Public media relations social media strategy for growing your business» Uncategorized

Using Social Media – Twitter, YouTube, etc. – For Crisis PR. What BP America Could Have Done Differently To Respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion

jeff — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:32:02 +0000

Erik Saas at MediaPost wrote a recent story about how BP America could have handled the communications concerning the current oil spill disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico. Saas’ story looks at some of BP’s muddled attempts to use social media to handle the crisis.

Some of the comments to Saas’ story are interesting. I wonder if some of the people commenting are communications professionals? It’s unrealistic to expect PR people to go out on boats to fight the oil spill or deploy floating booms to try and stop the spread of the oil.

What BP’s communications team could have done is communicate often, early, and authentically – to convey information about what BP is doing to fight the oil spill. Sure, this post’s title references social media, and Saas’ article is focused on BP’s use of social media. Yet, social media is simply one of many tools enabling companies and brands to communicate with during a crisis.

So what could BP have done using their social media tools?

1. Have a crisis PR plan. Very important. When the shit hits the fan, which it will eventually with any company regardless of size, you need a written crisis PR plan that you’ve a) written down, b) reviewed with the entire management team, and c) that you read at least once a month and update as necessary.

2. Own their brand on Twitter. Duh. Currently twitter.com/BP belongs to some dude named Bryan Pendleton. It sure makes it hard to communicate on Twitter if you haven’t even secured the Twitter ID that most people will look for if they’re trying to find your company or brand. Would you know to search for BP_America on Twitter? I wouldn’t and I doubt most others would either.

3. Use the social media tools in your toolbox. Don’t be afraid to engage even if you’re delivering bad news. In the end, people will hate you more if you stonewall vs. delivering whatever news you’ve got. And, yes, I understand that when you have a burning oil platform that’s threatening to sink, you may not have all the information that you’d like to have. You might not be able to answer every question.

The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded on April 20th. There was nary a tweet from BP America concerning the explosion until April 27th. 7 days? On second thought, maybe BP America should just cancel their Twitter account. 7 days is completely and totally unacceptable.

4. Engage, engage, engage – overcommunicate. When the oil rig exploded, and the company’s emergency responders arrived on the scene and assessed the damage, the crisis PR plan should have been enacted immediately.

If you think the crisis will be as large as the BP America oil spill, create a dedicated news-update page on your website with a prominent link on your home page.

Write a media alert encapsulating the basic facts that you know. Issue the media alert, set up interviews for your CEO regardless if all he can say is we know 2 facts – here they are. “The oil rig is burning, and we’re working hard to control the flames, and that’s the extent of my knowledge.”

Post the media alert on your website – run it by an in-house SEO specialist or your SEO consultant to maximize keywords and phrases that people will be using to search for information about the oil spill. Tweet links to the media alert every 30 minutes. Update your Facebook page (you don’t have a Facebook page? Create one on the fly!) with the text of the media alert and a link to your web page.

Record a video with your CEO articulating the key facts that you know. Upload the video to all the video sites you can via Tubemogul or directly with each site. Tweet links to the video on YouTube every 30 minutes. Link the video on your Facebook page. Embed the video on your dedicated crisis response PR page.

Rinse, repeat every 2-3 hours with a new media alert, again articulating the facts that you know. Yes, I’m very aware that BP is a profitable, public company and there are lawyers screaming that nothing should be said. Hopefully, you’re a CMO or CEO who will ignore the lawyers and communicate. Not take blame for things that are not your fault. C-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-e — What you know and what you are doing to deal with the issue.

5. Social media emergency squad – Break out the coffee and haul in the mattresses. For a crisis the size of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, you’re crisis PR team is going to be spending a lot of time and energy communicating via social media.

Every piece of content that I mentioned above, Twittering links, posting videos to YouTube and multiple video sites, Facebook page updates, has the potential to create comments – both negative and positive. Roll up your sleeves and get to work. Respond to those comments as a representative of your company. Leave the corporate speak behind and talk informally. Not unprofessionally, informally – there is a difference. Again, tell what you know and what you’re doing.

Don’t even think of pulling a Nestle – criticizing and being sarcastic with your critics. If it makes you feel better, acknowledge their anger and state the facts as you know them.

6. Hashtag response – A continuation of the previous bullet. Monitor relevant hashtags – #BP #Oilspill #GulfCoastdisaster #Greedyoilexecs – and respond as outlined above. Yes, respond, individually and repeatedly. Is that over kill? Maybe. But do you want to make a full-scale communications response to a crisis? If so, then you need to be communicating where people are communicating – comment sections, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Again, use common sense here. Don’t get into back-and-forth arguments with someone via Twitter if they’re not going to be convinced that you’re conveying facts and information. Now’s not the time to engage in a public debate about global petroleum usage. Respond once, maybe twice, then move on.

