CitizenSpin

Podcasting as a promotional tool

Enough of blogs! What about podcasting as a promotional tool?
I read that Virgin Atlantic is offering free podcasts to customers with content relevant to the Virgin routes. The first 4 podcasts are New York audio guides - produced by Loudish.com. As a radio producer I find this an interesting development.

The BBC is already podcasting many programmes. Highlights of the Today programme and From our own Correspondent. In fact the fantastic Peter Day devoted the whole of an edition of In Business to PodCasting back in May: listen again.

I’m planning a trip to the The Portable Media Expo conference in California in November. It's the first conference to examine podcasting – covering the complete range of business and marketing issues that must be addressed for podcasting, time-shifted media and portable content.

There is plenty of scope for the use of podcasting to enghance the BBC’s programme output:

• Reach new audiences:
  Podcasting provides opportunities to connect with new, hard to reach audiences. American research indicates that minority groups are more likely to own iPods/MP3 players than whites (16% of African Americans and Latinos compared to 9% of non-Latino whites in the US - Pew / Internet).
• New distribution opportunities:
  According to the US research - IPods/MP3 players are gadgets for well-off, 18% of those earning more than $75,000 own one (Pew / Internet). This provides an opportunity for some programmes / departments to connect with this upscale audience. For example – The Financial World tonight is broadcast on BBC Radio 5-Live, having previously on BBC Radio 4. It sits uncomfortably on the network. Would it make more sense to broadcast FWT as the programme of financial record as a podcast?
• New content for additional services and programme material
  Podcasting provides an opportunity to create additional content for audiences. This has not yet been explored; currently the BBC provides copies of programmes as broadcast for podcasts. There is a creative opportunity to look at what else could be provided – longer versions of interviews for speech programmes, artist profiles for music networks or a weekly digest for busy people who don’t catch a daily strand?

But the promotional aspects are fascinating. I’ve produced programmes for corporate radio which was delivered over phones and networked PC’s. This allowed staff to hear lively accessible content at their desktops – this kind of corporate broadcasting could adapt well to the iPod, and indeed the Virgin scheme which adds value in a way which complements the corporate offering is a very good idea. I wonder what other applications there could be for commercial podacsts – and if there’s a business in it for a BBC producer?
:-)
Matt

Blog watching marks end of market research?

Blogs are growing into the ultimate focus group - cries Brian Morrissey in Billboard (20/06/2005). He cites the case of US Cellular who wanted to reach college age consumers and speak to them on their own terms.
The company commissioned Umbria Communications and G Whiz to eavesdrop the blogsphere and examine postings relating to mobile phones.
Its interesting, as in a previous posting I referred to RSS possibly turning blogging back into a one-way communication channel allowing corporations to pump out information unquestioned. In this case linguistic analysis was used to carry out quick and dirty market research to listen to what the consumers had to say. I suppose its the flipside of that RSS coin.
The research was employed to shape a TV advertising campaign based around the themes they discovered.
One advantage to this kind of research is that the results would be less prone to bias the subjects are unaware that they are being observed, and you could argue that the opinions expressed are therefore more genuine. However, who is motivated to blog about their mobile in the first place? Someone who may feel unduly passionately about how good or bad it may be so this in itself could create distortion.
It is however, and interesting example of how the Internet is enabling better environmental scanning in the world of Corporate Communications, especially among some of the hard to reach segments of the population.

Matt

RSS goes mainstream - Microsoft promotes citizen media?

Just as blogging has brought power to the people to create their own content, RSS feeds are about to bring power to the Internet users - the consumers of the media. RSS feeds give people the ability to sift and select their own content - in effect creating their own online 'newspaper', with the stories they're interested in.
Microsoft has created waves by announcing that their next operating system (Longhorn), and the next version of Internet Explorer, will incorporate the ability to handle RSS feeds. This will have the effect of making RSS mainstream.
At the moment only about 5 percent of Americans subscribe to RSS feeds - see January's survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project - that's about 6 million people.
Microsoft says that in the next version of Internet Explorer, a user who visits a page that has an RSS feed will see a notification button light up on the browser. Clicking a plus symbol in the browser will subscribe to that feed, and the feed will go on an internal subscription list in Longhorn.
But RSS is about more than just news and information, Charlene Li of Forrester Research has been working on a report about non-blog uses of RSS for marketers. There are a number of interesting ideas she's found, and that other people have suggested:

Purina has feeds for updated Web content (e.g. dog and cat care advice); coupon or bargain sites like Slick Deals and TechBargains also have content feeds; Deals on the Web (dealsontheweb.com) - a site for bargain hunters looking for consumer electronics - has feed for their latest finds; Amazon has details of it's latest deals. There are examples of PR uses of RSS - for example Apple has its PR feed on RSS - a great way to distribute press releases. And travel companies seem to be up there with both Continental Airlines and Delta Vacations having RSS feeds.

So RSS goes mainstream? Though a couple of issues strike me about the corporate communication impliactions: firstly it provides a great way for a corporation to sidestep the established distribution channels and get their message out there in way that doesn't allow it to be messed-up or mangled in the disseminatino, but secondly, whereas blogs allow for a two-way dialogue with consumers, the use of RSS feeds seems to reduce the meduim to the old 'transmitter' and 'receiver' model of communication.

Matt

Blogs give consumers the upper hand - lessons from Kryptonite

"Blogs have shifted the balance of power between man and business ... man now has the upper hand."

There were a few good examples of how blogs are shifting the balance of power for consumers quoted in the newspapers at the weekend.
The Financial Times describes how Kryptonite, a manufacturer of bicycle locks in the US, had to replace hundreds of thousands of locks after material harmful to its reputation appeared online:

"In September, a viral video spread through the blogosphere, showing how to pick a Kryptonite lock with a ballpoint pen. The company scrambled to reply, but its tiny offline PR team was no match for the citizen forces mobilised on the internet. Blogs spread the word that Kryptonite was flawed and the company ended up offering everyone a new lock."

