Here is our round-up of this week’s interesting bits and bobs:
Missed anything?
There is a great post over on the BBC Internet Blog, in which Adam Hutchinson reveals the work he has done examining how BBC viewers consume and share media:
“In early 2008, we studied how people find, play, personalise and share programmes across different devices and services – like BBC iPlayer, Sky+, YouTube, peer-to-peer and traditional TV and radio. We discovered what is important for people and what problems they face. “
As has already been seen to some extent, the growth of digital technologies radically increases the number of ways in which we are able to consume all types of media and, through it, information. TV is a good example of how this is happening in practice, but there are similar trends occuring everywhere. And, as Adam discusses, this very neatly moves into obvservations around social technologies and how we share and broadcast information ourselves to our friends, peers and even strangers.
As Adam highlights, one of the major developments is choice. Whereas previously all our TV viewing would likely have been focused around only a few channels, now we have vastly increased options, not to mention PPV, Sky+ and the iPlayer to name a few. This choice exists online too with the exponential increase of information sources, from blogs and news portals to social media and instant messaging.
Added to this is the ‘democratisation of media’, through which we are encouraged to broadcast our own thoughts and feelings far and wide and ‘engage’ in conversations and discussions.
The way in which we link all these different actions is something I find really fascinating. Are we more likely to share a blog post through social media as opposed to news we read in a newspaper through word of mouth? Do we prefer to consume certain types of information through specific media channels?
As Adam states, the really exiciting element is when ‘the media’ starts to use this information to change the way they operate and improve the user experience. And from a PR viewpoint, this also has obvious, far-reaching implications and considerations.
I’m off to an event tonight looking at the future of newspapers, and I expect that some of the themes explored here will be debated there in more detail…
Do you know what happened to the last PC you got rid of? Whether you took it to be recycled, donated it for reuse or sold it on, there’s a chance its final resting place is actually in a smouldering heap in a developing country.
The WEEE directive, intended to prevent our e-waste from being dumped in landfill sites in the UK, has led to some enterprising law-breakers taking the problem to a whole new level. E-waste cowboys are dumping shipments of trash computer equipment in countries that don’t have the facilities to deal with it:
• Just one in four of these PCs actually work at time of shipping
• The toxic fumes from burning PCs cause health problems
• Children paid to scavenge through dangerous materials
We’ve been working with IT charity Computer Aid International to raise awareness of and hopefully find a solution to this problem with a wide-reaching new campaign and our first government e-petition.
The real problem is that the government has brought in an ambitious directive to bring the UK’s e-waste stream under control, but has little resource dedicated to policing it – with enough support, our petition can help bring about a change to this.
So do your homework before taking the first disposal option available for your obsolete computer equipment and join our campaign for action against this toxic trade by signing the petition here.
I was away last week so this post contains two weeks-worth of interesting bits and pieces from around the web!
Missed anything…?
 
The blogosphere and twittersphere has been murmuring today about an article on Wired written by Valleywag’s (Silicon Valley’s notorious gossip website) Paul Boutin.
In the article, Boutin claims that blogging is dead:
“Scroll down Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs and you’ll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.”
I’ve written on this topic before [Boutin cites the Calacanis drama too]. And I think – again – Boutin is missing the point. Sure, media organisations, professional journalists and even ‘professional bloggers’ have jumped on blogging bandwagon and are now churning out posts all over the place, but that in itself does not diminish the power of blogs and ‘amateur’ bloggers. [The use of 'professional' and 'amateur' is clunky because of connotations associated, but I think you get the point]
Of course, when there were fewer blogs and fewer bloggers, it was easier for bloggers to be heard on a wider scale, but was this a good thing?
Now, I am a big fan of Twitter, but Twitter, Facebook et al work in different ways. Brevity is often good, but I rarely find myself musing on a 140 character Tweet in the same way I would on a thought-provoking blog post.
Blogging works best when the writer is focusing on a particular niche that they are passionate and knowledgeable about. And when you discover a network of bloggers discussing a niche that is of interest to you, then that can be very powerful and exciting. Professional bloggers are not as interested in ‘niche’ because the area of influence is not big enough.
We shouldn’t be naive enough to think that blogging (or at least ‘amateur’ blogging) will be around for ever or that is it even yet hitting mainstream, but I [still] don’t think it is dead or dying!
Originally uploaded by DebbyP
Our resident blogger, Danny, is on holiday this week, which forces me to finally pop my blogging cherry – I’ve been meaning to taken my first steps into the blogosphere for a long time, but something has been stopping me. As PRs we are experts at advising clients how to handle themselves in the media, from the safety of our surburban sanctuary, but when it comes to putting ourselves in the limelight through press interviews or blogging it can be very unnerving. Anyway hey ho – they say once you’ve started you can’t stop so let’s see!
The event was brilliantly organised and executed by Action for Children and kindly hosted by Ernst and Young. In the earlier part of the evening, we did appallingly in the quiz – I’d like to think we were smart enough to win, had the whole team taken part, but unfortunately Sarah-Anne and I “don’t do quizzes” and had much more fun catching up with our old Banner chums and posing for silly photos (see above) – all in the name of charity of course!
