Social Media

John McCain’s block-and-bridge manoeuvre

/ Angelo Fernando / 5 Comments

Good old “block and bridge,” a standard PR manoeuvre, doesn’t get better than this.

Senator John McCain handled a question from a New Hampshire high schooler last week by combining it with another risky, yet well-placed tactic – the insult. At a New Hampshire high school, asked about the possibility that he might die in office if elected (yes High Schoolers ask the sharpest questions), McCain took the “are you too old to run the country?” subtext, and talked about how he can barely identify with young people’s music tastes. Then he went out to talk about the pace of his campaigning and his vigor. Before anyone noticed that he had blocked the real question, he ended with “thanks for the question, you little jerk!” It got the requisite laughs, and the YouTube video upload -viewed 323,934 times to date.

Compare this to the “Maccaca” response that unraveled Senator George Allen’s campaign this time last year (that YouTube video has been viewed over 359,000 times) and it’s interesting to see how a mature (read: media trained) public figure could take a hardball question, say something risky even, and get a point across.

All this, too, after McCain’s crack media team quit his campaign.

Joost is more than TV on the Net

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

joost_screenshot.jpgI signed up for Joost some months back, and was glad to see they now have a beta worth checking out.

Watch a simple explanation of what it’s all about.

Basically it’s a way of watching TV on line, and chatting with a community using chat programs such as Jabber of Google Talk. because it’s TV delivered in real time, it has rich content on floating screens, giving you some background about the program, other channels etc.

Bridging social media seamlessly with Slide.

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

Here’s a great example of how simple it is to connect the dots so to speak, with social media tools.

I wanted to connect my recent summer pictures from my Flickr account to this blog. But discovered that Slide handled it even better. It took less than ten minutes to get the three accounts to talk to each other.

You can customize the slide-show to adjust speed, picture effects, skins etc.

Technorati Tags: Slide, Flickr, Photos,

Using Craigslist, Google and Facebook for activism

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My wife came across an unusual post when searching Craigslist for Montessori teachers. Among the many schools listed was a post from a ticked off parent warning people about a certain school in Mesa –the school happens to advertise on Craigslist. I have not seen this kind of activism on Craigslist before, directly insulting the advertising of another even though it is nothing new to online and social media.

It brings to mind a story I heard some time back where someone was so angry at a camera retailer that he took out pay-per-click ads for certain keywords on Google so that anyone typing in the name of the retailer who ripped him off would see the ‘ads’ that warned buyers of doing business with the store.

hsbc.jpgToday I heard an example of Facebook activism on For Immediate Release. It was a case of students in the UK using the social network to mobilize and protest against HSBC, a bank that had reneged on its promise of interest-free student loans. The latest update is that HSBC gave in!

Why Facebook is a media darling.

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Hard to miss the reviews, the loving tributes and the non-stop attention to Facebook these days. Why all the fascination with a social network that has been around since 2004?

Apart from the fact that it was started by a student, and is run by a 22-year old, is what Facebook stands for. It “has Google sweating” (Advertising Age), is the Future of everything online (TIME), and is Advertising’s worst nightmare (Guardian).

As Lev Grossman in TIME says, Facebook is really about making the web grow up.

What this means is that it is not only stamping on the footprint of other business models, but pointing in the direction where they ought to be headed. And unlike in previous movements, where it was fashionable to follow and try to predict where the CEO of the company was taking the product (think Murdock, Ballmer, Bezos) everyone is trying to figure out what the Facebook members are doing to networks, and the Net itself.

And that’s a much more juicy story.

Take time to ask. Take time to get to know.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

As a freelance writer I get pitched a lot. I don’t hit the delete
key unless it’s totally irrelevant. But I have to say there are several
people who do take the time to ask if whom they represent is relevant,
and they do their homework.

I had a pitch from a PR firm in the UK recently that really stood
out. He promised he wouldn’t flood my inbox, and offered an RSS feed as
an alternative –something I opted for.

On a macro scale, how do you get to know an organization, its
priorities, its strategic goals?

On Wednesday I was asked by a local firm
to speak to a group of incoming account managers about strategic
thinking and solutions selling. I used an example of how as
‘transparent’ as it may seem, a company’s web site is the last place
you’ll find that kind of useful information. A Google search would be a
hit or miss, unless you find a corporate blogger giving the inside
scoop. Nor would a site map reveal the inner working groups, the nodes
and the unofficial networks. Taking time to get to know this
“inner-net” means putting our digital smarts aside, and falling back on
our analog skills. I use the phrase “Think digital, act analog” (first
used by Guy Kawasaki, I believe) to illustrate the point.

A good article on this also appeared in Fortune magazine
last month (titled “The hidden workplace.”) “There’s the organization
chart,” it said. “And then there’s the way things really work.”

