ryan l.

With the rise of Twitter and the like, it seems that bloggers, to a great degree, have forgotten that short blog posts can be just as valuable and effective when literally published to a blog as they can in 140 characters or less. It’s with that thought in mind that I put this simple yet intriguing (imho) question out there:

When does “new media” become un-new?

Ok, so I made up a word here, but new media may never become old since it’s constantly evolving, but as time goes on and more and more people begin picking up on social media concepts and tools, when do these things move from being considered new to not new, or un-new?

The best example I have is found in how long Voce has been in the social media game - we’re going on four years now, or so - and it makes me wonder why we need to continue referring to concepts that are relatively dated, at least to some, as ‘new’.

Maybe we should just settle on “social media” as the blanket descriptor of what we do and start referring to those just getting started as “new to social media”? Ok, maybe that’s a little condescending … you get the idea.

It's interesting to see questions/arguments like this about a possible MySpace downturn after reaching a ridiculous "peak" of 80+ million registered users, and then to see article's like this one from Ad Age, discussing social networking sites recently securing major advertising opportunities with companies like Wendy's and Toyota. 

So, what is it? My guess is that, like others believe, the downturn talk is a bit premature. But, with more social networking copycats like Bebo.com popping up, you never know where the finicky teen and young adult markets will choose to go. 

Lets face it, I'm no Steve Rubel, Mike Manuel, or Andy Lark and probably never will be in the blogging sense. I have an average traffic figure that rivals … well, no one. I'm a nobody in the blogosphere. And, according to Bite PR's Danny Bernstein, if you don't fall into the category of "best-of-the-best" in the industry, you should take your fingers off the keyboard and keep your thoughts out of the blogosphere. Controversial statement? It sure seems like it.

Now, I don't want to misrepresent or forget Danny's main point: that we, as PR folks, traditionally get stereotyped by the media, public, and Hollywood, and we need to make an effort at countering that view. I couldn't agree more. However, does that mean that only those "A-List" types should represent our industry alone? I don't think so. Danny chimes in with this:

In some respects, I share her [Strumpette’s Amanda Chapel] concern. I believe blogging, as the delicate olive branch of PR, must be handled by the absolute best-of-the-best our industry offers. These are the Tim Dysons, the Richard Edelmans and the Andy Larks.

If we allow this wave of wannabe journalists and self-publishing addicts to control (and ultimately mishandle) what could be our White Album, we will fall … and we’ll fall hard.

Despite seeing his point, it's hard to see how only those higher-level individuals are the only ones that have anything to contribute to the discussion. Just because I don't have a higher traffic level and some amazing reputation in the industry doesn't devalue the thoughts I have to contribute. I've posted some that have quadrupled my daily readership. I'd like to think those thoughts furthered the discussion, debate, and thought among those who took the time to read them. That's the beauty of blogging - joining the conversation and making people think.

In addition, I don't think "every starry-eyed PR professional that blogs believes, somewhere inside, that it can make them some kind of champion of business." I blog because I want to. I blog because it keeps me thinking and, more importantly, writing. I don't blog because I think I'm going to become some superstar. The best example of this is Wet Feet PR's Blake Barbara. I don't think, if you asked him, the reason he started blogging was to become a champion of the industry. He carved out a niche for himself, contributed valuable content, and it raised his industry profile.

I guess the main point here is that it doesn't, and shouldn't, matter who you are or aren't. Everyone is a potential source of alternative opinion and valuable thinking in the blogosphere that all help contribute to better conversation and debate. Just because you aren't blog "famous" doesn't mean you should shy away from the medium.

This isn't meant to be an attack on Danny at all, I just ran into him at Third Thursday and he remembered when I interviewed with him for a position at Bite last summer, which was nice. Through his writing, it's clear he's a smart guy, but in this case I think he's just simply wrong. If one takes his point to heart, it makes them wonder what's up with this "guest column" at Silicon Valley Watcher, a blog, and the contributions to Bite Marks. Who do you think you are, Danny? Tim Dyson?
Bottome line: It doesn't matter, you're contributing to the conversation in a valuable way. People will always think what they will about PR and the people who work in the industry, and I don't think it matters who blogs or what about because a handful of people aren't going to change those perceptions.

