Sure, it's tempting to have some fun with early drafts of your article or PR release: insert a joking comment for the other reviewers, or use a playful headline as a placeholder until you can think up a "real" one. At times like these, try to keep in... Read More

I'm in Bellevue attending Microsoft's Worldwide PR Summit, an annual meeting of its PR leads and key agencies from around the globe. Aside from back-to-back sessions on PR housekeeping matters, we also get insights from some of the... Read More

One interesting consideration occurs to me while I'm here at the Microsoft Worldwide PR Summit. During the week there's been alot of discussion about how we as PR practitioners interact with and manage, new and emerging channels for... Read More

Being slightly reclusive by nature, last week's Microsoft Worldwide PR Summit was one of the few times I spend much time with counterparts from other PR agencies. Microsoft has a strong hand of agencies supporting it, so its interesting to compare notes... Read More

Lifehacker has a great story on some guys trying to build a start up business for just $500. Their idea - Weblogwire - looks like it may be relevant to anyone working in PR, or who has an interest in blogging. You can get outline details on their own... Read More

Following on from Siobhan's post on PR 101 tools and lazy journalism colluding to serve up ropy stories to consumers. I'd ask the question, so will bloggers be able to keep vendors and traditional media honest? Maybe, if the experience of a recent... Read More

Fig. 1 - The KeyGhost board, which Dell does not install in its computers. Earlier, Siobhan wondered if Dell would address rumors about keystroke logging on the company's new blog. It has, and quite succinctly:Keyghost just won't die.  Just so we're... Read More

Guy Kewney uses the Reg for a justified rant at Suited Phoneys, the internally focused, corporate ladder climbers who are to journalists both content and interest free. Guy obviously suffered a hot and sweaty time at the Farnborough Air... Read More

Last week Edelman lost its virtuous positioning among the bloggerati with the saga of its Wal-Mart blog - or indeed Flog as we now know it should be called. Uncovering the inside story on the blog has drawn an ugly reaction from the anti-Wal-Mart... Read More

Nah, of course not. We all know where bears go... and Monday we finally got confirmation it was indeed as we suspected. On Monday Edelman broke its silence on the Wal-Mart blog story that has exercised the blogging and PR communities. I was travelling... Read More

Yesterday, sitting among a gathering of the great and the good of UK tech PR (well the ones that work for the client who had pulled us together into a meeting, five agencies no less, all proper players, all the top talent in the room). The topic of making... Read More

James Governor takes a worthwhile tour around how the major tech firms currently engage with bloggers. James isn't quite the typical blogger, of course, so his experience is slightly different to the average Joe Blogger. But its an insightful snapshot... Read More

Technorati's Dave Sifry publishes the latest State of the Blogosphere commentary. Its worth reading. There's lots on growth, spam, splogs, etc, which is all good to know, but sort of taken as read - what surprised and / or interested me, was:... Read More

...the world's leading... a UK-based, Tech PR gossip site is in danger of joining me in sensible middle age. Recent posts have demonstrated a healthy dose of commonsense about the fluffy world of PR. Here commenting upon the burden of excessive... Read More

Ahead of the launch of Office 2007, Microsoft Australia has wangled local vernacular into the Office 2007 dictionary. No more squiggly red underlining when Aussies type in the word Bogaroo. I like this idea. Yes, its obviously a PR tactic but its harmless... Read More

Must be getting crowded over in Second Life. No sooner had Sam Palmisano and IBM taken up residence, as described in BusinessWeek Online, than Silicon.com reports Michael Dell is joining them with his own Dell island (not sure if Michael has... Read More

Via Slashdot: Paul McNamara of NetworkWorld reports that PR agency Rocket Science* tried to generate some publicity for anti-spam software company Singlefin by sending unsolicited mass e-mail messages to journalists - in some cases, using addresses of... Read More

Paul McNamara of NetworkWorld wrote to tell us that Rocket Science has nobly stepped forward to admit that it goofed up, and apologize.The PR agency recently sent unsolicited mass e-mail messages to journalists to promote its client, a spam-fighting... Read More

PR agency Ricochet Public Relations has named and shamed its client as being the source of incorrect information passed on to the media. In a rare outbreak of responsibility in the PR world, Ricochet didn't fall on its sword for the client. Nor did it fudge... Read More

Inspired by Steve Grant's report from the E3 videogame show, I'll be attending the Penny Arcade Expo in Bellevue, WA the weekend after next. I'm very excited about the panels "Forums, Blogs and Fanbois: The Role of Community and PR in the Game Industry"... Read More

