Hoi Polloi

Hoi Polloi has moved!

I have moved my blog to hoipolloi.wordpress.com from September.

This blog will no remain as an archive of 3+ years of posts.

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Is it live, or is it on ShootLive?

What technology would PR companies, the police, and the paparazzi want to get their hands on?

It's delivery that basically sends raw images from a video camera direct to the consumer. It is a service from ShootLive,  news agency for the digital age based in Nottingham, UK. The ShootLive service was used in the coverage of David Beckham's game in July.

Why does this change the game? Because of the need for speed. In journalism and in PR, or even in law enforcement, seconds make a difference. The scoop, the intervention of a criminal, the ability to relay instantaneous pictures of a tragedy such as an earthquake can impact lives.

Images from camera are streamed (as an XML feed) to a mobile phone in less than 60 seconds, the company says. What I like about all this is it doesn't make the end-user jump through hoops to receive it. Images could arrive as a multi-media text alert.

What could this do for marketing? Apart from the obvious ones that ESPNs of this world will jump onto, and be able to monetize, marketers could get users to opt-in to premium content. Think: Olympics, stage acts such a Live Earth, and even regional ones. The McDonald's and IBM's could sponsor XML feeds . Down the line when the genie is out of the bottle, cell phone carriers will use the technology too. Already, AT&T has a similar service called VideoShare where subscribers could stream video with a camera phone to another phone --while talking! These are both low-end ($29.99 and $79.99) Samsung phones not some souped-up smart varieties.

Take time to ask. Take time to get to know.

As a freelance writer I get pitched a lot. I don't hit the delete key unless it's totally irrelevant. But I have to say there are several people who do take the time to ask if whom they represent is relevant, and they do their homework.

I had a pitch from a PR firm in the UK recently that really stood out. He promised he wouldn't flood my inbox, and offered an RSS feed as an alternative --something I opted for.

On a macro scale, how do you get to know an organization, its priorities, its strategic goals?

On Wednesday I was asked by a local firm to speak to a group of incoming account managers about strategic thinking and solutions selling. I used an example of how as 'transparent' as it may seem, a company's web site is the last place you'll find that kind of useful information. A Google search would be a hit or miss, unless you find a corporate blogger giving the inside scoop. Nor would a site map reveal the inner working groups, the nodes and the unofficial networks. Taking time to get to know this "inner-net" means putting our digital smarts aside, and falling back on our analog skills. I use the phrase "Think digital, act analog" (first used by Guy Kawasaki, I believe) to illustrate the point.

A good article on this also appeared in Fortune magazine last month (titled "The hidden workplace.") "There's the organization chart," it said. "And then there's the way things really work."

Bottom line: Take time to understand the analog networks. These power brokers, access points, nodes and human routers may not have a LinkedIn profile, but they sure make things happen!

Good press, bad press about Second Life

Psst. Did you hear? Second Life is getting bad press. Ever since Businessweek magazine did a cover story on SL last year, there has been nothing but good buzz about the place. After all the IBM's and Coca-Colas have all established a presence there. But the question marks are beginning to appear. (Note I didn't say 'cracks').

WIRED is running a story (Lonely Planet: How Madison Avenue is wasting millions on a deserted Second Life") questioning MadAve's rush to set up islands in a "metaverse," especially when it's unmanned, feels lonely and way too cumbersome to navigate.

Technology Review (subscription required) on the other hand has a very interesting analysis called Second earth --the possible mash-up between Google Earth and Second Life.

My take: It's way too early to pass judgment on Second Life. Critics are quick to use ROI thinking to evaluate the impact of a 3D experience on business. For now the shine is off the rose. But we've seen that happen before, haven't we? Anyone remember Friendster?

Like it or not, the web will soon incorporate features of these 3D worlds. Trends such as geocoding, mobile optimization, and our appetite for for on-demand information will create this world --with or without goofy avatars.

Stories in PR and social media

Summing up a few interesting stories last week.

1. The walled garden of Times Select may soon open up to the rest of us who don't want to part with $7.95 a month.

2. AT&T 'censors' Pearl Jam's words. they didn't want to to get Dixie Chicked, for supporting an anti-Bush band.

3. A company called Fatdoor has come up with an interesting way to use social networking to get to know the neighbors. It's a mashup of public information, a wiki, maps etc. Good explanation here. 

4. A very cool idea from Edinburg, England. Using a camera phone and text messaging to detect art.

5. Taking story #3 to its logical conclusion, how about using a social network to get to know your dog's owners? Technology Review magazine had a story about how your dog's FaceBook-like page (called a PetWork, I kid you not!) could enhance your social life.

Harry Potter’s social media impact on branding

Harry Potter is an extended tale of no, not just wizards and magic but the wisdom of the crowds in action. But that story got buried in the hoopla around the launch of Harry Potter & The Deathly Hallows last Saturday.

Very predictably, the traditional news media covered the event in the same way they did, say, the iPhone. Too much attention to people queuing up for the book, the parties, the ‘education’ component, but very little about the phenomenon itself.

The fact is, the Harry Potter franchise just doesn’t belong to J.K. Rowling anymore. The books may be in 200 countries and 63 languages, but the Potter brand goes beyond that geographic reach. It’s been open-sourced in more ways than you could imagine; the wisdom of the Potter crowds has always ruled when it comes to creating their own message channels, cranking out their own Potter-esqe stories etc. Despite the fact that this is a book, and not a digital product, the fans are all over the social media map. There is:
    * The Mugglecast podcast run by high school students, that has some 50,000 listeners a week, and features Elton John and Bono.
    * The Leaky Cauldron leaks news about the books and carries a disclosure that it is in “no way affiliated with J.K. Rowling.”
    * No shortage of Potter blogs, including one that suggests a Bollywood storyline for an Indian audience.
    * The Harry Potter Fiction store, that’s not managed by Scholastic, the book publisher; it’s also “unofficial.”
    * The Academy of Virtual Wizardry, at “Caledon Highlands” in you guessed it, Second Life!