A little promotion for a colleague never hurt anyone, right? As long as it's for the great good.

Well, Mike Manuel (a.k.a Media Guerilla) and a few other PR pros, including Jeremy Pepper, Giovanni Rodriguez, and Phil Gomes have come together to co-organize Third Thursday, "a new meetup for Bay Area PR and marketing folks interested in learning more about social media tools, trends and best practices, and their practical application in marketing and communications programs." 

See this post at Media Guerilla for more background on the meetup and details on the first one, slated for Thursday, April 20 at 6:30 p.m. in Palo Alto.  

To join the meetup group and to receive more information go here and signup.

This is great. Anyone paying attention to the news over the last week probably caught the news that Isaac Hayes, the voice of “Chef” on South Park, quit the show saying he could no longer tolerate the show’s religious “intolerance and bigotry.” Hayes, of course, is a Scientologist — the religion of choice for quite a few celebrities, including crazyman Tom Cruise.

For the show, Hayes’ departure was just the begining of the Scientology situation. A soon to be aired episode mocking Cruise was quickly pulled from the show schedule this week - a move by Comedy Central that an Internet report claimed was covert warfare by Cruise that led to its departure. Rumor has it that Cruise was threatening to not promote this Summer’s “Mission Impossible 3” if the episode aired.

So, was this Cruise manipulating a media conglomerate? Hell, at this point I can’t put it out of the the question, especially with the fact in mind that Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, as is Paramount, which is putting out the film.

For Cruise and Hayes both, this could prove to be publicity neither of them needed or wanted, nor did the leaders of the Scientology religion I’d imagine. Especially with the creators of South Park defending their show like they have with statement like, “This is 100 percent having to do with his faith in Scientology…He has no problem — and he’s cashed plenty of checks — with our show making fun of Christians,” about Hayes. And the best part, issuing a press release that declared:

“So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun!

Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies… You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail!”

Classic.

And, judging by this quick search of Google news, this is getting much bigger really quickly. From the blogosphere to the MSM, they all seem to be talking about Cruise throwing his “weight” around. That’s a lot of power for such a little guy to possess. Someone needs some counsel - Rogers & Cowan, where are you?

As I mentioned previously, I was able to catch only a small portion of the New Communications Forum in Palo Alto this week because, well, client service had to come first. Most of us know how that goes.

One panel session I was able to take in was Dan Gillmor’s presentation on the “Impact of Citizen Media” which was great. He discussed, among other things, how citizen media and technology is shifting the landscape of journalism and how we get our news.

One area of new media technology he discussed was on the topic of mash-ups and how they’re changing the way news is reported and commented on. He used one example of a mash-up of Google Maps being used to report on crime in a given area. Due to my poor note taking, I missed the name of the individual who is essentially pioneering this activity, but he highlighted how it is being utilized as an input for location or route and how the technology maps out specific locations along that route where crimes have taken place, better enabling users to determine if an area is safe. Another example he cited was the mashing of audio and video as commentary, in this case a political statement.

Very interesting stuff, and certainly these are examples of what the media at-large should consider incorporating into their everyday reporting, but few are. It was clear from the presentation that things are changing, however.

According to Gillmor, the biggest threat to big media isn’t blogs or bloggers, it’s eBay and Craigslist. Obviously, these two organizations are the new classified ads and are free, and it makes sense that as the popularity and overall use of both eBay and Craislist continue to grow, the ad revenue earned by traditional newspaper classifieds will continue to fall. As if dropping circulation numbers weren’t enough, papers can no longer count on their classified section either.

When he was discussing the mash-up examples he also cited the fact that in today’s technological climate, the younger generation is increasingly learning and using new media technologies like blogging and podcasting, and mash-ups, to communicate. This, IMO, can only bode well for big media’s future. But, if looked at on the flip side, maybe big media will be all right, but will the “older generation” pick-up what technology is putting down quickly enough to fend off the next wave of journalists … and hell, maybe citizen journalist? I don’t know. Eventually, all of these new tools that we use will become mainstream, blogging won’t disappear but simply become part of the bigger landscape. The question is how quickly will those trying to catch on or catch up get there?

