Danny Whatmough.com

Rummaging through my feedreader tonight, I came across a number of interesting little nuggets all of which could justify their own post, but unfortunately, due to time pressures, that is never going to happen! So here they are all mixed in together. Enjoy.

What’s in a (SEO friendly) name?

A great little story from the Telegraph centering on a French town called Eu which has decided to change its name because it is unable to get enough Google-juice to ramp up its ailing tourist industry. Its not an easy process though. If ratified during a town referendum it will take five years to become legitimate. That is certainly a long-term SEO strategy!

iMP

Via Graham Jones, I came across this interesting study looking at how MPs are using the Internet. According to the report (which I haven’t read in full), 92% of MPs use email, 83% of MPs have a personal website, 23% of MPs use social networking and only 11% of MPs blog. As Graham suggests, these numbers are quite scary in some cases, but they possibly explain why the Digital Britain Report was so disappointing!

Twitter to the rescue

Channel 4 today sourced an interview with a eyewitness of the Amsterdam plane crash via Twitter (via Journalism.co.uk). Presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy made the connection via a tweet asking Jonathan Nip to “direct message me a number to ring you on please?”.  Twitter saves the day again (at least for Channel 4!).

Joanna and the Birmingham Post ‘Get It’

I’ve given newspapers quite a tough ride in the past as I still don’t think many of them are making much of an effort to really transform themselves for the digital age. However, one journalist that really ‘gets it’ is the Birmingham Post’s Joanna Geary (soon to become web development editor at the Times). She has published a great slideshow demonstrating the work she has done at the BP over the last few years:

JiveBrow09

At a time when so much advertising fails to excite (perhaps due to the growth of online viral videos?), Cadbury’s eyebrow ad is, for me, one of the best in a long time. Its great to learn that they are now running an online event to maximise its success. JiveBrow09 will be run in conjunction with MSN and will encourage people to record and share their own versions of the ad. Safe to say, I wont be one of them – but a great idea nonetheless!

Finally my post on the Wildfire blog earlier this week on the Ryanair blogging fiasco has been driving huge amounts of traffic all week. You might like to read the update that I’ve posted tonight.

Wanted to flag this post I’ve written on the Wildfire blog looking at some recent shocking blogger outreach (if it can be called that) from our favourite no-frills-but-pay-double-for-everything-else airline, Ryanair.

picture credit

So I like Twitter, I really do. But there is a thin line between ‘like’ and raving obsession. And this is potentially it:

a Twitter Mosaic Mug

Yes, now you too can have all the avatars of your favourites twits [sic] everytime you make a cuppa…

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear…

Just me or is this a wee bit wrong?

Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos/45551194/

You may have read the article in the Guardian today from Marketing’s editor Lucy Barrett.

In it, she highlights a new site from KitKat:

http://www.thefirstworldwidewebsitewherenothinghappens.com/

Don’t bother visiting – it does (or not) what it says on the tin – a bit lame if you ask me!

HOWEVER, the real story behind this, which Barrett seems unaware of, is that KitKat initially registered the URL incorrectly:

thefirstworldwidewebsiteWEREnothinghappens.com

The correct URL then proceeded to get cybersquatted!

KitKat seems to have recovered the situation as both URLs are now under their control. But it is still quite funny! Ooops!

Hat-tip to Briman1970 on Namepros.com – no-one else seems to have picked it (or his/her post) up…

Oh dear.

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy has pledged €600m (£565m) to help the country’s troubled newspaper industry. Ok, not too bad, news in certainly important.

But, he goes further….

He had added that he will give every teenager a free, one-year, state-subsidised subscription to a daily newspaper of their choice, as an 18th birthday cadeau.

Non? Oui. His words:

“The habit of reading a daily paper takes root at a very young age.”