Bottom line: Take time to understand the analog networks. These power brokers, access points, nodes and human routers may not have a LinkedIn profile, but they sure make things happen!

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Is it live, or is it on ShootLive?

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Liveearth
What technology would PR companies, the police, and the paparazzi want to get their hands on?

It’s delivery that basically sends raw images from a video camera direct to the consumer. It is a service from ShootLive,  news agency for the digital age based in Nottingham, UK. The ShootLive service was used in the coverage of David Beckham’s game in July.

Why does this change the game? Because of the need for speed. In journalism and in PR, or even in law enforcement, seconds make a difference. The scoop, the intervention of a criminal, the ability to relay instantaneous pictures of a tragedy such as an earthquake can impact lives.

Images from camera are streamed (as an XML feed) to a mobile phone in less than 60 seconds, the company says. What I like about all this is it doesn’t make the end-user jump through hoops to receive it. Images could arrive as a multi-media text alert.

What could this do for marketing? Apart from the obvious ones that ESPNs of this world will jump onto, and be able to monetize, marketers could get users to opt-in to premium content. Think: Olympics, stage acts such a Live Earth, and even regional ones. The McDonald’s and IBM’s could sponsor XML feeds . Down the line when the genie is out of the bottle, cell phone carriers will use the technology too. Already, AT&T has a similar service called VideoShare where subscribers could stream video with a camera phone to another phone –while talking! These are both low-end ($29.99 and $79.99) Samsung phones not some souped-up smart varieties.

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Good press, bad press about Second Life

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Psst. Did you hear? Second Life is getting bad press. Ever since Businessweek magazine
did a cover story on SL last year, there has been nothing but good buzz
about the place. After all the IBM’s and Coca-Colas have all
established a presence there. But the question marks are beginning to
appear. (Note I didn’t say ‘cracks’).

WIRED is running a story (Lonely Planet: How Madison Avenue is wasting millions on a deserted Second Life“)
questioning MadAve’s rush to set up islands in a “metaverse,”
especially when it’s unmanned, feels lonely and way too cumbersome to
navigate.

Technology Review (subscription required) on the other hand has a very interesting analysis called Second earth –the possible mash-up between Google Earth and Second Life.

My take: It’s way too early to pass judgment on Second Life.
Critics are quick to use ROI thinking to evaluate the impact of a 3D
experience on business. For now the shine is off the rose. But we’ve
seen that happen before, haven’t we? Anyone remember Friendster?

Like it or not, the web will soon incorporate features of these 3D worlds. Trends such as geocoding, mobile
optimization, and our appetite for for on-demand information will create this world –with or without goofy avatars.

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Stories in PR and social media

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Summing up a few interesting stories last week.

1. The walled garden of Times Select may soon open up to the rest of us who don’t want to part with $7.95 a month.

2. AT&T ‘censors’ Pearl Jam’s words. they didn’t want to to get Dixie Chicked, for supporting an anti-Bush band.

3. A company called Fatdoor has come up with an interesting way to use social networking to get to know the neighbors. It’s a mashup of public information, a wiki, maps etc. Good explanation here. 

4. A very cool idea from Edinburg, England. Using a camera phone and text messaging to detect art.

5. Taking story #3 to its logical conclusion, how about using a social network to get to know your dog’s owners? Technology Review magazine had a story about how your dog’s FaceBook-like page (called a PetWork, I kid you not!) could enhance your social life.

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And when I die would you Twitter my buddies?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

A story in the Arizona Republic
yesterday about a Tucson company creating graveside memory capsule may
seem a bit awkward, but the technology got me thinking. If you could
make a digital tribute downloadable at the grave, it opens up many
other possibilities.

Indeed John Stevenson’s product is more low tech than the
competition, which the article says, is a digital headstone that plays
a video. A sort of a flat screen atop one’s final resting place.

Ten years ago, we would have never thought the media or digital
content would visit this fine and private place but let’s get real. If
we use digi-formats to preserve everything we do while we are around
(Flickr family albums, Facebook profiles, digital photo frames, and
people who Twitter about everything they do in life) someone might as
well put these profiles to use after we have hit the final escape
button. It seems to me these are opportunities waiting to be tapped.
Some free advice:

1. MySpace, FaceBook, LinkedIn and Plaxo memorials

2. Turning expired (no pun intended, honest!) domains into permanent
markers that redirect to online memorials. Perhaps an idea for GoDaddy.

3. Archiving of Google search results for a person’s name as a legacy (OK, vanity) item to stuff into the graveside memorial.

4. Preserving tweets from a heavy Twitter user.

5. WiFi for cemeteries. I bet this exists.

6. Bluetooth connectivity on headstones –to download those digital
memories. Right now one needs to bring a laptop and cable to the grave.

7. The ability for people to text message condolences to the family from anywhere and turn these into a card or book.

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