Danny Whatmough.com

A few weeks ago, Sky revealed a new iPhone app that will allow users to set Sky+ recordings remotely. Its a great example of how mobile applications can be used to make life that little bit easier. (And yes, I’m jealous that Virgin Media haven’t done the same)

With Android, Blackberry and Nokia all either launching or set to launch their own versions of the Apple App store, mobile applications have really come of age.

The Guardian wrote a big piece on iPhone apps recently, covering the fact that Nine Inch Nails are set to launch their own app allowing their fans and followers better access to music, downloads and everything else they could possibly want. App-mania is upon us.

For those that haven’t experienced apps so far, the obsession may seem odd. After all, aren’t we supposed to moving away from ’software’ towards cloud computing and web-based applications like Gmail and Salesforce? Well, it seems that mobile apps offer a good comprise between the two, especially on mobiles where, despite improvements, browsers still lack the ease-of-use experienced elsewhere.

Many apps are still dependent on internet access and the best (other than games for obvious reasons) do still embody key ‘cloud’ features. But, as Salesforce demonstrates, creating an app rather than merely an optimised mobile site, does make sense. And when the iPhone 3.0 software launches this summer, iPhone apps will go to the next level.

Having said all of this, there is a flipside. Google has been quite resolute in failing to really support a push into mobile apps, on the iPhone at least. Here, the Google app is nothing more than a portal, linking to the various web pages of Google services – search, Reader, Mail etc. – and whilst you can understand their focus on the ‘web’ it does render the application itself rather useless. Having said that, the new mobile version of Gmail is fantastic and possibly demonstrates that application functionality through mobile browsers is perhaps not as far away as we might imagine.

But until this happens, I hope that more big businesses take the plunge and join fantastic apps like National Rail (despite the price/downtime), Tube Deluxe, Shazam, the New York Times, WSJ etc.

Imagine a BBC or Guardian iPhone app for example. I’m surprised more haven’t followed suit. And yet, you do fear that as more and more app stores open on more and more platforms, the ‘bigger players’ may be forced to focus more on platform-neutral websites (despite handset and browser quirks) and leave app development to independent specialists armed with APIs to create some really exciting and productive tools.

Today, the Cluetrain Manifesto is 10 years old!

When you look back through the 95 theses, it is amazing to think that this was all thought up long before the internet had come of age. Some of the 95 still resonate very well indeed. Some need a bit of updating, but are still relevant. Some, unfortunately, are still ideals.

The whole manifesto centres on one central strand (also the no. 1 thesis):

Markets are conversations.

And also through the following introduction:

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”

The first thesis really hits home and essentially sums up much of the current thinking about the democratisation of media and the increasing role of social networks and collaboration in business today.

As part of the 10th birthday celebrations, bloggers are being invited to take one of the theses and write a post assessing it with modern-day eyes. A number of distinguished folk have already participated.

I thought I’d give it a go and whilst going down the list, one thesis really stuck out:

60. This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

For me, this thesis is a crux or changing point in the whole manifesto. Having discussed the new marketplace and the steps companies need to take, the manifesto turns to the idea of engagement between markets (publics) and companies. Its not hard to draw a parallel to some of the key strands of PR here, although, what comes next may concern a number of more ‘traditional’ PR agencies:

62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.

64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

65. We’re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you’re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around—in the press, at your conferences—what’s that got to do with us?

69. Maybe you’re impressing your investors. Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us.

70. If you don’t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don’t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn’t let you talk that way.

71. Your tired notions of “the market” make our eyes glaze over. We don’t recognize ourselves in your projections—perhaps because we know we’re already elsewhere.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

And, recently, more and more companies are discovering that they are treading a suicidal approach. Motrin, Amazon, Skittles; the list will go on.

What we are seeing is that the ‘market’  is seizing the advantage. It is taking the issues to the companies. It is ignoring tradition and speaking up and speaking loud.

Markets want to talk to companies.

But what if companies aren’t listening? Or wont listen? Or don’t feel they know how to communicate?

And here’s rub. These companies are missing a trick. By talking, communicating, engaging (whatever you want to call it) with markets, customers, clients, partners, publics (ditto), businesses have an incredible chance to improve, benefit and profit more because the product or service is more suited or geared toward the market.

Understanding the market is key.

If markets want to talk.

Then perhaps the best advice for companies is to stop talking for a bit and listen.

Like every good tech geek, I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to shiny new things, especially online. So you can imagine my glee when (via Drew) I came across Feedly today.

I love it!

I’m pretty addicted to my feedreader. And my weapon of choice has been Google Reader ever since I started reading blogs. I’ve tried and tested every pretender to the reader-throne, but I haven’t ever been really tempted to migrate my RSS feeds. This is partly due to the inconvenience of moving; the new features would have to be very convincing.