Discount airline company Ryanair posted this photo on its website today with the caption, "NEW AIRPORT SECURITY PROCEDURES PUT FUN BACK INT0 FLYING"Fig. 1 - Unhappy naked people in an airportThe Guardian reports that Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary (joined... Read More

I had a great time, learned a lot, met cool people, had my mind blown several times, and embarrassed myself in a multiplayer Castle Crashers game by hitting the wrong buttons on the game controller. (Hey, I roll old school, all right? In my day we... Read More

Kotaku's take, and Joystiq's take.My favorite comment on Kotaku: "40+ year old balding white men hate blogs."You hear that, Steve Rubel? Give up this charade: The blogosphere is ON TO YOU.While we're on the subject, I'd like to give shout outs to Kotaku's... Read More

Another panel of interest that I attended at the 2006 Penny Arcade Expo was "Forums, Blogs and Fanbois: The Role of Community and PR in the Game Industry". Here are my notes from the event. Although the discussion focuses on gaming fans and game development,... Read More

In this post BL Ochman continues to breathe life into the Edelman/Wal-Mart debacle (judging by the number of comments interest is tailing off). Here's a snippet: The theme here is PR agency cluelessness about new media. And here to the bandwagon response... Read More

Steve Rubel opened up a discussion about the demise of the page view as the defining metric for online media sales. I agree. In a separate life, over five years ago now, I helped start up a successful community site that is funded through online... Read More

Jason Calacanis thinks so. He is on a crusade to out PR/marketing agencies who he suspects are paying top Digg-ers to recommend clients products. He has called for support in outing these companies and even put up a nominal $100 reward for information... Read More

Following on from Andrew's post from LeWeb3 about delegates' discontent with the political agendas that hijacked the event, the explosion of discontent continues to ripple outwards through various blogs and posted images. I don't know Loic... Read More

Fourteen A-list bloggers spent 60 minutes in the company. I found reports of the event from Niall Kennedy, Michael Arrington, Steve Rubel, Molly Holzschlag, Liz Gannes and Chris Pirillo. In terms of the PR mechanics of this experiment... Read More

Microsoft has sparked another ethics debate for bloggers (or is it the same debate coming round again?). Either way, its a very familiar question to anyone working in tech PR: what's a review machine and what's a freebie? Microsoft... Read More

The Inquirer offers a good perspective into the Microsoft blogging 'scandal'. If you don't have time to read the full story, the clue is in the headline: Microsoft Ferrari furore is a load of old tosh. Although the sub head is pretty good too: Bloggers... Read More

Martin Moore starts the ball rolling here, Jeff Jarvis adds his bit - here - and the ..the world's leading... adds more of the same here. And my recent experiences are that they are bang on the money. Which is an uncomfortable point of view... Read More

Fascinating discussion between Jeff Jarvis and Richard Edelman debating the future of PR agencies and whether the traditional agency approach is sustainable in a social media enabled environment. Jeff floats the concept of The Inside Out Agency in... Read More

Whenever anyone asks me for examples of marketing campaigns I admire, my mind goes blank. Next time I'm asked, I'll remember to give credit to The Best Job in the World. Whoever at Queensland Tourism, or their agency, came up with the basic idea and... Read More

From Microsoft PressPass:Microsoft Legal Action Aims to Help Fight PiracyTwenty lawsuits allege illegal software sales, while new forensic analysis shows risks of counterfeit Microsoft software to consumers and businesses.REDMOND, Wash. — Sept. 19,... Read More

This is a bit of a me-centric post but then its not everyday you change the name of the company you founded 18 years ago (myself, Clare and Paul). So bear with it. Officially Monday we change our name. For eighteen years we have been Write Image, on... Read More

Apologies for this blog going further up the cul de sac of self interest but to answer some questions... When selecting a new name we specifically set ourselves the following six requirements: No puns No risk of legal trauma No flaky meaning to... Read More

USA Today has a good wrap up on current legal cases around libel and blogging. It serves as a salutary reminder that while you may think you blog in a virtual world, your home and other assets exist in the real world. The one with all those lawyers.... Read More

(UPDATE 10/11/06 - the statistics were updated before the poster hit the presses. Revised image above.) Wow. Okay, cats and kittens, what do you think of this campaign?We got this image and an accompanying press release from a PR agency on behalf of a... Read More

You mean you haven't heard of Jonathan Coulton? C'mon! Surely you've heard his music on podcasts like the Little Gray Book Lectures, or Escape Pod.Or you've spotted his CafePress t-shirts.Maybe you've read his blog, where he collaborates with his readers... Read More