While we technically spent the whole night outside, I have to admit that most of us didn’t do a whole lot of sleeping. Rather we enjoyed the more social element of the proceedings and the stunning views of Tower Bridge lit up on a clear Autumn night. Clear, is not a word to best describe how our heads felt after just a few short hours sleep however, and after a quick bacon sarnie at 6am we all headed home to curl up and recover in our beds, which admittedly took most of the weekend.
However, we suffered for a good cause (even the drink contributions went to charity) and I’m proud to say that The Wildfire team raised nearly £4,000 which contributed to a massive £320,000 raised by Byte Night so far this year . Well done team and a huge thanks to every one of our clients, colleagues and friends who donated.
It’s never too late to donate. Just visit www.justgiving.com/wildfirepr.
This blog has been living for two months and there has yet to be a ‘top xx’ list! Well, that will be remedied today with our look at the top online locations to follow the US election.
This follows an earlier post looking at how technological developments have influenced the election so far (and it is also a nice, fun inclusion for our October email newsletter, which you can subscribe to by emailing us!).
So here goes, in reverse order:
5) Traditional media (online) – It is no surprise that media outlets around the globe are rushing to provide 24-hour online coverage of the US election. State-side, USA Today – America’s most widely read paper, has a great interactive map for those that want to check where exactly Idaho is, and Murdoch’s New York Post gives a slightly different perspective! Back at home, the Guardian leads the way with a detailed microsite covering everything from news and video to weather reports and a poll tracker. As ever, the BBC does a solid job of giving you everything you could possibly need.
4) New media – There is developing a new brand of online professional journalism that falls someway between the old media organisations, aiming to stamp their mark on the web, and the ‘amateur-blogger’ types. These so-called ‘professional blog networks’ are appearing all over the place. The best known (especially in the US) is the Huffington Post (which incidentally alone ranks above 11 US newspaper websites), where you can find tonnes of comment and commentary on what is going on. Another one to check out is Politico, which has really taken off through the duration of this election campaign.
3) YouTube – The popular video site remains the place to go for all your election video needs. McCain and Obama obviously have their own channels, but you can also pick up a selection of media outlets and their offerings not to mention the array of viral videos that the candidates would rather you didn’t see!
2) Bloggers – Understandably the blogosphere is all-over the election. Blogs range from journalists following the candidates and their every move, to supporters on both sides aiming to tell the world their latest thoughts and comments. And of course the candidates themselves: Obama and McCain. Potentially the most interesting blog out there, is John McCain’s own daughter, Meghan, and her blog: McCain Blogette!
and the winner is…
1) Twitter – of course! The election looks as though it will be the event that starts to bring Twitter to the masses in the US (we are still a bit further behind over here). Twitter has launched a great election microsite where you can see up-to-date ‘tweets’ on the election in real-time. Expect this to be buzzing as the results roll in. It’s worth following during the debates too! Of course the candidates (@McCain/@Obama) have their own feeds and so does the media (@GuardianUS08, @ElectionExpress and @Reuters_Trail08).
This week’s round-up of interesting blog posts, articles, announcements and more:
Missed anything?
Self-proclaimed marketing-genius Marta Kagan, creator of the brilliant What the f**k is social media and Director of Marketing at Viximo has got the blogosphere chatting again after announcing her plan to blog about “those products/services/brands that agree to donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders.”
It’s an interesting one.
Marta believes that through her blog, she is giving brands access to her online communities on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook:
“I will spend time getting to know your product/company, and then… I’ll blog about it. I’ll Tweet about it. I’ll share it with my friends on Facebook and LinkedIn. I might even send out a good ole fashioned email, if that sort of ‘old school’ communication is warranted.
“In other words, $100 ensures that conversations will be started. They’ll travel. And in the meantime, you’ll be making a tax-deductible contribution to an extremely worthy cause.”
At present the take-up has not been huge. BUT. It is a great example of how online marketing is developing and how getting online communities discussing a brand can be incredibly beneficial… IF YOU TARGET THE RIGHT COMMUNITY!
And that is the key. If your target audience matches the xx number of people in Marta’s community, then $100 is a drop in the ocean.
So, via Twitter, I discovered today that Pizza Hut are apparently rebranding. Further investigation found the FT, who confidently stated:
“Pizza Hut’s UK business is set to throw aside more than 35 years of history today by changing its name to Pasta Hut. In spite of a £17m investment updating many of its restaurants only this year, the group will spend a further £100m over the next six years to revamp its more than 700-strong UK chain, extend the number of outlets and launch a new, expanded menu.”
Not only the FT picked up on this, all the UK’s leading national and trade publications ran the story (mad.co.uk even ran graphs!).
But it just doesn’t seem quite right! Pizza Hut is a globally recognised brand – why change that!
Go to www.pastahut.com and it all becomes even more strange, as the site asks visitors “Do you think we should change our name?”. Seems a bit odd when the announcement has already been made. Even more surprising given that the vote is currently 70-30 against!
Bold rebranding exercise or an even bolder PR and marketing campaign to give the brand a new health conscious edge?
The Times wins the prize:
“To reinforce the point, 30 branches are to be renamed (temporarily) Pasta Hut.”
Good work