7. Wikipedia – Keep an eye on your Wikipedia page. If critics of your company jump in with inaccurate information, correct the page with citation.

8. Convey volunteer information – this is potentially risky, but it’s worth mentioning. As we all now sadly know, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and the resulting oil spill is a monumental environmental disaster, and it’s frankly beyond the scope of BP America and its employees to contain the damage of the oil on wildlife.

BP could regularly post via their website and social media channels volunteer opportunities for people to help with the disaster relief.

Those are my crisis PR strategies for BP America written in about an hour. But, I’ve written more than one crisis PR plan, and utilizing social media tools for crisis PR is something I’ve been thinking about – and using.

The big question is, what would you add? What would you have done differently? How would your advice differ? I’d love to hear from you.

Using Social Media For Crisis PR – What Maclaren Could Have Done Differently Oh, the wrath of frustrated, angry affluent parents. And, it...
HJ Heinz Wasn’t Listening. Are You? How to Set Up a Real-time Twitter Monitoring System Today – Twitter PR strategies Earlier this week, Advertising Age featured an article by Michael...
Social Media Self-consciousness At Podcamp Boston on Saturday, I mentioned to a couple...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The debate over PR spam emails continues

jeff — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:00:40 +0000

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Training for the Olympics – how does your digital marketing efforts stack up?

jeff — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 17:45:10 +0000

The Winter Olympics are in full swing in Vancouver. As I’ve watched some of the world-class Olympic athletes compete, I started thinking about the training regimes of superstar athletes.

Jerry Rice, the famed wide receiver for the San Francisco 49ers, rarely took a day off in the offseason. He spent every offseason training – and training hard. Rice’s off-season workouts included two hours of cardiovascular running in the morning and three hours of strength training and weight lifting in the afternoon. His early-morning runs included a 5-mile uphill, vertical run. Then, at the summit, he’d throw in ten 40-meter uphill sprints.

You can take a look at the workout routines of other top athletes here.

How does your day-to-day work look in comparison to Rice and other stellar athletes?

If you’re working in digital marketing, PR, email marketing, SEO, paid search, what are you doing to train yourself to improve?

If you’re intent on being a world class marketer, a rock star, here are some things you could consider:

Time – are you punching a clock? Though you work in digital marketing, are you working bankers’ hours? I have two small kids, so I’m all about work-life balance. But, maybe you should consider setting aside a 1 or 2 week period in the next few weeks, work out logistics with your spouse/boyfriend/girlfriend, and work a series of 12-16 hours days for 1-2 weeks straight.

You can quickly do your “job” during those days, and then spend the other time throughout the day training and studying. If you’re in PR, what do your media lists and contact databases look like? Do you have a thorough list of the top bloggers covering your space. Have you emailed or tweeted them? Take your extra work time and start building those relationships.

Read – how many books did you read last year, last month, last week? And don’t just read Chris Brogan, David Meerman Scott, and Tamar Weinberg.

At the end of the day, most of us are in business. Sure, the tools have changed, but the basics of business haven’t changed all that much. Have you read Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, Hug Your Customers: The Proven Way to Personalize Sales and Achieve Astounding Results, The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker’s Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials), and Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping–Updated and Revised for the Internet, the Global Consumer, and Beyond?

If you don’t think you have the time to read, first turn off the television, and then read this article by Julien Smith about how he read a book a week last year.

Analytics – sure, you’re intent on social media outreach, you’ve just finished a very successfull PR campaign for a client that resulted in a bunch of press coverage, your SEO is rocking and you’re killing your important keywords in Google’s SERPs. But, what is all that success doing for your bottom line? How many new leads have you generated.

Spend your extra-work week digging into the analytics of your site, and start getting answers to those questions. Read and study Avinash Kaushik.

Maybe you’ll discover that yes, you’re successfully driving traffic, but that traffic has terrible conversion. Analytics can give you answers to many of those questions, and you can begin testing new landing pages, conducting A/B testing, and figure out how to convert the traffic that is hitting your site every day.

Podcasts – You could spend some of your training time listening to podcasts. If you haven’t listened to Marketing Over Coffee yet, that should be your first stop. John and Chris’ podcast is filled with useful, actionable knowledge that you can start applying to your site and your marketing efforts immediately. And, there are plenty of other podcasts, that can educate and broaden your thinking about what you’re doing every day. 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing, Jaffe Juice, For Immediate Release, Six Pixels of Separation, are just a few to get you started.

So what’s your digital marketing training regime look like? Are you the next Jerry Rice in the making?

Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study

jeff — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 18:27:52 +0000

For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing for a local fall festival in my town – the Conway, Massachusetts Festival of the Hills.