In fact 300,000 locks were exchanged at a cost reported to be $10m, and the company also ended up settling a class-action lawsuit by offering up to $3,000 per stolen bike. The video of the Kryptonite lock being picked can be found here.
The Independent quotes the same story, and also that of TiVo:

"When a commercial blog called PVRblog.com ran a piece claiming that adverts would be shown on its machines, all hell broke lose in a 75,000-strong online TiVo community. The company only realised there was a problem when the story hit the Los Angeles Times."

This example raises the issue of environmental scanning, and how issues being raised online can act as an early warning to problems before they hit the mainstream media.
The FT article goes on to ask if power also brings responsibility. The focus is on legal obligations, but it could be argued that there are also ethical or moralobligations as in any other area of journalism.

Matt

Brand marketing is dead, long live reputation management

I recently read an interesting article by Ian McKee on the future of band marketing versus reputation management.
He argues that consumers are becoming increasingly immune to advertising on traditional channels, the one-to-many channels: TV, radio, newspapers etc.

He also suggests that many more people now have the ability to communicate with the mass-market via the use of many-to-many media like PCs – he says:

“… today’s entry cost to a media to reach 800 million people (approx internet population, 295m in English and 110m in Chinese being the top 2 languages) is the cost of a PC and an internet connection. And 800 million people have that.”

These new channels lend themselves to consumer-to-consumer communication – where consumers trust each other’s word more than that of a corporation or journalist – see the Intelliseek Trust MEdia report.

Who is best placed to manage the relationship with these new ‘citizen journalists’? The article is well argued – and leaves the world open for PR departments to take over where sales and marketing leave off!

Matt

Who do you trust? Blogs and the Internet as reliable sources

Rummaging around the other day for the Intelliseek report – Consumer Generated Media – I came across some new research of theirs which addresses blogging and trust – Trust MEdia (geddit – ME-dia!).

The report examines how the ‘blogging phenomenon has drastically altered the landscape and challenge traditional tenets about the control of messaging by corporations, the media, the government, marketers and company stakeholders.’

It goes on to quote the Edelman 2005 Trust Survey – which indicates that peoples’ trust has shifted from authority figures to “average people like you” – interesting in terms of how much importance consumer blogs and reviews may have in forming a company reputation.

The report then goes on to detail the Edelman/Intelliseek 100 Trust MEdia Blog Director in which blogs are ranked for being: influential, trustworthy, authoritative.

The top PR blogs are:

• Micro Persuassion
• Corporate PR
• POP!

The lists were compiled by finding links in 27 search engines – those with high traffic and influence were examined to find additional blog links within each category and those links further reviewed.

The report doesn’t say whether the source of the blog – CEO, journalist, practitioner or consumer was assessed. Is this an important issue in the trust accredited to information online? Just a thought.

Matt

Blogging guidelines – or how not to get sacked

There are many examples of people who’ve been sacked for their blogging activity - Joe Gordon sacked in the UK by Waterstones book shop, Troutgirl sacked by Friendster, and sacked Delta Airlines employee Ellen Simonetti.
They all fell foul of their employers in the early days of the evolving blogsphere - there were few guidelines in place. It’s something that’s still being worked on here at the BBC, as a policy for blogging is still being drawn-up.
Some companies seem to regard corporate blogging a powerful communication tool; others a threat with much greater risks than potential benefits. So having a sensible set of guidelines seems like a sound way to avoid problems.
Corporate Blogging has pulled together a selection of guidelines from employers, and drawn-up a comparison of blogging rules - and there is a bit of pattern-spotting among the rules:

The Core; all companies
• You’re personally responsible
• Abide by existing rules
• Keep secrets
• Be nice

The Common; approximately half of them
• Add value
• Respect copyright
• Follow the law
• Cite and link
• Discuss with your manager

The Unusual; only one or two companies mention
• You can write on company time
• Our goal
• You may disagree with the boss
• Stop blogging if we say so
• Contact PR

At Sun they recognise the risk that bloggnig can pose and have a Policy on Public Discourse which is similar but gives more guidance:
• It's a Two-Way Street
• Don't Tell Secrets
• Be Interesting
• Write What You Know
• Financial Rules
• Quality Matters
• Think About Consequences

More examples can be found at these sites:
• Feedster Corporate Blogging Policy
• Thomas Nelson Blogging Guidelines
• Plaxo Public Internet Communication Policy
• Hill & Knowlton Blogging policies and guidelines
• Yahoo Employee Blog Guidelines (pdf)

Finally there’s a nice note from a blogger at Yahoo – as a few words of advice to colleagues considering blogging.

Also some legal guidance doesn't go amiss - the Electronic Freedom Foundation published this useful Legal Guide for Bloggers although with a US focus. But the BBC has a very useful online guide entitled How to Avoid Libel and Defamation. 

So logs of thougt, some agreement in some areas, and lots of variations.

Matt

What do you understand on the Internet?

“When people distrust media representations, they may seek out a wider range of information sources or they may ‘dismiss coverage’ altogether”.

A quote from a major literature review for the UK media regulator Ofcom (1). It pulls together a large body of research on media literacy amongst consumers.
While the report focuses on traditional broadcast media, it also mentions consumer comprehension of new media (web based, blogs, websites and chatrooms).

It says there is:

“an urgent need for investigation into the public’s understanding of innovative online news sources such as blogs.”

The researchers’ review of research literature found little understanding of how consumers understand the different ways in which web sites are funded – and how this may affect content.

Are consumers pretty savvy when it comes to spotting sites that are skewed by sponsorship and written by people with a vested interest? How do they make these kind of judgement decisions over what they can trust and can’t trust online?

