This sponsorship has proven to be a great story to tell how we can aggregate and emphasize blog posts and conversations around topic important to Intel.  Sure Intel is blogging and connecting with others in communities, but there are many great conversations out there that are great to collect and watch.  And bringing related blog posts and information from Intel experts near this collection helps create the association...and makes it easy for readers to dig deeper, learn more about the topics of interest.

To me, this is a similar example to the widget Tom Foremski created for my team.  It features a Podcast player and feeds from Intel blogs, all updated dynamically whenever a new video, audio or text story is published.  My Intel team sponsors Tom's SiliconValleyWatcher site because he covers the topics and talks with many of the people we're interested in.  Plus, we have a long history of working with the trusted journalist turned writer/video blogger on the enterprise scene.

Both the PopURLs and SiliconValleyWatcher sponsorships have helped us visualize new directions we can take -- advertising conversations vs. inactive billboard ads.  These are steps I believe will suceced if they are mutually beneficial, cost effective and truly add value to audiences enjoying new media.

Tags: siliconvalleywatcher, popurls, intel, social media, aggregating

My response to Tom Foremski's article is one that is in agreement with him. He argues that "press releases are nearly useless". It is a time consuming act that has tons of spin and fluff that no one cares about.

My biggest concern and most enlightened point when reading this was at the point made about the amount of time wasted by professionals each day. Did we and do we really spend thousands of dollars and countless hours on our education to waste our time? Not me!!

This is why I support Foremski's proposal to change the format of the information that is presented by PR Professionals in press releases until now.  Foremski writes, "Deconstruct the press release into special sections and tag the information so that as a publisher, I can pre-assemble some of the news story and make the information useful." Some of the other useful things are:

• Provide a page of quotes from the CEO or other executives
• Provide a page of quotes from customers
• ""from analysts
• Provide financial information
• Provide links to the press release copy, as well as links to other relevant information
• Tag everything so that stories can be preassembled

This way, PR Professionals are no longer putting a spin on stories (that journalists will probably unspin and rewrite anyway), but they are providing truthful and factual information that is not only pushed to the journalists to get coverage, but is also helpful and informative.

Death to being "spin doctors" and death to the Press Release too!

**the Social Media Release is the solution that has been created in response to this idea from Foremski, visit http://www.briansolis.com/2007/10/future-of-social-media-release-is-in.html to read more!

Craig Newmark is the founder of Craigslist. He says most of his role is customer service. He has a sense of mission, speaking up on behalf of the lobbyist industry and PR, who are just trying to get a fair shake for their clients. His personal blog is cnewmark.com. He says he is a libertarian moderate, not a socialist, despite those who think that his site has undermined for-profit media. In response to a question about people fraudulently posting ads that lead to houses being looted, he says they're not very smart, because IP addresses can be traced.

Tom Foremski writes Silicon Valley Watcher, reporting on the business of technology and media. He mainly considers himself a reporter. He did an experiment, "Pitch me only through Facebook" and recently discontinued it mainly because Facebook's email management isn't good. Basically he recommends that people should connect by following on Twitter. He was the person who basically kicked off the social media release with this post. Don't call and ask: "What have you been writing about?" Tom says: "I don't have time to read my latest posts to you." Exclusives or access to a CEO are interesting to him. He doesn't want to just add to the white noise by writing what everyone else is doing.

Carolyn Pritchard is from GigaOm. (They are on wordpress.com, too.) She is the editor for six blogs. They are all niche sites, and PR people should be pitching to those sites individually instead of her. Following the conversation is key; sometimes knowing what people have said in the comments on recent posts would help engage. The principles of media relations hold for blogger relations, too. Do your homework.

Tom says media professionals will be increasingly moving into blogging where they will do journalism, but with a different cost structure. They are now "always on" and don't have the high cost structure of massive skyscrapers. When he left the Financial Times, he decided he didn't want to be on the sharp pointy end of the disruption.

Tom thinks a social media release is a better way of distributing information because it's more modular. Fundamentally, though, all he was asking for was more links in press releases, and tag things, and organize the information better. Check out socialmediarelease.org. Businesswire says there is no additional charge for this, but getting the buy-in from PR people is limited.

Another great session. I had read Tom's blog (it's even part of my presentation tomorrow), and everyone knows Craig. It was great to get to see and hear them in person.

Cnet has a big advantage over everyone else right now for three reasons:  1) Dan knows the business both old school and new school (blogging), 2) they have the infrastructure, and 3) they know how to put out massive amounts of content.