I could go on…

So I wanted to track how the raving fans were behaving. I had a haunch that there would be an equal outpouring of passion on Saturday the 20th July around midnight not in front of the bookstores where the TV crews were waiting in hoardes, but on Wikipedia. At 11.00 pm Pacific Time the discussion (on the “comments” page of the Harry Potter Wikipedia showed signs that things were heating up. The Wikipedians had been discussing the value of locking down the Wiki, since everyone knew the book had leaked and the plot was being discussed elsewhere.

“Just wait until the official release time. Then we can put everything up in 5 minutes or so, considering the number of wikipedians interested in this.” said one editor at 11.03 pm. This was clearly a hard core editor, but also a big Potter fan. “Most people, me included, will be too busy reading the book on Saturday to check the article.” Others like him (or her) were unhappy that some editors had moved to freeze the pages until a week after the launch. Fan passion was expressed in the form of outrage that some newspapers’ reviewers had created spoilers by discussing the plot before the launch. Reading through their discussion gives you a glimpse of not just how these unpaid wikipedians work, but how fans operate late at night, doing a thankless job for what? To them this isn’t JK’s book. This is theirs.

If only other brands let their customers work their magic this way!

Where SEO meets social media meets PR

Yesterday, IABC's Phoenix chapter put together a terrific meeting on something that's on everyone's radar. I suspect the topic ("Using SEO & Other PR Tactics to Communicate with Social Communities in a Web 2.0 World") was intentionally long and geeky to make a point. More on this later.

MarketWire had pried open the controversial but hot topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media. Whenever these two buzz phrases occur in one sentence, advertising agencies, media relations people and marketers get a little hot around the collar. I know, because I used to work for a SEO-meets marketing company. There are lots of myths and concerns out there. Just a year ago SEO seemed like a lot of pixie dust before things like Twitter and User generated Content showed up. "Social bookmarking" sounded like something Paris Hilton does when thumbing through National Inquirer.

Unfortunately, the world inside corporate marketing is still looking at what's unfolding before us as pixie dust 2.0. Look around you. The world of marketing and PR is roughly divided into people who think "we don't have a budget for this crap" and those who go "could we upload this sucker to YouTube?" So it's about time we discuss Google Juice, and Digg, and the social media press release, and what in the world is Facebook up to, trying to upstage our beloved search engines.

Could people game the search engine, someone asked? Do "Diggs" mean anything a few days after the story breaks? Was there some 'white-hat' way to get better rankings on search results? Everyone probably knew the answer to that last one. Sure, there are black-hat methods of sneaking past the algorithm, and there's marketing.

You don't need to know how this algorithm thing works, but if you accept the logic behind it, then you gotta work on it. Good case in point: Southwest Airlines. Three years ago, they optimized a press release by editing it based on search terms they had been tracking. They tracked the results and saw a direct correlation to a spike in sales. They won an award for this. It's a matter of crafting headlines and knowing where to drop in a hyperlink, and a meta tag.

Which brings me to the MarketWire topic. Google (or Yahoo) the words "SEO PR social media" and see if IABC Phoenix is anywhere in sight. Now Google (or Yahoo) the topic (Using SEO & Other PR Tactics to Communicate with Social Communities in a Web 2.0 World) and see what pops up at the top of your search results. Brilliant huh?

Or is it still pixie dust?

Stop the presses! Newspaper turns to music marketing in Planet Earth launch.

With so much turmoil in newspapers today, it still comes as a shock that the The Daily Mail on Sunday in the UK gave away three million copies of Prince's new album, Planet Earth.

What's remarkable about this is that this is the "official release" of the album. Gives new meaning to the term 'Media Release' doesn't it? More shocking: The album won't go on sale in the UK! It will be launched in other parts of the world on July 24th, says the paper.

Prince has managed to annoy Sony BMG over this, but apart from his motives, it gives a new insight into how newspapers may be looking at marketing to stay relevant --and alive. A newspaper as a distribution mechanism for music? Brilliant. Think of the integrated online marketing possibilities.

A interesting note: The Mail didn't just tip the CDs into the paper. They produced the copies themselves.

Awaiting Release of BBC's Alan Johnston

Alan, our hopes soar as we await your release.

Alan, a BBC correspondent, was kidnapped more than three months ago.

What to do about Lodon's 'ugly' 2012 Olympic logo

If you've been following the controversy over the 2012 Olympics logo, you'll see a familiar pattern.

Many new logos, and brand names even, seem odd and --as Londoners complain-- say nothing about them.

I have a strong opinion about this one. I think it's not very inspiring. Vibrant, yes. But hey, I don't live in London, and it's easy to be critical when you're not privy to the brief or the marketing context.

But beyond branding issues, it's turning out to be a PR nightmare --with the organizers seeming to not want to listen to the protests.

I like the fact that they are now at least asking people to create and submit a logo design.

They welcome user generated content, with 'downloadable 'templates' backed up by a huge section on the use of and removal of content. Yes, they will moderate comments, they say!

In defense of the edgy (or odd) logo, it appears to be in sync with their objectives:

• "London 2012 will be a Games that make the most of exciting new technology to get people closer to the action.."
• "The new emblem is dynamic, modern and flexible. It will work with new technology and across traditional and new media networks."

As for what will happen when a logo isn't working in isolation and has more context, this is how ordinary people are adapting it, and sending it off, not to the IOC site, but to Flickr.

And for a hilarious look at what might be taking place at Wolff Olins, the brand consultancy  that came up with the logo, click here.