The first year, I spent the majority of my time focusing on traditional PR efforts – contacting local newspapers, radio, TV – for calendar listings, pre-event press coverage, and day-of press coverage. I also worked on traditional advertising/marketing – running print ads in local newspapers and weeklies.

We had a lot of success that first year. The festival has been a local institution for many years, so the local media is definitely interested in covering the event each year.

However, last year, I decided to ramp up our digital marketing efforts. Here’s what we’ve done so far:

Website – launched the Festival of the Hills website – with design/coding help from Erica Goleman. Now, I need to work on SEO for the site. I just noticed when I googled the phrase Festival of the Hills we’re 6th in Google’s organic search results. Yes, there are other Festivals around the U.S. named the Festival of the Hills, but I know we can rank higher than # 6.

Twitter – I started a Twitter account for the festival. I researched local Twitter users and started following them. But, honestly, I don’t think the Twitter account worked all that great. The problem I ran into was Twittering about a local event. What do you Twitter about? Ultimately, since this was a volunteer project after all and I didn’t have a ton of time to develop a full-fledged Twitter persona, I ended up Twittering basic even info reminders – with links to the website. Not great, but we did get some retweets out of it.

This year I’m considering live Tweeting throughout the day of the Festival, and again doing some Tweeting of event info prior to the event.

Flickr pool – As part of the website, we set up a Flickr pool for people to tag photos of the Festival that they uploaded to Flickr.

Event websites – I created event pages for the Festival on both Eventbrite and Eventful. My thinking was to create these event pages to help with SEO and to offer another place online that someone could discover the Festival. Also, I like Eventful’s weekly email newsletters. You can sign up to receive info on certain types of events in your local area – music concerts, arts, kids and family activities. As a parent, I’ve discovered a few kids activities vai Eventful’s weekly e-newsletters that I didn’t know about before.

I wish more events and people used Eventul. I like the concept of Eventful “pushing” info on events that they think I’ll be interested in. And, that beats having to subscribe to a million different e-newsletters from local concert venues, museums, etc. But, I still don’t think Eventful is as robust as it could be on capturing all the great local events in our area of Western Massachusetts.

As far as the impact for the Festival of the Hills, I’d say the impact of the event websites were negligible.

Craigslist – For the past 2 years, I’ve posted event info in the events section of Craigslist. Of all the online marketing we’ve done, we’ve gotten the most response from our Craigslist postings. People routinely email us as a result of the Craigslist postings asking specific questions about the Festival.

Calendar listings – I worked to make sure the Festival was listed on all the local media – newspaper, radio, TV – online events calendars. Again, does anyone read those? I don’t know, but I’ll continue posting on them next year.

Email – With the website launch, we included an email sign-up form. Thus far, the sign-ups have been minimal. This year, I’m going to work on actively collecting emails from Festival attendees. My plan is that email list would be extremely dormant. Maybe, we’d email once during the summer reminding people of the date of the Festival of the Hills and asking them to save the date. Then, maybe 4 weeks prior to the event, we’d send one email per week as a reminder/build up/count down to the Festival.

Facebook – Last year, I didn’t create a Facebook fan page for the Festival. But, it’s at the top of my To Do list for this year.

As I worked on these various digital marketing initiatives for the Festival, I remember looking around online for any insight into local event SEO. I did find this blog post about local event SEO from Katz Web Services which I found helpful.

What do you think? Did I miss something obvious? Where do you think I should spend my time online this year in marketing the Festival? Right now, I’m thinking that I’m going to spend a good chunk of time on the Facebook fan page. With the viral – easy sharing – via Facebook, it seems like a no-brainer to me.

PR and Email Marketing: A Marriage Made In Heaven The following story is real. None of the characters were...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ebooks Pricing Palooza

jeff — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:57:57 +0000

Though I spend my working hours doing public relations/media relations for technology and digital marketing companies, I’ve had a long-time interest in book publishing. I worked in book publishing in the mid-1990s when I worked at the Denise Marcil Literary Agency. And, I’ve watched the rise in eBooks, and I’ve spent a lot of time on this blog opining about ebooks and their impact on book publishing.

Recently, Ian Lewis, read some of my blog posts about eBooks and emailed me a few questions. After several back-and-forth emails, I thought it’d be of interest to publish this email conversation as a blog post.