Matt

(1) Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E., & Thumim, N., (2004) Adult Media Literacy. A report compiled by the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, for Ofcom

Why have a corporate blog? And should PR or marketing functions take the lead?

Backbone Media has published some preliminary results from their Corporate Blogging Survey. There are some interesting headlines. It seems that getting information or content out to an audience is very important – portraying blogging as a marketing tool, but other early results indicate that ‘increasing sales’ was less important in blogging than  'boosting search engine rankings'.

Though there was also a trend in the initial surveys to list 'thought leadership' as the highest priority – if this winning the hearts and minds of early adopters and those with influence then it seems like it’s a PR function, and 'getting product feedback from customers' was also a strong driver of blogging – PR or  marketing?

Other responses point to the PR potential of blogs being exploited by companies – using them to build relationships with key stakeholders.

The top three reasons to blog were:

• Another way to publish content and ideas

• Build a community

• Thought leadership

The bottom three reasons were:

• Respond to negative comments

• A way to get interview requests from journalists

• Crisis communications

Matt

Word of mouth, blogging and PR / corporate communications

I've been thinking about word of mouth, or peer to peer marketing to give it its proper name, and how it relates to blogging. Its something that was raised by Ian McKee of Vocanic in an email he sent from Singapore. He asked:

I focus on peer to peer marketing. Now I have had a few discussions as to where PR fits in this context. Separately? Or should word of mouth be considered in the fields of PR? What do you think?

In a previous posting I quoted the Intelliseek report, Consumer Generated Media, which talks about online word-of-mouth vehicles, including but not limited to: consumer-to-consumer email, postings on public Internet discussion boards and forums, consumer ratings web sites or forums, blogs (short for weblogs, or digital diaries), moblogs (sites where users post digital images/photos/movies), social networking web sites and individual web sites.
In their still to be published book, Shel Israel and Robert Scoble are planning a chapter on Word of Mouth, in which they discuss the power and efficiency of word-of-mouth marketing through examples that include ICQ, Skype, Firefox.Explains the connection between blogging and word-of-mouth.
Ian's response:

Is Word of Mouth part of PR, is PR part of word of mouth.Should it be managed by a separate team or be part of CRM or even brand.This whole area got huge debate at the WOMMA Conference.
My take the answer is different for each customer, and the strategy they are taking.IF you are a brand like Nudie or Red Bull, then marketing clearly own WOM and PR.If you are Head and Shoulders shampoo clearly things are different.The one thing that is true is that the people who run this stuff need to communicate to make sure that it is integrated and consistent.

It is this kind of communication which motivates publics to move from being aware to being active. In the corporate landscape it would makes sense that PR professionals manage this relationship. Thats where Id say word of mouth marketing and PR fit together.

Matt

Blogs and the Internet: a tool to defend as well as attack

I posed the proposition previously that the internet is providing the tools for publics to become more connected, and as Grunig suggests, more prone to move to activism.
Grunig & Hunt (1) assert that there are three stages in the evolution of publics. In the first stage, the public doesn’t recognise the problem; the public then moves to the aware stage - recognising the problem. Finally the active stage is reached – the problem is recognised and the public decides to do something about it. According to Grunig the idea is to communicate with an aware public before it actively opposes an organisation and becomes an activist public.
Thanks to Adriana at the Big Blog Company who reminded me about the Intelliseek report – Consumer Generated Media. This white paper describes how consumers use the internet to educate each other about products, brands, services, personalities and issues. This can be via a variety of channels, referred to as Consumer Generated Media (CGM) - online word-of-mouth vehicles, including but not limited to: consumer-to-consumer email, postings on public Internet discussion boards and forums, consumer ratings web sites or forums, blogs (short for weblogs, or digital diaries), moblogs (sites where users post digital images/photos/movies), social networking web sites and individual web sites.
The report points to the growing influence of the Internet in motivating Grunig’s publics: “In essence, the Internet has exponentially supercharged the concept of word-of-mouth behaviour, giving it a power that marketers have only begun to understand”, it adds: “The internet is significantly amplifying the power of brand apostles and owners, affording them many more venues and ‘megaphones’ for sharing their views with others.”

So who’s listening to this CGM?
The report suggests:
Consumers - Because it informs purchase, loyalty
Reporters - As it accelerates research and fact-finding
Analysts - Because it offers scoop/insight company won’t volunteer
Competitors - Allows them to exploit actual users of competitors’ products as “intelligence gatherers”
Regulators - Because vocal consumers provide leading indicator into future problems
Activists - As it helps reinforce/solidify a key position

The white paper from Intelliseek focuses on the marketing potential of the information available online, but in the context of the work done by Grunig on two-way communication as a Corp Comms tool, it seems the Internet provides an ideal tool for engaging these publics in a dialogue before they move to that all important activist stage?

Matt

(1) Grunig, J.E. & Hunt, T. (1984) Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

Political activism encouraged online

I wrote yesterday about Dan Gillmors book 'We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People' ( and mentioned the issue of the Internet and blogs providing a forum for citizens to become active Gillmor quotes the example of iCan, the BBCs attempt a promoting political activism.
So I was interested to come across more examples of similar sites being launched on BBC News today. In 'I will if you will' Tom Steinberg writes about his new project PledgeBank where people can pledge to do something if others do the same. For example:
"I'll set up a residents association for my street, but only if four other people will come to my house to talk about it."
Its the latest in a number of projects from Steinberg which include: FaxyourMP - a site which encourages people to write to their member of parliament, NotApathetic - where people can say why they didnt vote, and DowningStreetSays - where you can read unofficial versions of Downing Street briefings.
All these are great examples of how people are being re-engaged with the political process (with a large and small 'p') by the internet. Online communities are providing a good illustration of Grunigs situational theory of how publics move from being latent publics into becoming aware and active publics. (1)
Matt

(1) Grunig, J.E. & Hunt, T. (1984) Managing Public Relations. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston.