Ok, so just forget about all the issues surrounding free press etc. etc. for a moment. I can understand the need to preserve the media. If state aid is the way to do this then fine. But why encourage youngsters down the route that will get media companies into the same situation again. As the lovely Guardian says:

“Sarkozy said he would increase sales points, loosen rules and pump aid into distributing papers to readers’ front doors. The number one problem is the cost of printing in France, with printworks tightly controlled by the communist union, Le Livre, which has rigid hours and protections. Sarkozy said the state would support negotiations with printers’ unions to reduce the costs by 30-40%.”

Ok, so printing is a problem. Ummmm…. Hmmm….. I wonder what could solve that?

This Week in Tech had an interesting discussion this week. They were reporting on a story from Business Insider which claimed that it costs the New York Times twice as much to print and deliver the paper each year than it would cost the paper to send each of its subscribers a free Amazon Kindle [with which they could read the digital edition].

They estimate that to print and deliver the NYT, it costs $644 million per year! Ouch!

So M. Président, by all means bail out the media companies. But put in place a caveat that they need to start investing in the modern day infrastructure that means they can start running a well-oiled business that is fully self-sufficient and realises when to change, move on and develop its ways.

Don’t believe me? Read what other [younger] people think (courtesy of the lovely Guardian again).

Ça va?

[a pants SEO title, I know]

Credit to http://www.flickr.com/photos/zizzy/

With the media scrum around all things Twitter at the moment, it’s no surprise that the ‘revenue-model’ issue would raise its jealous little head.

If I was in charge, I wouldn’t be worrying about revenue models. They are on the tip of an iceberg. Now the focus should be on improving the service as numbers grow and securing its position amongst the legions of copy-cats that have and will come along.

But hey, its not my company.

Twitter to charge?

So today, Marketing has alleged reported that Twitter is to start charging businesses to use the service.

Hmmm.

This story feels slightly odd. It has been widely reported before that this was on the cards, but would Biz Stone really reveal all at this point in time to Marketing?

Much as I love Marketing, I think they might be jumping the gun slightly. Stone said:

“We are noticing more companies using Twitter and individuals following them. We can identify ways to make this experience even more valuable and charge for commercial accounts.” [my emphasis]

I would suggest this is merely one model being looked at. And I doubt it would be possible to implement. The chief obstruction in my mind is how on earth they would differentiate (and/or police) brand accounts and personal accounts? Maybe by limiting follower numbers? But then some of the biggest Twitter ‘celebrities’ have huge numbers on their personal accounts – and yet they are possibly the most powerful brands using the service [a subject for another post me thinks]. Any my own account often transcends biz/personal boundaries…

Robin Grant from Wearesocial makes some additional, valid arguments in the comments under the original article [it seems his words were slightly skewed too...]

I’m sure Twitter will resolve this issue well before the VC cash runs dry. Either they will sell up to the big G, or will work out a way to fund themselves with the x million users they currently have and the endless numbers they will surely attract in months to come.

[Few caveats: I've never tried an electronic book reader thingy, I've never seen a Kindle in real life]

Amazon has proudly announced Kindle 2.0 – the electronic book reader which allows you to read books without carrying them all around etc. etc.

But I just don’t really get the appeal. Surely it is just a matter of time until one of the big players puts the ability to read books like this onto an iPhone or equivalent device? Why would I want to pay $300+ to buy something like this this when it could be integrated?

Ok, ok, I hear your shouting – the iPhone is too small, not enough battery and doesn’t have the nicely designed screen that makes reading easy…

I say: all problems that can be overcome.

So come on Amazon, Apple, Nokia, Microsoft – let’s sort it out! There’s surely money to be made… (& I don’t want yet another device I have to carry around with me.

Oh Charles, what have you started!?

Tech journo supremo Charles Arthur this week compared the client/PR/Journo relationship with the car industry.

Confused? Well, yes, you might be! But stick with it. There are some interesting points raised (some more valid than others) including in the comments section if you can be arsed to wade through them.