On Feb 12, 2010, at 5:41 PM, Ian Lewis wrote:

Jeff,

i’ve been reading a couple of your articles recently, including this one below. All very informative.

http://jeffrutherford.com/ebook-pricing-may-force-an-ebook-napster-soon

“Amazon is taking a loss on just about every hardcover title they sell on the Kindle for $9.99.”

so you are saying the publishers are forcing Amazon to charge too much for e-books, and therefore they aren’t selling as well? why is Amazon losing money?

if i was to write a book, and publish through Amazon via an e-book, and bypass the publisher, is that the ‘new model’ for new authors? or is it unlikely to sell due to zero marketing?

best wishes,

ian

Hi Ian,

Actually, I think I should clarify that post. Until the last two weeks, when Amazon got into a heated debate with Macmillan, and eventually gave into MacMillan’s pricing demands, here’s what was happening.

Amazon was buying eBooks from publishers at a wholesale price similar to a physical book. So Amazon was actually paying $13-16 per ebook, and yes, Amazon was losing money on every single eBook that they sold for $9.99. They could afford to do this, because Amazon has a lot of money in the bank. And, they were doing that, because they wanted to create a market for eBooks, and I think came up with a reasonable price point of $9.99.

However, book publishers HATED that $9.99 price because they thought it devalued the price of a book. As a result, publishers started threatening to not release ebook versions of new hardbacks until 4-6 months after the hardback was released – to keep Amazon from selling brand new books for $9.99.

But, now Amazon is in intense negotiations with a bunch of different publishers who want to raise that $9.99 price, and Amazon has basically had to give in to them.

Frankly, I think publishers are making a big mistake. Publishers are trying to say that consumers should pay the same for a digital file as a printed book. I don’t think most consumers think that way. Why should I pay $14-20 for a digital file that cost pennies to distribute.

Here’s a long comment that I recently wrote in response to a story about this whole issue on the All Things Digital blog.

http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20100209/book-publishers-beware-at-itunes-expensive-music-equals-slower-sales/

Book publishers are focused on setting an artificial price. A price that has no relation to the actual cost of distributing a digital file, but has everything to do with setting a price somewhat close to a typical trade paperback. Hmm, why should I pay the same price for downloading a relatively small digital file vs. the price covering your cost of printing, binding, shipping a book to a retailer or distributor, then, oh yeah, paying the cost of those retailers to return unsold copies.

Publishers may have won the initial e-book skirmish with Amazon, but they’re going to lose that pricing argument in the long haul. Digital distribution of books will simply not command the same prices as physical copies of books. And I haven’t seen a publisher who can successfully market that message — pay us a premium for a digital file that costs us pennies to distribute.

As you pointed out with relation to the music business, raise prices and sales volumes decrease. I’ll be curious to watch a true book publisher 2.0 build a successful business model based on – low overhead for the publisher’s fixed costs, attractive low pricing to encourage impulse purchases, free e-book giveaways to build audiences for new writers (permanently free titles – not some two-week promo), etc.

Unfortunately, the majority of NYC publishers will be headed down the same road as music companies – trying to maintain high pricing for digital files with distribution costs measured in pennies, suing your most passionate fans, grasping at assorted straws vs. pursing a low-price, high volume business model.

I wrote about this in a recent blog post. I think book publishers are inviting an eBook Napster –
http://jeffrutherford.com/ebook-pricing-may-force-an-ebook-napster-soon

Finally, to answer your question about a new model for writers. Yes, I definitely think that e-publishing will be an option for writers – both writers who have had books published by traditional publishers, and writers who have never had a book published. In fact, Stephen Covey, the author of 7 Habits Of Highly Successful People recently signed a deal with Amazon to publish many of his popular books for the Kindle – and new ebooks too. In that case, Covey will get 70% of whatever Amazon charges, and Amazon will get 30%. That’s a much higher royalty rate than he’d get from a traditional publisher.

But, for the unpublished writer who decides to go down that route, you asked a very good question. What about PR and publicity. There are literally hundreds of novels being uploaded to the Kindle story every day – by previously unpublished writers. How can you stand out in that? I don’t have a good answer to that. You would have to have some kind of PR-buzz, or your book will just get lost in the ebook forest.

And, I keep using the word Kindle. There’s a company called Smashwords that will take your book and publish it electronically on multiple ebook platforms – Barnes & Noble, Sony, etc. So, it’s not just Kindle.

Also, re: the whole issue of writers who have had books published, and then making money off of ebooks sales of their old titles, you should definitely check out this blog. It’s written by JA Konrath, a crime writer who has had multiple novels published. But, he had a bunch of manuscripts of books that he had tried to sell with no success – before he sold his first novel. Now, he’s published all those old manuscripts via the Kindle Store, and he’s making money.

http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/2009/10/kindle-numbers-traditional-publishing.html

Napster for eBooks – the eBook Genie is out of the Bottle I’ve written about a Napster for eBooks before. And, unfortunately,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise

jeff — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:05:05 +0000

Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise.