We the Media - Dan Gillmor. Blogs challenge mainstream media.

Books, newspapers, radio and television traditional media evolved, and with it the vested interests of big business and its own agenda.
Now the Internet is changing all that - grassroots journalists, or 'citizen journalists' as they are dubbed, are eroding the monopoly held by 'Big Media' on news and information.
This shift in how news is made and consumed is explored in some detail in 'We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People' (US link, UK Link) by Dan Gillmor. He's an established technology journalist in the US both traditional and new media. In the book he explores how this shift in power is affecting consumers, business and journalists.
The main thrust is that blogging is changing the face of the media, and that journalists and big media need to embrace this development rather than fight it. The new technology enables newsmakers to connect directly with the audience in many ways.
Gillmor explores what it means when more and more information is available to citizens he quotes many examples. One he cites is the BBC iCan site where the BBC brings together local campaigners to effect change in their local area it also happens to generate news stories for BBC outlets.
Gillmor believes the Internet will mean that in future, journalism: "will be more of a conversation, or a seminar. The lines will blur between producers and consumers changing the role of both."
Rather than fighting this shift, he suggests that big media should embrace it saying: "the readers know more than I do". He argues that input from citizens can strengthen established journalism and that readers can become co-authors.
Gillmor doesnt just stick with blogging he explores the power of the RSS feed, and how these new citizen journalists can get their content out there.
The book briefly considers the implications for big business, and corporate communications. If journalists cant get away with getting things wrong (think about the Dan Rather debacle), can corporations get away with being less than transparent? (Its something which could do with more exploration and has prompted some thought for my dissertation).
Gillmor is an out-and-out fan of blogging, and what it can do for journalism. There have been many claims made for the Internet, and how it will create fundamental shifts in the way that business operates. It seems that were only just beginning to see what it can do for the traditional media landscape. Gillmor gives us an insight into some of the possibilities here, and its an exciting future. Its well worth a read and raises interesting questions for all in Corporate Communications.

Matt

Google news ditches blogs over accuracy?

The Sunday Times ran an item about the growing behemoth that is Google this weekend Google: How big can it get?
What was interesting was a section in a side bar about Google News. It went on to say:

"One potential flaw is that the most recent stories are presented first, rather than the best or most authoritative versions. Google is working on an algorithm to rank the credibility of news organisations, to ensure that (for example) stories from Times Online rank ahead of bloggers and poorly funded newsletters."

So it seems Google too has been vexed by the trustworthiness of material online, and has come to the conclusion that the size of the media organisation equates to the credibility of what it writes. However, think back to the New York Times debacle this time last year, as covered here by CNN, and you may conclude that argument is be flawed.

Theres been much debate about the Google algorithm and how fair it is in prioritising content, the fact that its operation is mysterious seems to feed the speculation, and there have been studies on whether it introduces political bias.One of the conclusions is that there appears to be a trade-off between breadth of coverage and depth.
If you want you can view a live breakdown analysis of the sources used in the Google News front page.

It remains to be seen if Google News does rewrite the algorithm to rank for credibility, however if they do, were unlikely to know the workings behind it.

Matt

Does corporate blogging devalue blogs?

This morning (Sunday 12/6/05) BBC Radio 4s Broadcasting House programme ran an item about blogging and how business is getting involved:
"The world of weblogs, blogging to those in the know, used to be one where individuals reigned - but Chris Ledgard has been finding out how corporations have started to get in on the act, perhaps even the BBC."
It included the increasingly common tale of an employee sacked for blogging about work - in this case the salutory tale of Heather Armstrong of dooce.com - a web designer who was fired after writing about work.
The piece suggested that corporate blogging is 'not quite blogging', Award winning blogger Tom Coates, PlasticBag, suggested that the best people talking for companies are the people expert and familiar enough with their products to say something meaningful. He added that if a communications professional is hired to write about at company or product then the blogspere is going to be cynical.
The piece concluded that the clever thing for companies to do is to work with employees who want to write a blog. It quoted the case of Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield Farm yogurt, who employs a blogger and lets employees blog:
"It's only when we become humble and recognise that were just people selling to people that blogging will become the mainstream, companies how try to employer this tool to talk about how cute and wonderful we are going to fail. Tell it straight; share the dirty laundry as well as the good stuff."

matt

Believe the blog? What builds trust? What do readers understand?

In a comment on the previous post Trust the bloggers? Who can you believe online? Ben Haslem asks whether systems like those in place on Ebay would be of use in building trust in corporate web sites. - see Corporate Engagement. David Tebbutt also adds his own thoughts: "Chains of trust help. If someone I trust says they value someone else, the trust is inherited." He talks of links, word of mouth and referrals from sites like Technorati.
The current academic research into how people interpret and infer meaning from websites, chat rooms, bulletin boards or blogs, seems to be pretty limited. There has been some research focusing on how health information is presented to the public (1). This small-scale study investigated public trust in online medical information. The researchers developed a three-stage model of trust and primarily investigated the first two stages.
They found that users initially screen a web site assessing design, layout, colour, use of pop-up adverts, too much text, search facilities and corporate look. Secondly, users evaluated sites in more depth content becoming an influencing factor in trust. Sites which were sponsored by pharmaceutical companies or selling products were rejected at this stage.
It would seem that the consumer comprehension of content on the Internet is more sophisticated than simply using rating systems like that on Ebay. As David Tebbutt goes on to say: "If you arrive somewhere that appears good, maybe by following a Technorati pointer, surely you'd look around, to see what else they've written, who trackbacks to them, what sort of comments are made. All this is monumentally informative."

(1) Sillence, E., Briggs, P., Fishwick, L. & Harris, P., (2004) Trust and Mistrust of Online Health Sites. A paper presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems, April 24-29 2004, Vienna, Austria.

