting his head out of his Twitter but those of us who have heard him rant might prefer he stick to gadgets. It’s like Terminator when the circuits go haywire. What can you say? There is no ‘Second Life’ in the cutthroat PR agency business.

But now PodCampNYC2 is coming (I refuse to call it 2.0) and we have reason to rejoice.

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Monday morning down.

Definite drama brewing as competing media mogul families duke it out with a $5 billion pot in the middle and a Strumpette Week In Review 6-03-07jewel brand as the prize. It’s not the Montagues and Capulets, although there is no love lost between the two families and the battle can be Shakespearian in proportion. That’s what we have this week with Rupert Murdoch meeting the Bancrofts today to slap the Aussie woo on the current keepers of Dow Jones. See my analysis on Strumpette Week in Review 6-3-07. Kekst is representing the Bancroft family. Howard Rubenstein has represented Murdoch, as well as Murdoch’s New York Post, for decades.

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Blogger & Podcaster MagazineDig into the June issue of Blogger & Podcaster magazine. Not only is it the first and only magazine for our industry (it premiered last month), it is the first magazine I actually enjoy reading online, thanks to the magazine-reading software. We also now have an industry association, International Blogging & New Media Association (IBNMA), dedicated to education, collaboration, communication, and advocacy. See page 45 of the magazine for details. Miles Durfee is president. He can be reached at miles@bloggerandpodcaster.com

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I have been exploring the virtual lanes and back alleys of outside.in and I am impressed how they narrow the outside.inweb down to your surrounding neighborhoods. I found the UptownFlavor blog that has news and events of my neighborhood near Harlem, plus locally produced videos. The UpperGreenSide blog has news about ‘green’ initiatives concerning the Upper East & Upper West sides of Manhattan, including sustainable food, clean transportation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction. Seems like a great way to connect with neighbors and to find fun and educational local events.

video over the Internet booms – where is PR?

Video 2.0 NYC MeetupLast 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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Venality. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Vengeance. PR.

beastLos 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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PRBlogNews New Media Lab Introduces Cruxy

Brooklyn rules. Yes, we display a slight (read huge) bias toward anything coming out of Brooklyn, but Cruxy is truly reason to celebrate.

Evangelical entrepreneurship is alive and thriving and multiplying in Brooklyn as Cruxy co-founders Nathan Freitas and Jon Oakes (left) talk it over in front of a wall in Williamsburg.

What are they saying?

They are saying that Cruxy offers marketing, monetization and performance tools for digital creators – filmmakers, musicians or any kind of artists.

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Monday Morning 5/7/07 NYC

Week In Review StrumpetteRise and shine. Be sure to check out the Week in Review I pen on Strumpette and then come back here and listen to music (see right column below in expanding “Music” section) and scan the PRBlogNews news below. What fun. You have nothing to do anyway, right. How much PR news can you handle?

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Larry Genkin Publisher Blogger & Podcaster magazineBirth of an industry. Publisher Larry Genkin (right) tells PRBlogNews that the reaction to the inaugural issue of Blogger & Podcaster magazine has been staggering. “I feel like I am inside a tornado,” said an exultant Genkin.

“We’ve had over 200 news stories written about us in the last week and the resulting traffic caused our website to crash. Our readership is 3x beyond our guaranteed rate base of 20,000, which is making our advertisers happy. We’ve got subscribers on every continent now too,” said Genkin.

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