Following on from some recent posts - my Friday evening moan and the KFC rats story - Jeremiah provides a more constructive commentary on these and other recent 'ugly' aspects of social media. The pertinent question is what are we each learning from... Read More

A couple of weeks ago Robert Scoble opined that Microsoft was learning a PR lesson from the hype surrounding the iPhone: Don't talk about what you're doing. Steve Jobs is MANUFACTURING great PR by keeping everyone’s mouth shut. Heck, I’ve met some... Read More

I'm delighted to learn that Jon Silk, Head of Creative Media Services at LEWIS PR and former scourge of cloggers, is blogging energetically again at copypunk. Jon's new blog contains an impressive amount of Wil... Read More

In his post Covering an Apple press event, Robert Scoble offers sage advice on how to get your coverage noticed. The bad news is that it requires a team of four to five people: "TechMeme will never link to video, streamed or otherwise, so if you’re... Read More

Thanks to the generosity of a co-worker's friend, I was able to drop by during setup at the PAX exhibit hall last night. (While I was there I passed Gabe and made eye contact with Tycho, but <del>chickened out</del> decided not to talk... Read More

Tech PR copywriter The Friendly Ghost has created a "relentlessly functional" tool using free Zoho Creator online database software. The Friendly Ghost Social Media Resource tracks PR social media knowledge, both theory and proof, and the Friendly... Read More

Readers of the BBC News Website are invited to submit questions for Microsoft's Chairman, who will answer them at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Maybe someone will ask him, "If I give my personal data to a social network,... Read More

This is how it's done. At 7:30 AM Cory Doctorow writes a post on BoingBoing about a reader's difficulty with Amazon's MP3 downloads, and the bewildering response from customer service. At 3:17 PM, an Amazon employee on the MP3 development team leaves... Read More

I really liked this post by Jennifer Leggio describing her least favourite social media marketing campaigns so far this year. The old rules rule so to speak. Don't make lame gags about sex and death (House, Quiznos), don't insult your audience... Read More

Two contenders are jostling for the title of Most Out of Touch Organization on the Planet this week: Chrysler - its senior execs have been happy to manufacture hulking dinosaur vehicles for decades, trousering huge pay packets and flying the world in... Read More

Metia's London Influence business just came out top of PR Week's Top 40 Technology Consultancies, which is great news. Basically we grew in the period in question, and since then our Influence business has also scooped up some new clients like LG... Read More

The BBC's Rory Cellan-Jones explains why Twitter can't be ignored by both the media and PR professionals here. Neither is Twitter a complete answer, of course. And yes, there is a law of diminishing returns that surrounds the time invested in it.... Read More

In this Reuters article - Tech Firms Tune into Social Media to Reach Consumers - NetApps says it plans to spend 20 per cent of its PR budget on social media. If NetApps were really radical, they would be planning to spend 20 per cent of their advertising... Read More

Last week I had to explain to PR Week why we weren't providing information for the 2009 PR Agency League Tables. This is how I explained our position. Hi Cathy   Apologies for the delay it has taken us to get to this stage – but we won’t be... Read More

Earlier this week Sun Microsystems collected a hatful of criticism for the manner in which it announced 6,000 job cuts. Here e-Consultancy's Chris Lake gives a pithy summary. In mitigation of Sun, I suspect they won't be the last to try and cushion bad... Read More

Another PR Guy faux pas captured here on the Videogaming247.com blog. Basically Eidos' PR Agency, Barrington Harvey, have tried to impose an embargo on publishing reviews of Tomb Raider Underworld - that scored the game lower than an 8/10... Read More

I've posted my notes from the Blog Business Summit on this site as articles, because as posts they were just too long.I've cleaned them up a bit but they're still a little rough. But they're notes, right? Not transcripts. However, if you attended the... Read More

Following on the heels of Steve in his recent post, I want to talk briefly about PR firm Edelman's entry into the online world of Second Life. (Executive summary: I like it.)Fig, 1 - Edelman's strangely foreboding SL headquartersIn my mind, I have a rough... Read More

Al Gore may have invented the Internet and Howard Dean may have discovered how to use it to organize supporters and raise campaign funds; but I think we're seeing Web 2.0's maturity as a political tool at the Web site of Tom Vilsack, Iowa governor and... Read More

Behold the new face of terror! These battery powered light displays were installed at public locations in 10 American cities two weeks ago as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yesterday Boston... Read More