Trust the bloggers? Who can you believe online?

Dan Gilmor, in his book 'We the Media. Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People', asks whose information you can trust online? He concludes there is a lack of framework for establishing the veracity of information and the credibility of the author. He calls for: "A reliable reputation system world allow us to verity people and judge the veracity of the things they say based, in part, on what people we trust say about them."
There are already some systems in place for checking the reputation of individuals within online communities - look at the way eBay operates its ratings system. Would this be appropriate for sources of information online, or corporate web sites?
There is a common argument that the public are becoming increasingly media savvy - Guardian editor, Alan Rusbridger, used a lecture at the University of Central Lancashire to quote a variety of statistics which indicate that the public are getting progressively more cynical about the motives of public figures (1). However, others see little evidence for this claim, researchers in a report for the UK media regulator Ofcom warn: "Notwithstanding widespread speculation that the public has become increasingly 'media-savvy', it remains unclear how far rigorous evidence supports or qualifies this claim." (2)
So who can you trust online? Can readers distinguish between something written by a journalist, public relations practitioner, or a fellow consumer? If they can, do they lend different weight to the information?
Matt

(1) Rusbridger, A., (1999) Who can you trust? Aslib Proceedings, Vol 51 No 2, Feb 1999 pp37-45
(2) Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E., & Thumim, N., (2004) Adult Media Literacy. A report compiled by the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, for Ofcom

Will 'Citizen Journalists' win out over big business?

Dan Gilmor introduces the idea of 'Citizen Journalists' in his book - 'We the Media. Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People'. It introduces the concept that the Internet is democratising the producion of the media and he quotes examples of newspapers and web sites produced by the people who consume the media.
Dan Gilmour uses his book to explore the growing power of the 'citizen journalist' - However, he suggests that this poses both a risk and an opportunity for the corporate communications profession, and questions the validity of what can be found online:
"The growth of grassroots journalism has been accompanied by serious ethical issues, including veracity and outright deception. Are traditional values compatible with this new medium?"
In the UK though, a paper produced for the media regulator, Ofcom, goes on to pose the conundrum that the Internet is both democratic, and may yet prove undemocratic. The writers suggest that interactivity enables citizens to be senders as well as receivers of messages - thus undermining the power of the traditional gatekeeper of the media. (1)
So it seems the new wave of 'citizen journalism' may yet give way to dominant commercial players - who may win out in the end . This raises the concern that the Internet may prove undemocratic, and ultimately reduce the diversity of voices.
Matt

(1) Livingstone, S., Van Couvering, E., & Thumim, N., (2004) Adult Media Literacy. A report compiled by the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics, for Ofcom

Using Blogs to Build Direct Links to Public

Using Blogs to Build Direct Links to Public
Firms are turning to the format to bypass the media and get out their message 'unfiltered.'
From Los Angeles Times - 06/06/2005

When General Motors Corp. wanted to stop speculation this spring that it might eliminate its Pontiac and Buick brands, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz took his case directly to dealers and customers who were up in arms about the possibility.

He wrote about it on the company's weblog.

"The media coverage on the auto industry of late has done much to paint an ugly portrait of General Motors," began Lutz's entry on GM's FastLane Blog, which the company launched in January.

The March 30 entry went on to say that widely reported remarks he made to analysts the week before had been "taken out of context" and that the automaker would not shed the brands.

A growing number of companies are stepping softly into the blogosphere, following a path blazed by Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and others in the technology field.

The Internet journal format, they find, lets businesses expand their reach, generate product buzz and encourage consumer loyalty -- while bypassing traditional media.

"When we feel that we need to get a direct response out there, we've certainly got this bully pulpit to some extent," said Michael Wiley, GM's director of new media. "It's a place where we can talk directly to people unfiltered."

It's hard to quantify how many companies, executives and employees are blogging, but there are probably more than 100 official corporate blogs, with hundreds more in the works, said Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer for Intelliseek Inc., a company that analyzes and tracks blogs.

In addition to Lutz, other notable executives who pen public blogs include Richard Edelman, president and chief executive of the global PR firm Edelman, and Craig Newmark, founder of the online swap meet Craigslist.org.

Done well, corporate blogs can create good word of mouth among consumers who aren't reading business pages or thumbing through trade magazines.

The FastLane Blog gets between 150,000 and 200,000 unique visits a month, and Sun Microsystems President Jonathan Schwartz's blog gets 300,000 visits.

But bad blogging can easily backfire. Readers will pick up insincerity instantly.

"Don't go toward fake blogs. Don't launch character blogs. Use a blog for what it's for, transparency," said Steve Rubel, vice president of client services at CooperKatz & Co., a New York public relations firm.

Rubel follows blog news on his blog, Micro Persuasion, and runs his company's unit of the same name, advising clients on blogging and on podcasting, the suddenly fashionable creation of downloadable person-to-person broadcasts.

He and other PR professionals can rattle off blogs gone wrong -- usually "fake blogs" that stir up the ire of bloggers by hiding the fact that they are really ad campaigns, such as one that McDonald's posted in advance of a Super Bowl campaign about a Lincoln-shaped French fry.

Blogs that smack of press releases won't do the job, Rubel said. He tells clients to see what's out there about their company or industry, then decide whether they want to engage bloggers or even start their own blogs.

One executive praised for his no-holds-barred approach to blogging is Schwartz, who started Jonathan's Blog about a year ago. Sun also encourages its employees to blog, and about 2,000 do.

For Schwartz, a blog was the natural way to reach out to the software developer community that Sun seeks to attract, an audience that regularly turns to blogs for information anyway. Schwartz often uses the format to criticize analysts and rivals.

A post Schwartz wrote last August claiming Hewlett-Packard Co. had abandoned an HP operating system, for example, resulted in a cease-and-desist letter from the company -- which Schwartz promptly referenced and linked to on his blog.