And this is part why Feedly is so great. Its not really a feed reader itself – it’s a Firefox plugin. It simply sits on top of Google Reader and acts as an alternative skin or dashboard. You can still share or star items, add or remove feeds and even change categories. But, in addition, it makes it easier to add posts to social networks and email or tweet interesting snippets.

And it plugs into your existing networks to recommend and suggest content.

You can also use Feedly mini – a little pop-up overlay that appears at the bottom right of every webpage you visit to inform you about how socially-connected the page is and it also allows you to tweet or email content quickly and easily.

All-in-all, a great little tool.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make the online PR debate organised by NMK last night, but I’ve been following the fallout today on Twitter and entering into the fray myself, as well as catching up on the blog posts that are now starting to trickle through.

It looks like it was a good event (as Ian’s always are) that tossed around some interesting arguments.

For me though, I get slightly annoyed by the need to define everything. Often we go out of our way to define something which then loses its meaning or is interpreted in a different way. It’s all just semantics really.

And the jargon of new media certainly falls into this space. It is why PR is so synonymous with media relations and journalism. Why SEO and social media seemingly also exist (or feel they need to exist) within their own spheres.

I’m not saying that specialisms aren’t important but that rather than PR v. SEO v. digital etc., we should be looking at the wider, bigger picture. I’m sure this is how many of our (as agencies) clients see things; the bottom line is everything for them. [And I note that it was pretty agency-weighted last night]

This is what we are attempting to do more and more at Wildfire. We are seeing the blurring of disciplines and are also identifying areas where the traditioanl media aspect of PR is dying very quickly. Our venture into new realms isn’t driven by shiny new toys and networks, but by an attempt to get results for our clients and influence the publics they are attempting to reach.

Now to me, this feels very much like a definition of PR. But, I am aware that it is equally true of other disciplines, e.g. advertising, as this Ad Age article demonstrates.

One thing underlines all these tactics though, and that is establishing a message and conveying this to an audience – and this is something that PR professionals are usually very well placed to do. The conveying might be through traditional media, it might be through engagement or conversation on social networks or it might involve search engines and advertising.

As a PR (and marketing) professional (caveat: who is and has been immersed in digital and social media), I am excited and thrilled by the opportunity the internet and digital affords us practionners and our clients or businesses.It’s refreshing to be able to knock out the middle man, to ‘go direct’.

And in order to achieve this effectively, the more tools we have in our tool box, the more options we have and the more potential we can achieve.

The future is bright. It might not be PR as we know it. It might not be called PR. It might even be called social media and be carried out by ’social media experts’

But my bet is that no one group will dominate and that there will be plenty of new tricks to learn and plenty for everyone to practice.

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Update:

Lots of chatter about this – here is a quick round-up:
Lloyd Gofton

Peter Hay (PR Week)

Jo-Rosie Haffenden

Rowan Stanfield

Roger Warner

Jed Hallam

Ian Delaney

Steven Waddington

Gerel Orgil

Drew Benvie

Interesting post from Wendy McAuliffe looking at how the trade press are (or aren’t) using blogs:

“What’s apparent is that some trade publishers have been nervous about blog content undermining the value of their magazine and online editorial, often failing to grasp where blogging can add value.”

The two examples she cites are particularly telling. NMA and Revolution are titles you would expect to be leading the way, and yet they aren’t. Revolution were very late to the party earlier this year and NMA still aren’t really there (although look out for a newly launched nma.co.uk on Monday…complete with a blog? Who knows?).

But, as Wendy says, there are obvious concerns for publishers whose history is steeped in print.

For me though, it does seem a bizarre and dangerous tactic.

Whilst these ‘giants’ are sleeping, a whole array of ‘amateur’ bloggers are springing up, gathering followers and writing some great stuff. The trad media may still be able to catch up, but what damage has already been done?

The same could be said of the PR industry’s own bible – PR Week. Despite its recent obsession about Twitter and the quoting of blogs in the magazine, the website is hardly 2.0 (and that’s not even discussing the pay wall it has in place – for which I keep forgetting the password!).

And perhaps the problem lies in the fact that these are big publications, ruled by big publishing houses, which find it difficult to ‘change’. And when they do decide to change, it takes time.

Revolution has its new website, Retail Week launched its new site yesterday and NMA has its turn on Monday.

These are all steps in the right direction. But where is the innovation? Are the steps too small and too late?

Oh dear Amazon.

If you were out of the country offline over the Easter weekend, you might’ve missed the latest Twitter-crazed furore focusing on a suspicious lack of Amazon ranking points for lesbian and gay literature on the site.