In my last post about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force/Boston bomb scare, I declared the campaign a "win for the client". That, of course, was before the client's parent company paid $2 million in restitution and compensation to the affected cities and various... Read More

Link to videoJetBlue CEO and founder David Neeleman takes to the Intertubes to address JetBlue customers. He promises major changes at the company, including a Passenger Bill of Rights. (Extreme weather conditions last week led to massive delays and stranded... Read More

Over at Information Week, Cory Doctorow points out that the Web is really, really good at humiliating companies that fail to perform as promised (computer techs falling asleep on customers' couches, rats in the kitchen at KFC, etc.). But how can companies... Read More

Sadly, I wasn't able to post to this blog from South by Southwest Interactive 2007. However, I did update Twitter frequently using my mobile phone. So if you were watching Twitter you knew, for example, that I was at one point tossed into the back of... Read More

Compared to a couple of years back, I have less and less enthusiasm for wasting time contributing to the noise around which type of agency is best placed to serve and support the growing social media arena.  The latest example is this... Read More

Couple of interesting contributions to the ongoing discussion about what PR will look like in the future. They are from quite different perspectives too, one an ex FT journalist now earning a living via new media, the other from the head of a global PR... Read More

              Strange how easy it is to build very niche, very deep areas of specialization (if you have the aptitude). For many years we have been engaged on a number of pan-European PR and AR programs with... Read More

With all the controversy around Jay-Z's appearance at Glastonbury this year, I listened briefly to the news this morning to find out how he went down. The results - at least through the traditional channels - were disappointing. BBC sat on the fence... Read More

Trivial to some perhaps but I can't let it pass - whoever told Hillary and Barack to get it on together in Unity deserves a medal. Every story I have seen led with this angle. PRs (assuming it was a PR) get kicked left right and centre, especially in... Read More

Different industries adopt and apply technology at different speeds. Summize.com and search for SEPA or MiFiD, nothing or next to nothing. SIBOS nothing, SIFMA a few odds and ends, ... Read More

A couple of weeks ago Robert Scoble opined that Microsoft was learning a PR lesson from the hype surrounding the iPhone: Don't talk about what you're doing. Steve Jobs is MANUFACTURING great PR by keeping everyone’s mouth shut. Heck, I’ve met some... Read More

I'm delighted to learn that Jon Silk, Head of Creative Media Services at LEWIS PR and former scourge of cloggers, is blogging energetically again at copypunk. Jon's new blog contains an impressive amount of Wil... Read More

Its one of those questions that every PR gets asked by their client. Novices will bluster something about journalistic scruples and confidentiality. Veterans will advise that there is no such thing as off the record. But the question keeps coming... Read More

I'd never heard of Phorm until it got embroiled in the broader debate about control of personal data derived from web usage. I had even listened to a Tim Berners Lee interview on this topic where, reportedly, he was obliquely criticizing Phorm but... Read More

Having glibly introduced the subject of Phorm in the previous post, I spent a little longer looking at the storm brewing around it. Its interesting on a number of levels. Phorm looks to be following Dell's well trodden path to online purgatory. Of course,... Read More

Up against it today. So, not much time to comment on these stories that caught my eye recently. Blogs can sometimes be just so much more lipstick on the proverbial pig. Jeff Jarvis rails against Wal-Mart. The lesson: companies are judged... Read More

Another reason to be jealous of Cristiano Ronaldo - as if the salary, the medals and all the awards weren't enough - now its official, your girlfriend probably fancies him. According to 12,000 European women, Ronaldo is the hottest property... Read More

I was a bit disappointed by this piece in the Independent - Measuring PR success by column inches is old hat – welcome to a new analysis. I get the Independent at home, so think its generally a sound read. Apparently the breaking news is that Advertising... Read More

I'm just back from holiday but luckily I see Charles Arthur at the Guardian published a great summary of the latest news on Phorm, which I aimed to track before a week of skiing took precedence. Aside from the ins and outs of the financials, and the... Read More

In his post Covering an Apple press event, Robert Scoble offers sage advice on how to get your coverage noticed. The bad news is that it requires a team of four to five people: "TechMeme will never link to video, streamed or otherwise, so if you’re... Read More

We recently pitched for a very large PR account. We lost. But that was fine because we really enjoyed it. It was a better experience to lose that pitch than many we have won. It was quite a process. First they qualified out nine agencies. Then they invited... Read More

Thanks to the generosity of a co-worker's friend, I was able to drop by during setup at the PAX exhibit hall last night. (While I was there I passed Gabe and made eye contact with Tycho, but <del>chickened out</del> decided not to talk... Read More