"At the end of the day, the job of any good leader at any corporation is to communicate," Schwartz said. "The hallmark of companies that will find blogs useful is the company that cares about its perception ... and the integrity of its relationship with its customers."

Companies that decide to enter the blogosphere should set up some rules, Rubel said. Key is making sure bloggers don't reveal proprietary or financial information -- a lesson learned by former Google employee Mark Jen, who was famously fired after gabbing about life at the company on his personal blog, which was not sanctioned by Google.

Jen, now a software producer at Plaxo Inc., helped develop the information management company's blogging policy. He says that as long as companies are prepared to deal with the sometimes harsh comments left by visitors, corporate blogs are a great tool for raising company profiles.

At GM, Lutz receives dozens of comments on each of his entries, ranging from "I drive a Buick and have for years. I love the brand!" to "Yawn!! Buick. Uhhhhh, does anybody buy Buick anymore?"

Visitors also have alternately praised Lutz for his candor and accused him of letting his PR department write the blog.

Wiley said opening the GM blog to comments was a source of concern, but executives ultimately decided that comments were key to having a two-way conversation with customers. He said comments were edited only to remove profanity or personal attacks.

As for Lutz's entries, Wiley said that he and an outside PR firm gave Lutz suggestions for topics and did light editing, but the words and thoughts were Lutz's.

A main goal of the blog is to keep the 97-year-old automaker culturally relevant, Wiley said.

"GM isn't always considered to be on the forefront of cultural trends," he said. "By getting in at the forefront of a communication trend ... being a part of that kind of gives you a fresh image."

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times
All Rights Reserved
Date: 06/06/2005

Media: The bloggers have all the best news

Media: The bloggers have all the best news: In America, the first major study of web diaries reveals that they are shaping the political landscape like never before, but what of their British counterparts?

From Guardian - 06/06/2005
Owen Gibson

The former CBS anchor Dan Rather last year experienced at first hand the power of the blogosphere. After his controversial report on the clouds over George W Bush's military service, US bloggers from both sides of the political spectrum swarmed all over the story.

And after the White House released the relevant memos, which had purportedly been written by Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard, it was the blogging community that was credited with leading the news agenda as it speculated on their provenance. Two weeks later, CBS announced that the man who supplied the documents had admitted lying about their authenticity and Rather was forced to publicly apologise.

The furore around "Rathergate" brought the blogging phenomenon to the fore during the presidential election as well, and gave rise to a slew of newspaper stories suggesting that a seismic shift was taking place in the American media landscape. Could blogs, they asked, become the fifth estate?

In an effort to test that hypothesis, researchers from the respected Pew Internet & American Life Project have conducted the first in-depth academic study of 40 of the biggest and most respected political blogs and the extent to which they influence and are influenced by other media.

"We tracked not just the political blogs but also what the US mass media was saying and what general internet chatrooms were saying," explains Michael Cornfield, the senior research consultant on the project, named Buzz, Blogs and Beyond.

Its results show that bloggers are generally following another agenda, whether that of a political party or another medium, but also highlights the extent to which they can now influ ence the mainstream media on certain topics. "Sometimes blogs lead and can be very influential and other times they're followers," he says. While it remains too early to tell how the medium will develop, he says, the report offers an intriguing glimpse of how bloggers are starting to shape the US news agenda.

Rathergate showed that when bloggers were able to access primary evidence in the same way as newspaper journalists, they could run with a story. "One of the reasons they were so influential was because they were able to put up what they called 'the smoking memo'," says Cornfield, referring to a version of a document reconstructed using Word, and suggesting it had been faked.

"In one sense it's classic investigative journalism but what's new is that the clues are out there in the open. It would be as if the Watergate tapes themselves were online and we could all listen to them and hyperlink to them. This is the change."

According to the study, there are now "A-list" bloggers in the US, such as Andrew Sullivan and Buzz Machine's Jeff Jarvis, who are capable of setting the news agenda because they are habitually referred to by journalists in the mass media who rely on them to break stories. "Journalists, activists and political decision-makers have learned to consult political blogs as a guide to what is going on in the rest of the internet," the report notes.

Accordingly, for a certain breed of US political animal, blogs now perform the same function as mass market portals do for the rest of us - sifting and disseminating the morass of material on the web and pointing to interesting stories and primary sources elsewhere.

However, Cornfield also thinks it is important not to overstate the impact of blogs on political life. Apart from the relatively few and far between "swarms" such as Rathergate, he believes that blogs have had a limited impact on the national conversation. "The influence and impact of blogging has been felt much more by journalists than by politicians," he says, pointing out that a group such as the Swift Boat Veterans had a far greater impact on the election than the blogosphere.

The report notes that a number of other potential scandals - such as the apparent bulge in President Bush's jacket during the first presidential debate - failed to ignite in the same way. "For a conversation to acquire the intense simultaneity of buzz, and for buzz to register with force in public affairs, requires a number of other factors to be present, few of which are likely to be at the disposal of a single blogger, or even a blogging collective, ready to activate at will," it concludes.

Also, Cornfield says, the power of a particular blogger can quickly "wax and wane" depending on how hot a particular news story is and how much information they are able to acquire from other sources. On their own, the power of bloggers remains "circumstantial and contingent", the report argues.

In the UK, there was a feeling that the general election would provide domestic blogs with a similar spark to Rathergate. There was no shortage of primary material, such as the attorney -general's advice on the war in Iraq, but there was little sense that the internet impinged on the mainstream media.

While Belle de Jour got the mainstream media speculating on her (or his) identity, and the likes of Scary Duck greatly amuse, there is a sense that the Americans take their blogging more seriously than we do. With the odd exception (Guido Fawkes' Order-Order.com and Mick Fealty's Slugger O'Toole blog on Northern Ireland for example), there is little heavyweight comment and it is rare to see a blog break a story or substantially move it on.