It didn’t take long for #amazonfail to be trending on Twitter. And, a few hours later the bloggers launched in, followed by the traditional media, followed by commentator after commentator after commentator. Social media ‘experts’, activists and the like were all there having their say.

In the end, it was all a bit of a huff and a puff about nothing. It was a technical hitch and everything is being sorted out. Phew. An Amazon spokesperson had a tail between legs moment:

“This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection,” wrote Drew Herdener, Amazon’s director of communications.

“Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.”

It is an incredible episode for the darling of the the 2.0 crowd. And there are a few interesting takeaways:

1. Amazon were woefully slow in responding
2. The web doesn’t sleep – ok, it was a Easter weekend, but bloggers et al don’t play by those rules
3. Bloggers etc. don’t check facts – 1+1 = 3 online and anything goes until the ‘media’ or the company involved wakes-up
4. Your digital channels have to be set up and ready to go BEFORE this happens
5. Monitoring tools must be in place and active and being monitored by someone at all times

Will Amazon survive? Of course. Will this have hit their credibility? Possibly. Will they have learnt some important lessons? Definitely.

It’s been another busy week at the White House.

President Obama welcomed a new member of his team – a puppy, Bo – and, more pertinent politically (if less hyped) are the suggestions from the current administration that things may be about to get a bit better economically.

And it really is perfect timing for America’s golden boy.

Yes, he was quick to mention that things were still bad. And yes, he has had to endure a few months of dire economic conditions. But this hasn’t really been a particularly taxing time for Obama in the popularity stakes.

He rode the wave of popularity when he came to office and was seen as the ‘knight in shining armour’ that would rescue the US (and the world) from  economic gloom and usher in a new prosperous era. And so far, so good. A few months of meetings with world leaders, sober, considered speeches and a eye-watering rescue plan and here we are: on the road to recovery. Easy!

I’m not trying to diminish the role he has played. Others, far more experienced than me will be able to comprehensively say what difference he and his policies have made. But the timings couldn’t have been better. And the language he used yesterday was perfectly picked:

“We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand.  We must build our house upon a rock.  We must lay a new foundation for growth and prosperity — a foundation that will move us from an era of borrow and spend to one where we save and invest; where we consume less at home and send more exports abroad.”

PR works best when you have a product that sells itself, and Obama certainly has that. But, a little bit of luck certainly helps too. I wonder if it will run out anytime soon…

One of my real bugbears is when an online article/post mentions a website, but fails to link to it. I can understand not wanting to litter content with links, that just gets silly, but when it is fundamental to the story and there is no link it just drives me crazy!

And, without wanting to pick on anyone in particular, as I know the problem is widespread, today I have to single out New Media Age/Mad.co.uk.

Because of the nature of the site, they talk about websites, A LOT! So why oh why oh why don’t they link out to them? Is it out of panic about loosing link-juice? Do they want to try and keep users on the website at all costs? Is it just an administrative step too far for a publication that is still driven by a print-based magazine?

I don’t know.

All I do know is that it really annoys me and makes me avoid using the site over others that, frequently, have the same story with links.

As Dave Winer says, on the quote that adorns this blog: “People come back to places that send them away”

It was really only a matter of time. First we had the copycats, then the APIs and apps followed closely by those looking to monetise. Now, as ever, agency-land is trying to consolidate its position in a Twitter-focused world with the launch last week a “Twitter agency”.

Twitter Partners has launched with a powerful list of potential clients and despite a distancing post from Twitter itself [possibly following comments to NMA suggesting the company is an official 'partner'; it isn't], the new company has been racking up publicity all over the place.

So are Twitter agencies the future? Or just a vehicle for publicity or a band-wagon for big brands looking to display their social media prowess?

The main problem as far as I can see: this approach is far to narrow to be truly effective. And its the same niggling problem I have with any niche agency. If you specialise too much, you are in danger of missing the bigger picture. At its simplest level, Twitter is one of many social networks (and not even the biggest), even if it is currently the network du jour.

Sure, big companies, with big internal comms or marketing teams, can more effectively manage their roster of agencies and ensure uniformity (though many don’t seem capable of this) and consistency of branding and messaging.

But, companies without this internal resource (or skill) would be wise to avoid this route of agency selection.

It is for this reason that I feel that rather than narrowing, agencies (and the clients that appoint them) should be broadening. I want to be able to go to a new client and suggest a strategy suitable for their business needs made up of a range of tactics suited to this strategy. This might include SEO, online PR and micro-blogging, but it might not.

I’m all for using new tools, but let’s use them where they are needed rather than as another feather in a cap.

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