I’ll close this way too long post with an anecdote from Gillmor that I think about sums up the future: “The daily ME will increasingly become augmented by the daily WE.” All that’s left now is for more people to join the conversation.

Found a little time to head over to the New Communications Forum here in Palo Alto to take in a couple of panel sessions. Overall, there was some very interesting content presented and discussions taking place. I plan to be more specific later, but I must say initially that it was very exciting for me to be there. It’s funny how many of us spend so much time reading the writings of other bloggers, PR and otherwise, and “know” them via that channel only to see them in the flesh. It’s was a strange experience, but a good one. At one point, I found myself in a room with a few heavy hitters from the blog world - Shel Israel, Shel Holz and Neville Hobson podcasting live and Voce’s own Media Guerilla, Mike Manuel. I felt out of place yet somewhat at home. Maybe I’m just weird.

In an article from last Saturday, New York Times columnist, Dan Mitchell discusses Dave Sifry’s “State of the Blogosphere” and is far from complimentary of blogging on the whole, and I’m shocked. Aren’t you? A journalist critical of the medium that is, in part, increasingly putting journalists just like him out of work? (Note: I tried to find a link to the an article about the NYT laying off 4 percent of its staff, but only found dead links. Makes ya wonder — here’s a link to a re-posting of it.)

“The State of the Blogosphere” presented at sifry.com this week by David L. Sifry, the founder of Technorati, a leading blog search site, shows just how complicated things have become. According to Mr. Sifry’s data, mainstream media sites, as measured by the number of blogs linking to them, are trouncing news-oriented blogs by a growing margin. Bloggers link to The New York Times Web site about three times as often as they link to the technology-oriented Boingboing.net. Only four blogs show up in the top 33 sites.

But it isn’t the data or the rankings that matter most here. More interesting is that it’s becoming hard to tell what is a blog and what is mainstream media.”

And why is it that it’s becoming hard to differentiate? My guess would be because the MSM is being forced adapt to the changes taking place online and in the reading habits of people, just as PR and other fields are being forced to change. We all are.

“Meanwhile, more and more mainstream media sites are blogging. In the end, users are most likely drawn to sites for the quality and trustworthiness of the material presented.”

This is a valid point. The reliability of blog content just isn’t there yet, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t organizations out there striving for said trustworthiness or credibility. I think the blogosphere should try to define itself as a complementary addition to MSM coverage and not a direct competitor since the lines are blurring anyway. I realize this isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish since the MSM is increasingly blogging itself, like Mitchell says, but ultimately, the best way to bring credibility to blog content is to legitimize it. I posted the other day on the change BlogBurst is fueling — that’s probably a step in the right direction. It’s just too bad that the two sides haven’t yet found a middle ground because both add value, as one wise man once said.

Some great news being talked about/reported over at TechCrunch and Micro Persuasion, and probably others. BlogBurst, a service that takes content from pre-approved blogs and syndicates it to publishers like online newspapers and others, looks to be changing the game. The participating papers, thus far, include the Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle, and the San Antonio Express-News.

I suppose this is a logical step forward for the struggling MSM, but this makes me want to think bigger than a service like BlogBurst. With so many blog networks popping up everywhere, the 9Rules and Newsvines of the world, why not take advantage of larger groups of already categorically assembled blogs? Obviously, it may be a little early to consider this option because this will probably end up being the beginning of a trial run with blog syndication for the papers, but why not think a few steps ahead?

No links included today, the offensive parties can remain nameless. It’s pretty discouraging when you can’t distinguish lively debate about the direction of PR and social media and a bunch of whining and talking in cirlcles. “My blog can beat up your blog.”

Granted, the on-going debate within the blogging PR community is probably necessary for us all in finding the proper direction and approach to utilizing blogs in communication, but the sarcasm, arguing, and general statements as if they are gospel while simultaneously trying to avoid calling yourself an “expert,” is just plain stupid. Blog experts, A-Listers, whatever. Idiots, gosh!

That’s not to say all comments and ideas are bad, worthless or irrelevant though. We’re all still figuring it out.