Bezos never misses an opportunity to tout how Amazon’s every move is done to make their customers happy. At the same time, Amazon has repeatedly talked about how the Amazon Kindle is one of the most gifted items ever.

If that’s the case, why would Amazon ship Kindles in a box emblazoned with the word Amazon Kindle? If you know that the device is being given as a gift, don’t you know that in most modern American families, there are lots of different people checking the mail every day?

On Christmas Eve, I went to our local post office to pick up our mail, and there was an Amazon Kindle box in our stack of letters and packages. I didn’t order an Amazon Kindle for my wife. So that left only one other option, my wife’s present for me had arrived on Christmas Eve . . . but the surprise was ruined.

Shipping Kindles in clearly marked boxes is not very customer friendly. I enjoy the surprise of opening gift-wrapped presents on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That surprise was ruined for me this year.

I’m definitely enjoying the Kindle, and I’m certainly not disparaging my wife’s thoughtful gift. I just wish Jeff Bezos hadn’t ruined my Christmas surprise.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Napster for eBooks – the eBook Genie is out of the Bottle

jeff — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:19:47 +0000

I’ve written about a Napster for eBooks before. And, unfortunately, I’m forced to write about it again, due to the actions of book publishers over the past several weeks.

First, let’s recap the recent ebook and book publishing headlines:

• Barnes & Noble’s nook launches. The first wave of nook reviews were great, the second wave of reviews not so great – I doubt David Pogue at the New York Times or Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal will be giving many nooks for holiday presents.

• Simon and Schuster and Hachette Book Group, quickly followed by HarperCollins, announced that they would delay the release of eBooks until 3-4 months after the hardback has been released.

• Stephen Covey signs an exclusive ebook deal with Amazon.com to publish both new books and several of his bestselling backlist titles exclusively via the Amazon Kindle. Several of the news articles reported Covey would be receiving a royalty rate north of 50% from Amazon.

As you probably know, publishers are upset that Amazon is selling Kindle version of brand-new hardback books for $9.99. Hence, Simon and Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins’ moves to delay the release of ebook versions of their new releases.

Wow, James McQuivey, Ph.D., (@jmcquivey) Forrester Research analyst, said it best in response to Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group’s decision – “This move is about the past of your business.”

Why are publishers having such a difficult time in realizing that their industry has undergone a seismic shift since the launch of the Amazon Kindle?

I understand it’s painful to realize that the cost structure on which you’ve operated your business has changed overnight. But, it has. It simply has. You can deny it. You can say that 9.99 is predatory pricing. You can wail. You can scream. You can gripe. You can stick your head in the sand.

But reality is reality. You cannot put the ebook genie back in the bottle (even by windowing your eBook release by 3-4 months) no matter how much you try.

The first mention of Napster that I could find in the New York Times was on January 20, 2000. Book publishers have had 9 years to prepare for an eBook Napster. But they haven’t. Instead, they’re sticking their fingers in their ears and hoping to somehow convince me that I should pay $25 for an electronic file that costs pennies to distribute.

I mentioned earlier that the release of the Amazon Kindle ushered in this seismic shift in the eBook industry. That’s not because I’m a Kindle fanboy. It’s simply because Kindle debuted with the marketing muscle of Amazon.com, the leading ecommerce company in the U.S., and constantly in the top 10 most-visited websites in the U.S.. Amazon.com could post a bowl of spoiled butter on their homepage, day after day, and they’d sell bucketloads. With the constant Kindle marketing on the homepage and banner ads on interior product pages, the number of affluent customers, passionate book readers, and Amazon’s slick marketing videos of Neil Gaiman, Toni Morrison, and other prominent authors singing the praises of the Kindle, it’s inevitable that Amazon would have a hit on its hands. And, of course, wireless. Sony was the first to market with a credible eBook reader, but they relied on a clunky web-based store, and no wireless, and now they’re a second-run.

In the era of compact discs, the music business clung to the concept of the full-length album. With many genres of music (country, rap, heavy metal, etc.), an artist may only have 1 or 2 quality songs, and the rest of the album would be complete filler. Yet, record companies would price CD singles at $3,4,5, 6 or more, thinking that if they added a couple of remix versions of an artist’s hit song, then it would somehow justify charging a higher price than 1 or 2 bucks.

Now, consumers can easily access and buy music the way that they want to, and the music industry has undergone complete turmoil and reinvention – full-length album sales are down, terrestrial radio is on life support, satellite radio and Internet-based radio such as Pandora, is growing, bands try to make their money with live performances and Tshirts/product sales. But, at the end of the day, people are still listening to and enjoy music just as much as ever. People still go to concerts and performances and sing along, off-key, in their car. But, yes, the underlying economics of the music industry has fundamentally changed.

