/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I often write on the changing interface (and our relationship with) mobile phones, so this one caught my attention.

Have you heard about a phone company called e28? No? That’s because it’s based in Shanghai. The product, the e2800 on the left, may look like a phone, but it is more about data than voice. The secret? It’s the first Linux phone! The PDA/camera/Internet access combination makes it a hand held PC that happens to look like a phone.

Speaking of the changing use of the cell phone, also on the market, from Sprint, is a service called MobiTV, a way to watch news from NBC and ABC, FOX Sports, cartoons, weather etc.

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/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I often write on the changing interface (and our relationship with) mobile phones, so this one caught my attention.

Have you heard about a phone company called e28? No? That’s because it’s based in Shanghai. The product, the e2800 on the left, may look like a phone, but it is more about data than voice. The secret? It’s the first Linux phone! The PDA/camera/Internet access combination makes it a hand held PC that happens to look like a phone.

Speaking of the changing use of the cell phone, also on the market, from Sprint, is a service called MobiTV, a way to watch news from NBC and ABC, FOX Sports, cartoons, weather etc.

Continue reading →

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I often write on the changing interface (and our relationship with) mobile phones, so this one caught my attention.

Have you heard about a phone company called e28? No? That’s because it’s based in Shanghai. The product, the e2800 on the left, may look like a phone, but it is more about data than voice. The secret? It’s the first Linux phone! The PDA/camera/Internet access combination makes it a hand held PC that happens to look like a phone.

Speaking of the changing use of the cell phone, also on the market, from Sprint, is a service called MobiTV, a way to watch news from NBC and ABC, FOX Sports, cartoons, weather etc.

Continue reading →

Joshua Kinberg’s bike

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

You’ve got to think of him as a communicator, with an interesting medium whether or not you agree with his message. Kinberg’s tactic, using a bicycle equipped with a laptop and a wireless connection, just got him arrested. His techno-artistic project involves spraying the sidewalk with messages –protest messages at that– uploaded by visitors to his Web site.

His arrest on Sunday, opens up an interesting debate on what constiitutes a legitimate guerilla campaign. Recall when Micsosoft plastered sidewalks with plastic decals of the MSN butterfly in 2002? New York city fined then $50, but no one at the ad agency (McCann-Erickson) got arrested for that. Also, Kinberg was arrested while talking to MSBC’s Ron Reagan (see Chris Mathew’s blog) and not while riding his bike!

This trend bears watching, because PR and MarCom is poised to start appropriating creative tactics that tap into technology like this.

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“A channel that consumers control”

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“A channel that consumers control”

Last Friday, I quoted Buzzmetrics CEO saying that PR people were better suited to manage Word of mouth campaigns. WOM, being a channel consumers control, he said, was something PR people were comfortable with.

Scott Donaton, writing for Advertising Age (Aug 23 issue) makes an alarming observation, about how the audiences are poised to control the content of the media. He cites stats from a Communications Industry Forecast (Veronis Suhler Stevenson) that shows how people in the U.S. spent more on Communications in 2003, than marketers spent on ads. $178.4 billion Vs $175.8 billion. What did they spend it on? Movies, recorded music, cable TV, Web sites, video games etc.

“This is the latest, and most quantifiable, evidence of the transfer of control from content creators and distributors to consumers.”

His key point: Communicators are losing control of the message. Or, to put it another way, intrusion is out. Integration is the only solution for now. Or to put it in Donaton’s words from a recent Forbes’ interview:

“Advertising and marketing have been about intrusion to a passive consumer. They will now and in the future have to be about invitation.”

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Milton Glaser’s ‘metaphor of light’ protest.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Interesting project by Milton Glaser, the self-professed idiosyncratic designer. <a href=” Glaser says here and here, that his Light Up The Sky project in New York this week, is intended to not simply be another protest idea:

“What was needed was a solution that would not create civic disorder.”

Given the level of disruption being talked about and planned, it’s a welcome statement.

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New ways to manage, monitor and measure word of mouth.

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

Measurement, the new mantra of all things PR and advertising, now has some allies. Researching that illusive notion, Buzz, I found that buzzmarketing is moving forward –beyond the quirky ‘subservient’ sites.

Buzzmetrics has some interesting ongoing work, and Jonathan Carson, President & CEO made some important observations about how those leading the charge –the PR agencies and the Advertising agencies—are adapting to it. In my recent interview for an article, Carson said that:

“PR firms are very good at building relationships, and that is a major part of word of mouth marketing. Because this is a channel that consumers control and is relationship driven, a lot of the core competencies of PR play right into what is necessary for successful word of mouth marketing.”

On the other hand –maybe he was being polite about this—Ad agencies, he said are good at: “processing consumer insight, and then developing strategic plans to reach consumers in the right place with the right message. This extremely important to WOM marketing, and it’s a skill that I think most PR firms would admit they are not very good at.”

He did suggest that PR people have it in their DNA to work on Buzz, because of their one-to-one relationships.

I alos noticed that ImpactWatch, a division of the Bivings Group, is doing similar tracking. Their media management tool can analyze and measure print, broadcast and online buzz in real time. It can even monitor the movements what competitors, spokespersons, analysts etc are saying. In this age of RSS, we’re going to see many businesses crop up that help us manage/monitor/measure all this content cascading around us!

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Astroturfing fools media.

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

“New job figures and other recent economic data..” is a fine line. It’s the sort of line that economists use because “other recent economic data” give the impression that there are stacks of reports too numerous to mention.

I bring this up because I have referred to ‘astroturfing‘ in a recent article, and Hans Kullin, one of my favoprite PR bloggers, makes a reference of such fake grassroots movements, set up by PR flacks.

The offshoot of such an astroturfing business, is that it dupes the media into publishing ‘facts’ and letters to the editor which are copied from front organizations’ web sites. This particular sentence (above) is machine generated. If you don’t believe me, copy it and google it.

Newspaper editors are aware of that and look out for ‘manchurian letters,’ but it will only increase, since PR is becoming the frontline of marketing wars, business, and politics. Someone comes up with a new trick every few months. The fake press release, was usurped by the fake web site, which gave way to the fake blog. But you can’t fool all the people all the time. Media watchdog orgs are busy pointing these out.

For readers of my upcoming article, Buzz: The New PR, here’s a useful reference for astroturfing

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Marketing folk should be Web heads

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Now that blogs are demonstrating to everyone how uncomplicated content and tracking can be, it won’t be long before Web authoring software follows suit. Communicators like Shel Holtz have been saying it for years now, that it’s about time Communications and Marketing people started wrestling away Web content and design –at least at a basic level–from the tech folk.
Interesting article (the typical ‘5 reasons’) by David Aponovich at MarketingProfs yesterday on why Marketing folk should become more hands on when it comes to content management on the Web. He observes that:

“The rise of new job titles is one indication that many companies are getting it; directors of interactive marketing, directors of Web content and other professionals are bridging the divide between marketing strategy and technology.”

‘Getting it’ is one thing. Doing it, is another!

And now, a shameless plug:
Ragan Communications is holding a workshop by in November on Web Content Management. Here’s the link.

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