Going out on top - happy new year

I’ve always been a sporadic blogger so it’s not that big a stretch to become a non-blogger - at least in this forum. Business has been booming - taking an increasing portion of my time. We’ve re-designed our website, re-calibrated (I love that word) our business and I can’t pay attention to this blog anymore. But, everybody likes to go out on top, so I find some small degree of solace knowing I am STILL the #1 Sidewiki comment on the Twitter homepage!

Blogging less here means I have more time to read blogs I enjoy. My favorite blog: 3QuarksDaily.

Blogging less here also means I can pay more attention to my theatre blog, where my heart is these days: markrosenyc.com

All bloggers should support the struggle for freedom in Iran. Image below from Tehran 24 | also check FRONTLINE: Tehran Bureau for updates and THE LEDE, The New York Times

Five PR bloggers worth following, derived from random scans of intelligence, original thinking and personality in the PR blogosphere: #1 tomforemski - leadoff batter | #2 occamsrazr - the Leonard Cohen of PR bloggers | #3  [chrisbrogan.com] - the merry prankster of social media | #4 Richard Edelman - the Philip Roth of PR | #5 Loren Feldman - incendiary pupeteer

Some favorite posts:

• Alex Rodriquez Comes to His Senses - What Next?
• MLK & RFK Brothers In Battle
• Google Sidewiki is PR Game Changer
• Kristen Revealed
• So you want to break into public relations?
• What is Your Wikipedia PR Strategy?
• Mahatma Gandhi & Business

HAPPY NEW YEAR. Peace. Health. Freedom. Prosperity.

PRBlogNews, launched June, 2005. Archived, December 30, 2009.

I Am #1 Sidewiki Comment on Twitter Home Page!

It could change at any moment. I could drop to the bottom or be eliminated by a vindictive Google algorithm or maybe I’m hallucinating … but as of this moment, I have the #1 Sidewiki comment on “the entire site” of Twitter, ahead of the venerable Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, and the mega-blog, Tech Crunch.  How did this happen? Nobody knows. What does it mean? Probably nothing.

We are crazed by Sidewiki since it launched Sept. 30 because Google has essentially “wrapped” the web with virgin space to add content. We’re pioneering new content turf here - we can have impact, influence, see our name immediately without the bothersome obstructions of search mechanisms. Google mysteriously ‘ranks’ these comments and stores them in your Google profile.

I say ‘mysteriously’ because several Sidewiki comments I posted to The New York Times and other sites have disappeared althogether. BusinessWire has taken pre-emptive action by inserting its own Sidewiki comment that is identified as “Page Owner.”

It’s not quite Afghanistan-Pakistan or Yankees-Angels but Google Sidewiki represents such a disruptive force to the web that PR people, SEO mavens, developers,  and advertisers are at odds as to what it means.  So far, generally across the web, comments have been sparse and respectful although we don’t know how many Sidewiki comments Google is deleting or archiving.

That’s the point here - Google is calling the shots, we’re scratching our heads and playing catch-up. #1 today, sayonara tomorrow.

Related: Big Pharma and Google Sidewiki: A Sink or Swim Situation? - 10/15/2009 AdvertisingAge

Google Sidewiki is PR Game Changer

The gig is up.  Any client who thought they could escape social media is now in it, whether they like it or not. Google Sidewiki, launched a couple of days ago, is a PR game changer - it exemplifies, perhaps more than any other application, how social media has infiltrated all communication and can undermine any PR strategy that does not consider social networks.

Here’s how Google spins it: What if everyone, from a local expert to a renowned doctor, had an easy way of sharing their insights with you about any page on the web? What if you could add your own insights for others who are passing through? In other words - what if Google can turn everybody into a content producer and then rank and control all that content?

Now they can, and they will.It means that on this blog page you, or anyone with an easily installed Google Sidewiki app, can write notes that are then visible to anybody else. The general public - adversaries, friends, competitors, your nephew - can enhance your web page without your consent or knowledge.

This is what it looks like (left). In a way, every web page is now a blog, with unmoderated comments open to everyone.

Google will somehow rate these Sidewiki comments, through one of their mysterious algorithms, and present the most relevant first. You Sidewiki comments are then stored in your Google profile.  Sidewiki comments can be Tweeted, emailed, Facebooked.

So, my buried Google Sidewiki comment “Mark Rose is a big fat idiot,” follows this blog forever, and can be blasted out through other channels. Only Google could come up with something this insidious and mind blowing. Google Sidewiki is ready for Internet Explorer and Firefox, soon for Google Chrome. Download Google toolbar with Sidewiki.

What does this mean for public relations?

It means that all clients are now IN social media, whether they know it or not. Google is further connecting social media channels and controlling major social networks, such as Blogger and YouTube.  This is further proof, if we needed any, that a PR strategy that does not include social media has a huge hole in it.

Three questions to ask:

1. What’s your social media PR strategy?
2. What’s your Wiki strategy (Wikipedia, Wikimedia, Google Sidewiki)?
3. What is your social media news creation and delivery mechanism?

These can seem like esoteric questions but just asking them moves you in the right direction. The primary function of PR is no longer “How do I get the media to cover me?” It’s now “How do we impact our audience through our own media?” Google Sidewiki further re-defines media, when anybody can ‘report’ their opinions and facts on any web page, or words, phrases, or sections of a web page. What makes this frightening from a PR perspective is that all this content is subject to Google’s ever-changing algorithms. It makes Google the most-powerful social media company out there.

From Google: In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.