The same is true for book publishers. The digital/ebooks genie is out the bottle. Do I think that all books should be free? Absolutely not. Do I think that publishers should close their doors and we’ll all have to sift through waves of self-published books searching for quality books? No, I don’t think that’s the case either.

But, I do know that you can’t expect to convince, cajole, or market to consumers that $25 is a reasonable price to pay for a digital file that takes pennies to distribute electronically. If you insist on that price point, you will guarantee a Napster for eBooks. Almost all of the major eBook devices can now read PDF files. What’s to stop someone from scanning that NY Times bestseller that isn’t currently available in eBook format and distributing it via torrents, email, social media, etc.? And, keep in mind, scanners and scanning technology are improving every year. Scanning a 500-page book gets easier every year.

What will publishing look like if consumers continue to demand a $10 price point for new books?

Much lower advances - or no advances. We’re in 2010 in a couple of weeks, there’s no reason that book publishers can’t pay royalties for ebook sales once per month, and pay royalties for traditional book sales on a monthly basis too – with a reserve against returns, of course.

Much lower print runs – and more print on demand – if eBook sales continue, bound book sales will decline.

Out-sourced editorial – publishers will run on an even more barebones staff with editorial and artwork outsourced on a project-by-project basis.

I would like to think that book publishers could be nimble and react to the seismic industry changes wrought by eBook sales. Yet, I think that by the very nature of large organizations, it’s difficult for them to realize titanic shifts, throw out rulebooks and rethink their businesses from the ground up.

Ebooks Pricing Palooza Though I spend my working hours doing public relations/media relations...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I Love the Web, But We’ve Got A Long Way To Go

jeff — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:28:47 +0000

I wish I could distinctly remember the first time I ever used a web browser. I’m pretty sure it was a day or two after the first version of Netscape launched. I read about it in USA Today (a newspaper I still read every single morning, including today). At the time, I was living in NYC and working at the Denise Marcil Literary Agency. I led the way in connecting with all the foreign agents we dealt with via email.

It seems so elementary now. But I was there when all of our interactions with foreign publishers and foreign agents was done via faxes. Hard-to-read faxes. Email made that part of my job so much easier.

Since then, I’ve spent a long time in PR working with digital companies – large and small. I use the Web for 10 hours per day – or more.

But, we still have such a long way to go . . .

Tomorrow, my wife has an all-day seminar in Boston she’s attending, so I’m going to be walking around the city, and exploring the aquarium with my two young sons. I wanted to do some QUICK and EASY online research to find out some basic info about downtown Boston. I wanted to see how I could walk from the Government Center T stop to the New England aquarium. Here’s the walking directions from the aquarium’s website:

If you are already in the Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market area, the North End, Government Center or the Financial District, the Aquarium is just a short walk away.

That’s great, but I’ve probably spent 4 hours of my life in and around Faneuil Hall and the North End. How about some basic directions to go with that. “If you’re walking from Faneuil Hall, here’s the route to take . . .”

I started writing this blog post, and I immediately thought, some commenter is going to come along and say, “Why didn’t you just Google directions.”

So, I did. I Googled, “how to walk from faneuil hall to new england aquarium.” This is the result I got:

I’m not a search engineer. But, why can’t I spend 30 seconds searching for walking directions from Faneuil Hall to the New England Aquarium, and get a nice street-by-street route w/ accompanying map?

I eventually printed out a Google map of the Faneuil Hall-North End area. If you’re in downtown Boston tomorrow, and see me walking around lost, how about giving me a ride or some decent directions.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Why Good PR is like Good, Smashmouth Football

jeff — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:25:05 +0000

Down, set, hut, hut!

The nights are getting colder. The leaves are falling. And more importantly, football season is in full swing again. (Let’s just hope the New York Jets, my team, can recover from their last two ugly losses).

What can PR consultants and PR agencies learn from football?

Strategic – if you’re a spray and pray PR firm, sending out tons of non-targeted emails, or sending the junior staff and interns running for the phones when a client is angry, you’re not going to be very successful. Sure, you may complete a few “passes,” and get an article written about your client every now and then. But, for the most part, you’re not going to succeed.

The same in football. If you walk out onto the field without a solid game plan, and your quarterback is just throwing the ball downfield, hoping that someone will catch it, you’re not going to win many football games.

Preparation – Research, plan, and prepare. It’s the same for football as it is with public relations.

When the Indianapolis Colts faced the Chicago Bears in the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning watched every single Bears play for every game throughout the season – studying the small defense’s small details. When he hit the field, he knew exactly what to expect.

It’s been said a thousand – no, a million – times. Do your research before you pitch a reporter. Manning watched every single play for an entire season. How many articles do you read before you pick up the phone and call a reporter? One or two? How about six months worth of articles?