I talked with Dan last week about some of the changes at Cnet - he said that the big goal is to just coordinate the systems -hmmmm .... translation: cnet will keep pumping out good content in volume and will start cross linking;  What does this mean ... Look for cnet to parlay their strong reporting and analysis capabilities with blogging infrastructure.  Look for Cnet to become the new leader on the Techmeme Leaderboard. 

Maybe the line "There is a new sheriff in town" applies here and his name is Dan Farber.

Here are some highlights on the changes at Cnet under the leadership of Dan Farber (source Tom Foremski):

-Different CNET departments now publish using the same template.

- Publish a story as quickly as possible, edit it later.

- Stories are updated constantly.

- Adding the right keywords and tags to make stories discoverable by search engines. About 40 per cent of CNET traffic comes from search engines.

- Use Internet standards whenever possible.

- There is no end to the work day, you are always on call.

- Everybody blogs.

- Create synergies between news, reviews, analysis, and blogs.

- Getting journalists to put in web links to non-CNET publications. "It's about being part of the web and not separate from it," he says.

- Carrying a pad of paper and pencil is not enough. Journalists also take photos, videos, and make podcasts.

1. Foremski can see the merit of the individual contacting him:
He can look at your profile details, pictures, friends (or lack thereof) and then make his own judgements judgments on whether or not the person is of caliber.

2. Foremski can see if the person is up-to-date:
To prove this point, I use my dear Grandmother as an example. Meet Helen, a 75 year old grandmother living in Ancaster, Ontario. A retiree and avid gardener, EVEN SHE HAS EMAIL NOW! However, she does not have FaceBook. (yet...)

3. Foremski is addicted to FB and would like to mix business with pleasure;
“Crack” book, as I have come to know it, offers an individual to voyeuristically peek into lives of their friends. Maybe Foremski is in a poke war with someone and refuses to give up. He needs to go on regularly to ensure his victory, doesn’t he?

Ultimately, here is what I like about the FaceBook hype (and think we all need to embrace this a bit more) is that we allow for this. By nature, we thrive on interaction, and for a while there, many were saying that the internet is very impersonal and making us distant and alien to one another. Well, now I argue that the web is extremely personal and can open more doors then windows.

Once again, I ask; Is it only a matter of time before my grandmother is pitching to Tom Foremski?

Me neither.

It's sometimes as tough to sense inertia as it is to overcome it. But it's happening here in the PR blogosphere. I just know it.

I didn't think much about the lull in our conversations until Judy Gombita pointed it out last week. She's right. There's not much of substance in the online discussions of public relations, especially those focused on social media. And what IS going on seems, well, a bit stale and contrived. It has me longing for the days of the Edelman-Walmart scandal or the once-edgy essays of Strumpette.

Are we dead in the water? Have we lost our wind?

Here's some evidence from my world: The most popular post on this blog over the past three days is the "About Me" page. My previous post -- the one that shares advice on media relations from Web 2.0 influencer Tom Foremski -- drew not a single comment and only 73 page visits, about 30% of normal for new posts.

By contrast, I built a page on my "SandyLakeOhio" blog this past Saturday to help neighbors sell their home. It drew 150+ visits.

Hey, maybe it's just me, but I don't think so. I scanned the feeder this past weekend to see if the inertia problem is more widespread.

Todd Defren, a guy I consider the most perceptive of the Web 2.0 practitioner-bloggers, wrote a post encouraging us to vote in the primaries. It's a heartfelt message, but hardly a conversation starter.

Brian Solis yesterday tells readers that his "Social Media Manifesto" post is up for a SEMMY award as one of the year's best blog posts. Hardly earth-shattering news, though it should drive up Brian's page views as readers go back to check it out. I read it the first time.

Geoff Livingston (at Now Is Gone) this past weekend was touting the latest review for his book. Good for book sales, perhaps, but hardly important in the overall dialog of the PR blogosphere. (In fairness, Geoff's post today at Buzz Bin, co-authored and cross-posted by Jason Falls, offers a lot of useful information on word-of-mouth marketing.)

Shel Holtz today is talking about Uttrerz, a site that lets you "share a thought impulsively by recording it over the phone. The recording is saved to a profile where those who choose to follow you are notified that you have a new Utter."

I read Shel all the time, in part, because he keeps me abreast of the cool new stuff. But his post has me wondering if all this micro-messaging on Twitter, Seesmic, Utterz, et. al., has pulled some of our thought leaders away from the in-depth conversations -- you know, the kind you used to find on good old-fashioned blogs.

It's so much easier to just utter and tweet.