Tech PR copywriter The Friendly Ghost has created a "relentlessly functional" tool using free Zoho Creator online database software. The Friendly Ghost Social Media Resource tracks PR social media knowledge, both theory and proof, and the Friendly... Read More

Every now and again stir up PR agencies (preferably on a Friday afternoon). Then sit back and watch the response. Tags: Tom Foremski, PR is dead (again)... Read More

Something a bit strange about following the wise words of Forrester's marketing team blog over many months, and then finding someone from a PR agency - Chris Thilk of MWW - suddenly joining the conversation on the site. All completely transparent... Read More

The Metia Influence team is shortlisted for PR Week's not-for-profit campaign of the year in its 2007 Awards. If you subscribe you can see more here. This amuses me. Not for profit PR campaign. I hope that word doesn't get out this is our... Read More

Readers of the BBC News Website are invited to submit questions for Microsoft's Chairman, who will answer them at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Maybe someone will ask him, "If I give my personal data to a social network,... Read More

Obvious Corp. founder Evan Williams has posted some news at the Obvious blog:As I've mentioned before, the plan for Obvious is to build a series of products, which hopefully gain from being part of the greater whole. I also said, "When justified by growth,... Read More

I hate to interrupt the grownups when they're talking about implementing customer reference programs, but I need to take a moment here to discuss soda pop.I recently wrote that a throwaway post about My Coke Rewards on my personal blog had gotten a surprising... Read More

Our massive robot army.... Read More

I hate to interrupt the grownups when they're talking about implementing customer reference programs, but I need to take a moment here to discuss soda pop.I recently wrote that a throwaway post about My Coke Rewards on my personal blog had gotten a surprising... Read More

Having been beyond the reach of broadband for three weeks recently, its interesting to note what you can't wait to get back to, and what falls off the radar never to return. I'm too polite to list the latter but TWL is definitely among the former.... Read More

I believe Metia has come out on top of PR Week's ranking of UK tech PR agencies. I say believe because I haven't seen a copy of the magazine yet but that's what I've been told to expect. There are many perspectives on the validity of these annual... Read More

Following on from my previous post on PR Week's tech PR agency ranking. Inevitably publication of the tables stirs up the annual debate on their validity and relevance. Already ...the world's leading... has chipped in on the overall... Read More

So, I'm attending a customer's 'Corp Meets the Field kickoff / planning / feedback / team building session'. Setting aside the NDA stuff and the usual internal housekeeping matters, the best bit is hearing about all the great work and soundbites... Read More

Not my first of 2008. And that's because one of my New Year resolutions was not to post on the prickly subject of 'PR' in 2008 - let's all move on - but then I came across this email footer... Are you the person we sent... Read More

Jeff Jarvis has a great post on the new metrics now available to track the progress of the US presidential race, from Twitter followers to odds quoted by a bookmaker. Some of these methods wouldn't translate for a brand or a business but its is amazing... Read More

Supportive of the Scouts for helping out on the UK skills shortage by launching a new activity badge for PR, I found out they also have them for Creativity and IT (below), which goes some way to fixing our recruitment needs. And surely these... Read More

This is how it's done. At 7:30 AM Cory Doctorow writes a post on BoingBoing about a reader's difficulty with Amazon's MP3 downloads, and the bewildering response from customer service. At 3:17 PM, an Amazon employee on the MP3 development team leaves... Read More

It seems these days corporate crises are played out in full view of the public. The FT Alphaville team live blogged SocGen's conf call this morning - the one in which the management 'explain' where the euro 5bn went. I've never really got... Read More

At last night's BIMA dinner I met Jamie Galloway, Head of Digital Media at the Central Office of Information (COI). For anyone, like me, who isn't immersed in the public sector, in simple terms the COI acts as a procurement clearing house and trusted... Read More

Today Sun Microsystems is holding a press conference in Second Life to launch their presence in this virtual world, namely a Sun 'Pavilion'. According to Sun its the first press conference by any Fortune 500 company in Second Life. The event seems to... Read More

Last week Edelman lost its virtuous positioning among the bloggerati with the saga of its Wal-Mart blog - or indeed Flog as we now know it should be called. Uncovering the inside story on the blog has drawn an ugly reaction from the anti-Wal-Mart... Read More

Our massive robot army. ... Read More

BL Ochman does everyone a service again. Here with some great advice for PRs. Learn from the mistakes of others.... Read More

I like to post links to blogs complaining about bad practice and annoying or dubious behaviour in PR. I do it because intelligent criticism is healthy. Point out what people are doing wrong and they'll start doing it right. I also do it because... Read More