You should know exactly the types of stories a reporter routinely writes. If you read enough of a reporter’s stories, you’ll see obvious trends, interests, and you can probably figure out what the reporter is not writing.

Grind it out – It’s important to think about your client’s messaging, positioning, and branding. But, at the end of the day, PR doesn’t happen unless you pick up the phone or write a well-crafted email. Ultimately, good PR campaigns are won in the trenches – not giving up on a story, and making sure you pitch everyone who could possibly be interested in the story you’re telling.

The same can be said of football. Sure, you have explosive offenses that can score within 5 or 6 plays. But, many smart coaches know that one very successful key to winning games is in the trenches. Grind out long scoring drives on the ground to control the clock.

Have you done the hard work and preparation needed? Are you ready to pitch a story and succeed? Are you ready to hit the field and win?

Photo credit – Athens Banner-Herald (Online Athens)

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

PR and Email Marketing: A Marriage Made In Heaven

jeff — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 13:00:50 +0000

The following story is real. None of the characters were made up. All names and events discussed are real. This post is a joint effort by DJ Waldow and Jeff Rutherford. You can find the same post on both http://socialbutterflyguy.com/ and http://jeffrutherford.com/. It’s the real life story of what happens when a PR guy and an email marketing guy connect. Enjoy.

Meet Jeff Rutherford: PR guy for Return Path (and other firms), and self-proclaimed “news junkie”, voracious reader, gadget enthusiast, and technology fan. @JeffRutherford Learn more about Jeff.

Meet DJ Waldow: Director of Community @BlueSkyFactory, U of Michigan alum, knowledge craver, sponge, lover of beer, coffee, and people and self-proclaimed Social Butterfly guy. Learn more about DJ.

Jeff and DJ first met over email. Jeff (PR) sent DJ (Blogger, Email Marketing guy) the following email:

This initial, seemingly innocuous, FYI-type message set off a series of email replies, forwards and general banter. Some of these exchanges were friendly; others a bit more animated. Saving you the (juicy) details, what it ultimately led to was the following:

DJ picked up the phone and called Jeff. They agreed that it was a series of misunderstandings on both sides. This is where the conversation could have (and often) ends. In this case, the “bad blood” turned into a positive.

The conversation turned to email marketing best practices and how they apply to anyone who sends out an email…

Talk to any reporter or blogger, and they’ll tell you the same thing – they’re bombarded with emails from PR people. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief at Wired, routinely blacklists PR people who send him non-relevant press releases or announcements.

Unfortunately, many PR agencies get desperate when a client is complaining loudly about lack of press coverage, and they commit the same sin as desperate marketers – spray and pray (or “batch and blast” they say in email). They build lists of reporters, any reporters, load up a bulk email program and start hitting the send button.

Not surprisingly, the same best practices for email marketing also apply to PR people’s use of email.

Best Practices that apply to both PR and EM

1. Start with a good, clear subject line and from name. This will help get the email opened

Why this is important for PR
Reporters and bloggers are bombarded with email. High profile reporters for publications such as Fortune, Forbes, New York Times, routinely receive hundreds and hundreds of emails per day.

Amidst trading emails with sources, editors, and trusted PR contacts, reporters have to quickly scan numerous emails and mass delete. If a PR person doesn’t write a relevant, compelling subject line, their email will never be opened.

Why this is important for an email marketer
There are 3 main types of “email consumers” when it comes to open/delete/mark as spam decisions. The first group opens based on who the email is from (dont’ recognize, don’t open). The second bases their decision on the subject line (not interesting? delete.). The third are those that open every single email. There are also variations of all three depending on time of day, mood, etc. Bottom line is this. Take time to think about who the email is being sent from and what your subject line says.

2. Brevity rules. Keep your emails short and to the point. It’s 2009: Nobody reads anymore!

Why this is important for PR
Twitter and text message attention spans grow every year. If a reporter opens an email filled with dense verbiage, they’re simply not going to read whatever it is you’re trying to interest them in.

Figure out what you want to say and cut it to the bone, create succinct bullet points, and then edit it again, before hitting send.

Why this is important for an email marketer
I need to know “what’s in it for me” after a quick scan. If I’m getting bombarded with marketing offers, I don’t have time for them all. If you make me work to find what the email is all about, I’m gone. This is a similar concept to website design. If I can’t find what I’m looking for on a page, I’ll go somewhere else as I can be certain someone else offers it at the same, if not better price.

3. Relevancy – why should I care about this?

Why this is important for PR
As Chris Anderson noted in his blog post referenced above, he blacklisted PR people who emailed him press releases and information that were completely irrelevant to his interests. If a PR person can’t bother to research what a reporter is interested in (for example, Anderson has published two books The Long Tail and Free. It’s not too hard to figure out his specific interests.), they shouldn’t be sending emails.