One of the most persuasive theories for this contrast is the far more rambunctious nature of the British national and regional press compared to the mostly regional, generally staid, US titles. So, the argument goes, American bloggers are fulfilling a need for a heated national conversation among competing viewpoints, whereas we can arouse much the same feelings of empathy or revulsion by reading Richard Littlejohn or Polly Toynbee.

For all that, Neil McIntosh, the assistant editor of Guardian Unlimited (responsible for introducing a series of blogs allied to this newspaper), says that a breakthrough Rathergate moment is inevitable sooner or later. "You'd be daft to say never. All that it takes is someone to see that a properly produced Private Eye-style blog would work brilliantly on the web. You'll get something like that in Britain." Cornfield also points to evidence of bloggers mobilising the "No" vote in the French referendum on the EU constitution as proof that it just takes the right kind of issue to spark interest.

Meanwhile, Cornfield notes a new threat to the burgeoning number of influential one-man-band political bloggers in the US - the growing tendency for mainstream media to cotton on to the possibilities. "If everyone blogs, what about that fictional soap-box blogger in Hyde Park? Who knows whether they'll be able to keep their mainsteam audience or they'll be pushed to the edge," he says. And given the pace of change online, it is entirely likely that a new technology will come along and supersede the blog, he adds. "Not many people are going to dive into a 300-page document, but they're more likely to dive into a two-page document. And once homemade video content takes off and is shared, they're perhaps even more likely to dive into that."

Copyright 2005 Guardian Newspapers Limited
Date: 06/06/2005

DIY media - print, radio etc.

The amazing rise of the do-it-yourself economy
From Fortune - 30/05/2005 (1479 words)
Daniel Roth

IT'S DOUBTFUL THAT STEVE JOBS EVER FACED these kinds of interruptions. "Daddy, I want to take a picture," says Owen Misterovich, motioning to a digital camera on his father's desk. "Okay," says Pat Misterovich, handing it to his 5-year-old son, who proceeds to snap a few self-portraits. Then it's back to the work at hand: producing the next great MP3 music player. Only instead of the simple, elegant lines of the iPod, Misterovich's device will look just like a Pez dispenser. Oh, and instead of working from a corporate campus in Cupertino, Calif., with nearly 12,000 employees, Misterovich is a stay-at-home dad, creating his Pez MP3 player from the basement of his Springfield, Mo., home.

Misterovich is the former head of IT at the University of Detroit Mercy. He has few of the engineering skills necessary to build a device like this, no marketing experience, and absolutely no corporate infrastructure. And yet he's got two factories--one in China, one in the U.S.--vying to build the player. He has a small Austin company started by an ex-Apple engineer designing the innards. And on his blog, pezmp3.com, he uses prospective buyers--some 1,500 people have already expressed interest--as an R&D-center-meets-focus-group. What's better, he asks, AAA batteries or Li-Ion? In come dozens of replies ("Go for the AAA with a USB NiMh recharger if possible," suggests one reader). What's a good slogan? Some 50 ideas roll in (one of the best: "Candy for your ears"). By the end of this month the first prototype should be in Misterovich's hands. "I don't know that this product could have come to life years ago," he says. "I seriously doubt it. And if it did, it wouldn't have come through a guy in his basement."

It used to be that a tinkerer like Misterovich could, at best, hope to sell his idea to a big company. More likely, he'd entertain friends with his Pez-sized visions. But a number of factors are coming together to empower amateurs in a way never before possible, blurring the lines between those who make and those who take. Unlike the dot-com fortune hunters of the late 1990s, these do-it-yourselfers aren't deluding themselves with oversized visions of what they might achieve. Instead, they're simply finding a way--in this mass-produced, Wal-Mart world--to take power back, prove that they can make the products that they want to consume, have fun doing so, and, just maybe, make a few dollars. "What's happened is a tremendous change in awareness," says Eric von Hippel, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the recent Democratizing Innovation. "Conventional wisdom is so strong (in business) about find-a-need-and-fill-it: 'We're the manufacturers; we design products; we ask users what they need; we do it.' That has begun to crack."

Numerous currents have converged to produce this reaction. Bloggers, those do-it-yourself journalists, showed big media that the barriers to entry (like owning a printing press, say) didn't much matter. Podcasters took radio into their own hands, creating audio shows and putting them online. Amateur music producers, using software that was once the province only of major labels, invented mash-ups: combining songs into totally new ones, then giving them away or selling them. And with the advent of services like Google AdSense, which let people easily put advertising on their sites, these tinkerers could--while not vaulting themselves into Bill Gates territory--at least break even.

"Before, only the rich had access to tools and so only the rich were professionals, and the rest were amateurs," says Noah Glass, the co-founder of Odeo, which offers a free service for making, hosting, and distributing podcasts. "But now, as the creation tools have become easier to use and more freely distributed through open source, through the Internet, through awareness, more people have more access to more tools, so the whole amateur-professional dichotomy is dissolving."

Citizen engineers are taking this even further, trying their hand not just in the digital world but in the physical world too. Much as eBay transformed distribution, they're redefining design and manufacture. The infrastructure is there: Yahoo Groups make it easier for people to trade ideas and learn quickly; free or cheap computer-aided-design (CAD) programs allow users to cobble together blueprints; and inexpensive manufacturing in China allows the idea to go from file to factory. There are even websites like Alibaba.com that will help these small-timers find Chinese factories eager for their work, meaning that the amateur nation has its own Match.com.

This may seem like a lot of effort to, say, create a funny-looking MP3 player. But that's not this group's ethos. "DIYers do things for irrational reasons," says Saul Griffith. "If it's your passion and your love, you don't count how many hours you spend doing it. That's why so many of these things end up being great."