Picking up on the previous post. Guy Kawasaki rounded out the discussion by posting an article - DIY PR - from Glen Kalman putting forward the view that entrepreneurs should do their own PR. Using the term entrepreneurs confuses matters a little.... Read More

Not sure if that's a geographically accurate statement - Metia on top of the world - but its fun to see our new logo up at the North Pole. Our London office has been helping three friends of the company in their bid to raise cash for a male cancer... Read More

The Friendly Ghost has published a list PowerPR Index of bloggers. We are way down (I assume it might be us down there at #65?). TFG's list owes its heritage to Todd Andrlik and his Power 150 Top Marketing Blogs. Again, we don't feature, even... Read More

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch vents here - a little over the top perhaps, doubtless it was a bad day - but it shows the need to get the details right, or run the risk of exposure. A little while back now, but worth adding to the list,... Read More

Following a series of gripey sounding posts (here, here and here - and there have been others) about the failings of PR as an industry to get its act together in an environment fundamentally changed by social media, here are a couple of... Read More

Nah, of course not. We all know where bears go... and Monday we finally got confirmation it was indeed as we suspected. On Monday Edelman broke its silence on the Wal-Mart blog story that has exercised the blogging and PR communities. I was travelling... Read More

I've posted my notes from the Blog Business Summit on this site as articles, because as posts they were just too long.I've cleaned them up a bit but they're still a little rough. But they're notes, right? Not transcripts. However, if you attended the... Read More

Yesterday, sitting among a gathering of the great and the good of UK tech PR (well the ones that work for the client who had pulled us together into a meeting, five agencies no less, all proper players, all the top talent in the room). The topic of making... Read More

James Governor takes a worthwhile tour around how the major tech firms currently engage with bloggers. James isn't quite the typical blogger, of course, so his experience is slightly different to the average Joe Blogger. But its an insightful snapshot... Read More

Technorati's Dave Sifry publishes the latest State of the Blogosphere commentary. Its worth reading. There's lots on growth, spam, splogs, etc, which is all good to know, but sort of taken as read - what surprised and / or interested me, was:... Read More

...the world's leading... a UK-based, Tech PR gossip site is in danger of joining me in sensible middle age. Recent posts have demonstrated a healthy dose of commonsense about the fluffy world of PR. Here commenting upon the burden of excessive... Read More

Ahead of the launch of Office 2007, Microsoft Australia has wangled local vernacular into the Office 2007 dictionary. No more squiggly red underlining when Aussies type in the word Bogaroo. I like this idea. Yes, its obviously a PR tactic but its harmless... Read More

Must be getting crowded over in Second Life. No sooner had Sam Palmisano and IBM taken up residence, as described in BusinessWeek Online, than Silicon.com reports Michael Dell is joining them with his own Dell island (not sure if Michael has... Read More

Following on the heels of Steve in his recent post, I want to talk briefly about PR firm Edelman's entry into the online world of Second Life. (Executive summary: I like it.)Fig, 1 - Edelman's strangely foreboding SL headquartersIn my mind, I have a rough... Read More

In this post BL Ochman continues to breathe life into the Edelman/Wal-Mart debacle (judging by the number of comments interest is tailing off). Here's a snippet: The theme here is PR agency cluelessness about new media. And here to the bandwagon response... Read More

Steve Rubel opened up a discussion about the demise of the page view as the defining metric for online media sales. I agree. In a separate life, over five years ago now, I helped start up a successful community site that is funded through online... Read More

Jason Calacanis thinks so. He is on a crusade to out PR/marketing agencies who he suspects are paying top Digg-ers to recommend clients products. He has called for support in outing these companies and even put up a nominal $100 reward for information... Read More

Following on from Andrew's post from LeWeb3 about delegates' discontent with the political agendas that hijacked the event, the explosion of discontent continues to ripple outwards through various blogs and posted images. I don't know Loic... Read More

Fourteen A-list bloggers spent 60 minutes in the company. I found reports of the event from Niall Kennedy, Michael Arrington, Steve Rubel, Molly Holzschlag, Liz Gannes and Chris Pirillo. In terms of the PR mechanics of this experiment... Read More

Al Gore may have invented the Internet and Howard Dean may have discovered how to use it to organize supporters and raise campaign funds; but I think we're seeing Web 2.0's maturity as a political tool at the Web site of Tom Vilsack, Iowa governor and... Read More