I hope the bloggers I cite here don't take offense. They're on my feeder because I learn from their insights. But lately I'm just not seeing as much substance in the "lessons" that any of us post. And because I'm a teacher, this worries me.

Something tells me this post, like the one before it, won't spark much conversation. I tell you, we've lost our wind.

##########

Artwork is from the Prints & Photograph Division of the Library of Congress in is titled, "Becalmed in the Bering Sea."

I read Silicon Valley Watcher from time to time and I subscribe to it on my feeder. But had Tom Foremski not been my Facebook pal, I'd have missed his important message today -- a message that tells PR folks how to get his attention.

I saw the post because Tom placed the link on his Facebook page. I visit FB 4-5 times daily; I check my feeder 4-5 times weekly.

Now let's be clear. I may be Tom's friend on Facebook, but we've never met nor have we spoken. We exchanged a couple of terse emails shortly after I "friended" him, which came after he joined my Facebook group, "PRSA Need Professional PR Help -- NOW!" Tom found that Facebook group because I promoted it in this post, which also links to Tom's now-classic essay, "Die! Press Release! Die! Die! Die!" That's how it works in the tangled web of social media. You get used to it.

Tom's headline sucked me in: "PR Pitches Through Facebook: I Have 37, 366 Unread Emails in Gmail..."

I've heard of spam, but that's insane. Tom insists his bulging inbox isn't loaded with spam but with pitches from PR types and others trying to curry favor with his influential blog. He said he's doing his best to get back to all of you, but it'll take some time!

Welcome to the modern world of media relations, where technology enables any nitwit with a computer to pitch an idea to thousands and to overwhelm the gatekeepers in the process. Little wonder they've begun to ignore us, or in the case of Chris Anderson, to lash out at us. We've earned their wrath -- or in Tom's case, his indifference.

I follow Tom's feeds closely, as he's as close to a "celebrity" friend as I have on Facebook. When Tom joins a group, I check it out. When he posts an intriguing link to SVW, I follow it. He's an influencer in Web 2.0, and I'm betting I can learn from him.

So you want to pitch Tom Foremski? Start by friending him on Facebook, he says. Tom figures anyone who makes the effort to follow his Facebook feeds will get to know a bit about him and about stories that interest him.

Says Tom:

...only the people that read me and are interested in my work will know about my Facebook PR pitch preference and those are the people that I would rather work with anyway.

Now that you have the inside track to SVW, make sure you also have a good story to pitch. Most people don't.

For the second year in a row at CES, PodTech's BlogHaus was the place to be whenever you weren't on the showroom floor, eating or taking a bathroom break (notice I didn't say sleeping). It was a great place to see friends like Tom Foremski, Michael Johnson, John Furrier, Reboot gaming guru Rio Pasino, Robert Scoble and his video shooting/editing partner in crime Rocky. I got to catch up with many of them and made new friends. The PodTech crew pumped out lots of great video, audio and blog stories from the BlogHaus, located deep inside the bellissima albergo di Bellagio.

I got to hear about the blogger bus ride from the Bay Area and see what Tom Foremski was excited about as he arrived in Las Vegas for CES 2008. Here's a look at one thing Tom released from CES:

Video | 09:36 | Posted by Tom Foremski | January 10th, 2008 5:44 amNext week I'm launching ScobleWatcher.com - the ten minutes of Robert Scoble you need to see each day :-)

Robert is an extraordinary and tireless media producing machine. He would run 24/7 if he could, and he sometimes does.

Here are a couple of days of Robert at CES2008 in Las Vegas and the PodTech BlogHaus, (which was a great place to hang out…)

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2008/01/PID_013302/Podtech_Scoblewatcher.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/4841/scoblewatcher-all-scoble-all-the-time-but-in-less-time&totalTime=576000&breadcrumb=8df8e741728f454c8a70d470b8138d1b]

From the PodTech site:
Video | 13:45 | Posted by Tom Foremski | August 28th, 2007 9:30 am

I spent Saturday afternoon crammed into a room in Palo Alto with a couple of hundred people listening to presentations from young developers creating Facebook apps. The enthusiasm was great and there was a sense of being at the start of something big.

Also on TechOne: RedMonk's Michael Coté interviews Zane Rockenbaugh from Liquid Labs

Tags: Facebook apps, Coté, Zane Rockenbaugh, Liquid Labs

[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/08/PID_012369/Podtech_Sentfacebookapps.flv&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/home/3977/how-to-succeed-in-developing-facebook-apps&totalTime=825000&breadcrumb=b3b98ce5fa834ab8bf0df15cc14a00d6]