Griffith should know. A dedicated kite-surfer--the sport involves riding a small board through water while attached to a parachute-like "kite"--he was unhappy with the goods on the market. In 2001 he started Zeroprestige.com, a website where he posted his kite designs. Soon other amateurs submitted their own concepts, and sail manufacturers with excess capacity offered to make kites from the plans. The amateur designers kept coming back to make exactly what they wanted to buy. And though no one got rich, a few small businesses popped up to sell the finished products. Since then, kites have become commodities, but Griffith hasn't let go of the spirit. His four-person engineering company, Squid Labs, is launching a site this summer tentatively called iFabricate, "a Wikipedia for atoms," he says, referring to the user-created online encyclopedia. Do-it-yourselfers of all stripes will be able to go to the site to trade ideas and work together, get easy access to programs for manipulating materials, and eventually use it to pool their resources for buying raw materials from suppliers.

A few large companies, too, are finding ways to tap into the movement. While most of the leading-edge DIYers view open-source software as their inspiration, Microsoft sees a role for itself. The company's Visual Studio Express software--slated for official release later this year--is designed to bring coding to the masses. Microsoft is also talking about working with things like Phidgets, inexpensive, easily manipulated electronic parts like RFID components--a radio chip expected to supplant the bar code--that would allow you to, say, make your own keyless home-entry system. Microsoft estimates there are six million professional developers and 18 million amateurs: hobbyists, tinkerers, students. The company hopes to make Visual Studio Express the Esperanto of amateur builders. Brian Keller, product manager for Visual Studio, says he looks forward to the day when "my mom can sit down and watch a video and learn how to build an RFID reader for herself."

For those moms who can't wait for the video, publisher O'Reilly Media recently launched what has already become the bible of this new movement, a magazine called Make. It features page after page of geeked-out--but not unachievable--how-tos; the latest issue details the finer points of crafting your own printed circuitboard or building your own teleprompter (anticipating the inevitable rise of video blogging). O'Reilly initially estimated that it could snare about 10,000 people willing to pay the steep $ 35 a year for the quarterly. Now, four months after the launch--and with almost no advertising--it already has 25,000 subscribers.

To be fair, all this amateur energy isn't exactly a new force. When exciting technologies emerge, Americans have always pounced and created something original. In his 1936 New Yorker article "Farewell, My Lovely," E.B. White eulogized the Model T and the creativity it inspired in its owners: "When you bought a Ford, you figured you had a start--a vibrant, spirited framework to which could be screwed an almost limitless assortment of decorative and functional hardware Gadget bred gadget. Owners not only bought ready-made gadgets, they invented gadgets to meet special needs." The difference today is simply the technology, says University of Virginia technology historian Bernie Carlson: "I would call it the Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau theme, that it's as important to produce as it is to consume."

And so Misterovich, from his not-quite-Walden, keeps at his goal of building the kind of MP3 player that he wants to carry around. One with a collectible head and AAA batteries and a user-created slogan. And even if he pulls it off, it's doubtful that he'll get rich. That's fine with him. The purpose in the amateur economy isn't always the same as in the big-company economy. "My main goal is not to lose my house," he says. "You put it on the line and you want to be rewarded. But when it comes down to it, I just don't want to go broke. It's an amateur attitude--you're doing it for the love." ?

FEEDBACK droth@fortunemail.com

Copyright 2005 Time Inc.
Date: 30/05/2005
Publication: Fortune

The People's News Source

The People's News Source
From Time - 06/06/2005
Donald Macintyre/ Seoul., With reporting by Yooseung Kim/Seoul

When Korean university student Chang Je Hyung did a brief stint at Samsung's office in Berlin last year, it made him angry. He had to help prepare a holiday trip to Germany for chairman Lee Kun Hee and his family. According to Chang, dozens of Samsung employees spent two months sweating over details of the private visit, even going to fancy restaurants to try out food the chairman might eat. Instead of tipping off the mainstream media, Chang sent a first-person account to online newspaper OhmyNews earlier this year. It created a sensation.

Chalk up another scoop for OhmyNews, the feisty phenomenon that is rewriting the rules for Korean media and, if founder Oh Yeon Ho has his way, may soon be doing the same outside Korea as well. Part blog, part professional news agency, OhmyNews gets up to 70% of its copy from some 38,000 "citizen reporters" like Chang--basically anyone with a story and a laptop to write it on. Editors vet the articles, rejecting nearly one-third. Launched in 2000, it has snowballed into a kind of raucous online mall for Korea's wired younger generation--a place to get news, absorb the buzz or just hang out. It is also giving young Koreans a political voice, upending the conservative traditional media models of their parents' generation.

Oh isn't ready to stop there. An English-language edition launched last year draws on more than 300 "world citizen reporters," and he wants to have 10,000 by next year. He's getting ready to launch OhmyNews in Japanese this year and is eyeing a Chinese version. The vision: turn OhmyNews into the world's water cooler, where anybody can talk about issues like global warming and North Korean nukes. Says Oh: "OhmyNewsshould be the epicenter of world public opinion."

Sounds ambitious, but the website is already extremely influential at home. After two schoolgirls were crushed to death in 2002 by a U.S. military vehicle, OhmyNews provided blanket coverage, triggering widespread demonstrations against the U.S. troop presence. As South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun rode the surge of anti-U.S. sentiment to victory in the 2002 election, OhmyNews portrayed him as the voice of the younger generation. Roh gave his first exclusive interview as President to the online upstart.

With Wikipedia offering a similar citizens' news service, OhmyNews won't be alone in international cyberspace. But Oh has already pulled off a trick that has proved elusive for many other online media outlets: turned a profit. OhmyNews says it made about $ 400,000 last year, more than two-thirds from advertising. Mainstream media will be watching closely--as will big conglomerates with anything to hide. --By Donald Macintyre/ Seoul. With reporting by Yooseung Kim/Seoul

Copyright 2005 Time Inc.
Date: 06/06/2005