Tech links 20/02/08

Interesting snippets over the last two weeks...

Yahoo buyout story of week with Microsoft and News Corp in the pot from BBC Online

Darren Waters and Rory Cellan-Jones reported all last week from 3GSM via mobile phone video footage and their dot.life blog. Loads of interesting interviews to check out all loosely still around whether internet services work on the mobile. Link here has details of Nokia's idea for mobile content and social networking share.ovi.com

Sessmic gets Valentine's funding round from great and good from FT

PDA roundup includes Spinvox (that Chameleon PR launched) hook up with micro-blogging platforms. Talk your microblog into your mobile and let Spinvox do the rest!


Interesting take on describing social media "campaigns" from buzz marketing


Tips from Charles Arthur on managing your RSS feeds

From BBC - eBay to ban negative seller views - mutal feed is what their whole company was built on, the ability to gain real feedback from sellers and buyers. If the process is squewed we only get one side of the story?

Web 2.0 book might be worth a read detailed on CNet

What does Web 2.0 mean for your business from Mycustomer.com

How Google search works from redorbit

Trouble at t'Facebook mill from Slashdot

Personal best - that's what the clock says

I completed Sussex Beacon half marathon on Sunday - with no end of performance stats to expose the part-time runner.

Runners' bibs had a chip inside that triggered the timer as they went through the start and they were tagged by the timer at the finish for their time; others checked their times for each mile their watches (well, some did). Best of all, cutting edge runners had a chip in their trainers that provided real time data wirelessly to their i-pod.

Had I connected my i-pod, it might have provided these real time updates:

Through the start - 5,000 runners, families and photographers everywhere - very sunny after a freezing night

1 mile - moving up nicely, though overtaken by a basketball player with ball (get me) and worryingly, Spiderman, Batman and Robin without real running shoes on

3 miles - too easy - the feared London Road hill was just a mild slope

4 miles past the Grand Hotel - scene of last night's fire and my interview with Red FM (Were there any flames? Well, no, actually); right hip starting to complain

5 miles - like the beach huts but there's a lot of wood washed up on this beach; more families, children wobbling alarmingly on new bikes very near the runners

6 miles - left knee now complaining

7 miles - on the promenade - dying for an ice cream; I'm catching the sun now -am I really this slow?

9 miles - I can see the finish line below, only one more long loop round the Brighton marina development and we're in

10.5 miles - that's a cliff - we have to run over the top - before we even get to the marina

11 miles - top of the cliff ... another photographer... raise knees and try not to look too washed out

12.5 miles - last water station; fantasising about ice cream now; slice of banana will have to do

Finish - manage token sprint but 2hrs 25mins? People do whole marathons in that time.

Monday: Amusing wait for time to be published online, and, of course, all those photographs

PR 101 - 10 Top PR Tips

Just attended a very well qualified event held by Sally Whittle and her colleagues from the team at the:101. Their first Meet the Media event for 2008 was delivered by a panel of esteemed journalists who contribute to some of the country's leading newspapers and magazines. They shared with a packed room of PR professionals their pleasures and trials of dealing with us PR folks.

Here are their top 10 tips:

1. Timing is everything - know the deadlines of the journalists and publications you are dealing with
2. Nobody likes a spammer - tailor your stories don't round robin
3. Journalists want stories not releases - make your story topical, make it mean something to the journalist and their readers
4. Most people don't have PHDs - don't get too technical, make the story relevant
5. If it didn't bounce it arrived! - don't phone up to 'see if you received my email' - if they're interested they'll phone so again make your story relevant
6. There are good celebrities and bad celebrities - if you have to use them then make sure they are current and appropriate
7. 'Fess up when things go wrong - be honest, if a story isn't going to work out phone the journalist to let them know in a timely manner, everyone makes mistakes!
8. It's all about the case studies (personally I think this should be point number 1) - note to clients - invest in developing a case study programme - this is exactly what brings a story to life and should be mandatory support to any story
9. Don't send attachments/photos....if the journalist likes your pitch they'll come back for more...let them know there's more available in the body of your pitch
10. Nothing beats reading the paper - before speaking to a journalist take a good look at their publication and double check that the story you are pitching is really relevant.

Other pertinent things to note:

Many journalists archive all emails and even if they don't respond this time they may come back in the future via a search of their emails - so make sure specific keywords are included in your emails
The subject line on an email is all that matters - get it right - make it the headline of the story, don't be obscure, don't try to make it funny
Journalists track blogs for research and sanity checks so make sure you are contributing to them but note that they would not necessarily use them as a basis for a story
You MUST listen to the journalists agenda and be prepared to shape your story to fit it
Deliver a package of information - your story, supported by a case study, an analyst quote, relevant statistics, avilability of good photography etc - all in one go! The better you package your story the more success you'll have
Before you pick up the phone to a journalist have a rethink - do I really have something to say? can I make 3 bullet points out of what I'm going to say?
Knowing an analyst or other third party has been briefed on your client/product etc is a godsend for a journalist - it means they don't have to trawl round to find one. If you provide a quote from an analyst the journalist will suspect that you have 'paid' for it so don't waste your time - just provide a contact

So thanks to Sally and her team for 'from the mouths we feed' advice on PR best practice. Oh yes and don't forget their media requests blog.

Tech news links 01/02/08

Social media news

Youtube to pay out for user generated content from Jemima Kiss’s PDA

PDA round up from Jemima Kiss

Hull Daily Mail launches website written by local community from Press Gazette

New comScore stats highlight by The Register demonstrate fall in social networks popularity.

Having gone through the hype of MySpace and Facebook, it will be interesting to see where the cool kids will go next. Boredom is the big networks' biggest threat because of our six second attention span, anyway what was I saying....?

Social journalism

Guardian’s vlogging experiment on Current TV here – with Seesmic gaining popularity and Qik (mobile vlogging websites) seems like early tech adopters are trying to get back to video blogging (but from mobiles) to generate conversation as vlog responses which was what Youtube was about originally and not just pirate content online

BBC bureau and correspondents/stringers around world map mashup from Stuart Pinfold


Mobile video reporting from Davos via Darren Waters at BBC Dot.life

Social media comment/ideas

Different take on WOM influence and reach from Guy Kawasaki

The idea of market readiness is interesting and certainly rings true for the explosion of Skype. Niklas Zennstrom often said that the reason that the internet telephony product got so big was because broadband pentration around the world had reached the right level (and speed). But in terms of PR we did concentrate on the early adopters and the half of the world that go out and seek information as opposed to the other half who are just happy to receive it.

Danah Boyd on Economist's social networking debate

Facebook backlash continues from Neil McIntosh

Social media research

The next evaluation of social media measurement from WOMMA blog

Comscore figures show dip for Independent website from Press Gazette