Microsoft has sparked another ethics debate for bloggers (or is it the same debate coming round again?). Either way, its a very familiar question to anyone working in tech PR: what's a review machine and what's a freebie? Microsoft... Read More

The Inquirer offers a good perspective into the Microsoft blogging 'scandal'. If you don't have time to read the full story, the clue is in the headline: Microsoft Ferrari furore is a load of old tosh. Although the sub head is pretty good too: Bloggers... Read More

Behold the new face of terror! These battery powered light displays were installed at public locations in 10 American cities two weeks ago as part of a guerrilla marketing campaign for the Cartoon Network show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. Yesterday Boston... Read More

In my last post about the Aqua Teen Hunger Force/Boston bomb scare, I declared the campaign a "win for the client". That, of course, was before the client's parent company paid $2 million in restitution and compensation to the affected cities and various... Read More

Link to videoJetBlue CEO and founder David Neeleman takes to the Intertubes to address JetBlue customers. He promises major changes at the company, including a Passenger Bill of Rights. (Extreme weather conditions last week led to massive delays and stranded... Read More

Martin Moore starts the ball rolling here, Jeff Jarvis adds his bit - here - and the ..the world's leading... adds more of the same here. And my recent experiences are that they are bang on the money. Which is an uncomfortable point of view... Read More

Following on from some recent posts - my Friday evening moan and the KFC rats story - Jeremiah provides a more constructive commentary on these and other recent 'ugly' aspects of social media. The pertinent question is what are we each learning from... Read More

Over at Information Week, Cory Doctorow points out that the Web is really, really good at humiliating companies that fail to perform as promised (computer techs falling asleep on customers' couches, rats in the kitchen at KFC, etc.). But how can companies... Read More

Sadly, I wasn't able to post to this blog from South by Southwest Interactive 2007. However, I did update Twitter frequently using my mobile phone. So if you were watching Twitter you knew, for example, that I was at one point tossed into the back of... Read More

Obvious Corp. founder Evan Williams has posted some news at the Obvious blog:As I've mentioned before, the plan for Obvious is to build a series of products, which hopefully gain from being part of the greater whole. I also said, "When justified by growth,... Read More

Having been beyond the reach of broadband for three weeks recently, its interesting to note what you can't wait to get back to, and what falls off the radar never to return. I'm too polite to list the latter but TWL is definitely among the former.... Read More

I believe Metia has come out on top of PR Week's ranking of UK tech PR agencies. I say believe because I haven't seen a copy of the magazine yet but that's what I've been told to expect. There are many perspectives on the validity of these annual... Read More

Following on from my previous post on PR Week's tech PR agency ranking. Inevitably publication of the tables stirs up the annual debate on their validity and relevance. Already ...the world's leading... has chipped in on the overall... Read More

BL Ochman does everyone a service again. Here with some great advice for PRs. Learn from the mistakes of others.... Read More

I like to post links to blogs complaining about bad practice and annoying or dubious behaviour in PR. I do it because intelligent criticism is healthy. Point out what people are doing wrong and they'll start doing it right. I also do it because... Read More

Picking up on the previous post. Guy Kawasaki rounded out the discussion by posting an article - DIY PR - from Glen Kalman putting forward the view that entrepreneurs should do their own PR. Using the term entrepreneurs confuses matters a little.... Read More

Not sure if that's a geographically accurate statement - Metia on top of the world - but its fun to see our new logo up at the North Pole. Our London office has been helping three friends of the company in their bid to raise cash for a male cancer... Read More

I'm in Bellevue attending Microsoft's Worldwide PR Summit, an annual meeting of its PR leads and key agencies from around the globe. Aside from back-to-back sessions on PR housekeeping matters, we also get insights from some of the... Read More

One interesting consideration occurs to me while I'm here at the Microsoft Worldwide PR Summit. During the week there's been alot of discussion about how we as PR practitioners interact with and manage, new and emerging channels for... Read More

Lifehacker has a great story on some guys trying to build a start up business for just $500. Their idea - Weblogwire - looks like it may be relevant to anyone working in PR, or who has an interest in blogging. You can get outline details on their own... Read More

Following on from Siobhan's post on PR 101 tools and lazy journalism colluding to serve up ropy stories to consumers. I'd ask the question, so will bloggers be able to keep vendors and traditional media honest? Maybe, if the experience of a recent... Read More

Guy Kewney uses the Reg for a justified rant at Suited Phoneys, the internally focused, corporate ladder climbers who are to journalists both content and interest free. Guy obviously suffered a hot and sweaty time at the Farnborough Air... Read More