Here are a few short, sharp observations of my own:

• Mr Arthur is not your typical journalist
• Every journalist is different – see this post Not all PRs/journos can be tainted with the same brush – this is a big industry with many sectors
• Media relations (which is what we are talking about) is only a (diminishing) part of PR
• MRs (and therefore PRs and their clients) still depends on journalists
• There are more and more PRs and fewer and fewer journos
• There is still a place for good quality, best practice MRs
• PRs need to be consultants and need to be specialists and need to be realistic
• As Guy says, the journalist doesn’t work for the client
• But, the PR does work for the client
• And most many journos need MRs
• Many PRs HATE MRs
• ‘Did you get my press release’ – these calls do work sometimes and, in desperation, are understandable (if unfortunate)
• But they don’t justify/want/need spam
• As with everything in modern-day marketing, targeting is absolutely crucial
• Good PRs are not merely consumed by money and/or results. We know the issues and the topics and how to write good stories
• But we all (PRs and journos) have commercial interests; sometimes (at the best times) these can be mutual
• We all get it wrong from time to time

Over at the Guardian, Bobbie Johnson has written a little piece entitled Why I’m finished with ’social media’

In it, he suggests that social media isn’t new so why all the jumping on the bandwagon every time a new celebrity signs up to Twitter or has a shower.

In the comments, a number of people have replied, venting their fury about all things Twitter and proudly stating that they have now quit. So there.

But they are missing the key thrust of Bobbie’s post. He’s not saying that he is finished ‘using’ social media, but that he is fed up with the social media ‘craze’.

And I see where he is coming from. I’m also fed up of hearing about the latest celebrity doing x y and z. But then I get fed up of that anyway in the ‘real world’. I hate Heat magazine et. al. So of course I am going to get fed up of hearing about it on Twitter.

Bobbie’s other point is: “‘Social media’ is mainstream – we don’t need to claim any more victories for it.”

Again, I partly agree. But some platforms aren’t mainstream yet. Just because the technorati and digerati  have been using Twitter for ages doesn’t mean its dull to the rest of the world. I find the Twitter phenomenon fascinating. And so do all the people out there (journalists and PRs included) that are learning about it for the very first time [i.e. the public].

But Bobbie’s eventual conclusion is correct – “Social media is people. People talk about stuff. The end.” – and this is often forgotten. Social media is just a different platform for content or conversation or broadcasting or listening or research or socialising…

What we are seeing is two levels here:

On one hand, we have the ‘platform’ itself. What it does. How it’s used. Takeup. Popularity. Strategies for using it in marketing/business etc. As a medium or a platform, social media does continue to evolve and change and, for digital analysts/influencers/marketing-bods, this is interesting. It’s not fair to liken it to the telephone or the pub.

On the other hand we have the content on the platform itself. The ‘Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift’ story. This is gossip, news (yes, to some it is) etc.

So you have the platform – Twitter/pub/telephone – and the content – ‘Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift’.

You can choose what content suits you and of course you can choose which platform suits you. If you don’t like the content then buy a different magazine or follow someone else. If you don’t like the platform then select a different one.

Just don’t blame the platform for the content. And don’t blame the public for liking the content. And don’t blame the PRs/media for liking that the public like the platform/content…

So Stephen Fry has become the second most followed person on Twitter. He is now only bettered by a certain US President!

[Don't worry, this isn't a jumping on the social media bandwagon post]

That is quite some going and 100,000 is a big number.

In the PR game, where ‘reach’ is obviously important, what does this say about media and influencer outreach?

A few things to consider:

- 100,000 people wont be seeing (let alone acting on) every one of Fry’s tweets

- I wonder how many of the 100,000 use Twitter on a regular basis

- Targeting is also important and perhaps difficult here

- Being ‘remarkable’ is surely even more important when targeting people like Fry

Having said all that, I was just on TweetDeck looking at the TwitScoop (a constant update of what is ‘hot’ on Twitter) and I noticed that “Bletchley” and “bpark” were coming up particularly strong.

When I clicked to find out more, I found that the only reason for this was that @stephenfry had just tweeted about it and his followers were re-tweeting his post.

Power indeed!