PR agency Ricochet Public Relations has named and shamed its client as being the source of incorrect information passed on to the media. In a rare outbreak of responsibility in the PR world, Ricochet didn't fall on its sword for the client. Nor did it fudge... Read More

This is a bit of a me-centric post but then its not everyday you change the name of the company you founded 18 years ago (myself, Clare and Paul). So bear with it. Officially Monday we change our name. For eighteen years we have been Write Image, on... Read More

Apologies for this blog going further up the cul de sac of self interest but to answer some questions... When selecting a new name we specifically set ourselves the following six requirements: No puns No risk of legal trauma No flaky meaning to... Read More

USA Today has a good wrap up on current legal cases around libel and blogging. It serves as a salutary reminder that while you may think you blog in a virtual world, your home and other assets exist in the real world. The one with all those lawyers.... Read More

The Friendly Ghost has published a list PowerPR Index of bloggers. We are way down (I assume it might be us down there at #65?). TFG's list owes its heritage to Todd Andrlik and his Power 150 Top Marketing Blogs. Again, we don't feature, even... Read More

Michael Arrington of TechCrunch vents here - a little over the top perhaps, doubtless it was a bad day - but it shows the need to get the details right, or run the risk of exposure. A little while back now, but worth adding to the list,... Read More

Following a series of gripey sounding posts (here, here and here - and there have been others) about the failings of PR as an industry to get its act together in an environment fundamentally changed by social media, here are a couple of... Read More

We recently pitched for a very large PR account. We lost. But that was fine because we really enjoyed it. It was a better experience to lose that pitch than many we have won. It was quite a process. First they qualified out nine agencies. Then they invited... Read More

Every now and again stir up PR agencies (preferably on a Friday afternoon). Then sit back and watch the response. Tags: Tom Foremski, PR is dead (again)... Read More

Something a bit strange about following the wise words of Forrester's marketing team blog over many months, and then finding someone from a PR agency - Chris Thilk of MWW - suddenly joining the conversation on the site. All completely transparent... Read More

Not my first of 2008. And that's because one of my New Year resolutions was not to post on the prickly subject of 'PR' in 2008 - let's all move on - but then I came across this email footer... Are you the person we sent... Read More

Jeff Jarvis has a great post on the new metrics now available to track the progress of the US presidential race, from Twitter followers to odds quoted by a bookmaker. Some of these methods wouldn't translate for a brand or a business but its is amazing... Read More

Supportive of the Scouts for helping out on the UK skills shortage by launching a new activity badge for PR, I found out they also have them for Creativity and IT (below), which goes some way to fixing our recruitment needs. And surely these... Read More

It seems these days corporate crises are played out in full view of the public.The FT Alphaville team live blogged SocGen's conf call this morning - the one in which the management 'explain' where the euro 5bn went.I've never really got much... Read More

At last night's BIMA dinner I met Jamie Galloway, Head of Digital Media at the Central Office of Information (COI). For anyone, like me, who isn't immersed in the public sector, in simple terms the COI acts as a procurement clearing house and trusted... Read More

The People's Daily Online reports that Chinese authorities have set up a summer camp to cure youngsters addicted to the internet. The report says: "According to research by Shanghai's youth affairs office, those seriously addicted to the web should receive... Read More

So, I'm attending a customer's 'Corp Meets the Field kickoff / planning / feedback / team building session'. Setting aside the NDA stuff and the usual internal housekeeping matters, the best bit is hearing about all the great work and soundbites... Read More

Being slightly reclusive by nature, last week's Microsoft Worldwide PR Summit was one of the few times I spend much time with counterparts from other PR agencies. Microsoft has a strong hand of agencies supporting it, so its interesting to compare notes... Read More

Teresa Valdez Klein of Parnassus Group will be giving a free Webinar entitled "Locating and Participating in the Online Conversations that Matter" at 10:00 a.m. PST on February 19th, with an encore presentation the following day at the same time. The... Read More

My friend Eric once described Facebook as a platform for serving up Scrabulous games. Beyond that, it offers nothing of interest to him. I have to wonder how many Erics there are out there, and how many of them would wander away from Facebook if Scrabulous were... Read More

here. This amuses me. Not for profit PR campaign. I hope that word doesn't get out this is our specialization. They have also been shortlisted by Computing for its annual awards in the PR company of the year category. Admittedly, its... Read More

Today Sun Microsystems is holding a press conference in Second Life to launch their presence in this virtual world, namely a Sun 'Pavilion'. According to Sun its the first press conference by any Fortune 500 company in Second Life. The event seems to... Read More