Non-relevant emails sent by PR people are such a problem, the Bad Pitch blog has an endless supply of ill-conceived PR pitches to write about.

Again, PR people feel pressure from clients and start sending and hoping and praying some reporter “sees the light.” What they should be doing is pushing back with clients and brainstorming, rethinking whatever news they’re pitching in order to make it relevant for reporters to write about.

Why this is important for an email marketer
Again, it goes back to time and attention span. If you – the marketer – are not ensuring that this email is relevant to me, I’m not going to read it. Worse, I may even report it as spam. For example, if I am a University of Michigan alumni I don’t want to get emails about Ohio State (delete/spam). If you know that I’m a male, age 33 who has a history of buying downhill ski equipment and accessories, don’t send me an offer for a snowboard.

Use the data you have about me to personalize the message and the offers.

4. Frequency. Overmailing your list – or reporters – will reduce the effectiveness of your emails.

Why this is important for PR
The PR people who often get results for their clients may go months without emailing a key reporter. Yet, when the PR person finally has a good tip or story, the reporter opens their email within minutes. The reporter values that the PR person hasn’t wasted their time with routine announcements that the reporter will definitely not cover.

Inundating a reporter with emails isn’t going to increase the likelihood that they will respond.

Why this is important for an email marketer
This all depends on the individual consumer, but there are few examples of marketers who can effectively email at a high frequency. The general rule applies: If you don’t have anything good to say (email), don’t say (email) anything at all.

Subscribers who receive too much email from a marketer either ignore it (delete) or eventually mark the emails as spam. It’s not that they didn’t opt-in, they just no longer want to read your emails. Be sure to look at your metrics – open, click-through, convert – to learn how your subscribers are interacting with your emails over time. If you see downward trends, it’s time to take action!

Email Remains A Powerful Tool If Used Correctly

As we’ve outlined, there are many parallels between how PR people and email marketers use email. It seems odd to be writing yet another blog post/article about email best practices. Unfortunately, though, the ease of loading up an email is almost too easy. And the bottom line is the same – if you send a cookie-cutter mass email that has no relevancy, you won’t get results.

Ultimately, you won’t to succeed. Right? It may take longer for an email marketer to send a highly personalized, targeted email to a smaller list, but your results will likely be higher. For a PR person, you may have to fend off bosses and clients who want you to spray an email at any reporter/blogger/podcaster with an email. Yet, if you send 8-10 highly targeted, laser-focused, relevant emails relating to what the journalist has written about before, you may very likely see better results than sending hundreds and hundreds of form emails that end up marked as spam or unread.

The old cliche still applies – if a job’s worth doing it’s worth doing it right. If an email’s worth sending, it’s worth sending it right.

Jeff Rutherford – PR Consultant, Jeff Rutherford Media Relations
DJ Waldow – Director of Community at Blue Sky Factory

Related posts:
Training for the Olympics – how does your digital marketing efforts stack up? The Winter Olympics are in full swing in Vancouver. As...

The debate over PR spam emails continues ...

Why Good PR is like Good, Smashmouth Football Down, set, hut, hut! The nights are getting colder. The...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What would Edward Bernays be doing if he were alive today and working in PR?

jeff — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:54:59 +0000

What would Edward Bernays be doing if he were alive today and working in PR? Bernays is considered the father of modern PR. You can discover more about Bernays here, here, and here.

Bernays often indulged in PR “stunts,” a strategy that I’ve vociferously warned clients not to do. How hard is it to get a PR stunt on the Fox 5 Minute? What long-term value do you get out of that? How many people are going to think about your product or company from a 15-second blip on TV and radio, and maybe a photo online and in the next day’s newspaper.

Yet, like my recent post considering what Thomas Edison would be doing if he were alive and inventing today, I love playing “what if” and thinking about how various historical figures would act/react in modern situations.

Without further ado, here’s what I think Bernays would be doing.

1. Social media – Duh, you knew I was going to say that. Bernays would have loved Ashton Kucher’s race to 1 million followers. Because, regardless of what you think of Kutchner, he now has a media platform. An extremely valuable platform as detailed by Jason Calacanis.

I wager that Bernays would have cheered Moonfruit’s Macbook giveaway that made it to the top of Twitter trending topics.

2. Influencer marketing – whether it’s P&G pitching mommy blogs, or software companies targeting key vertical bloggers, Bernays would recognize the impact of influencer marketing on publicizing a product or shifting the conversation both online and off.

3. Politics – Unfortunately, Bernays used his skills at shifting public opinion for some questionable political causes, namely the United States – in conjunction with the United Fruit Company – overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala. I think Bernays would be fascinated and a participant in today’s fast-paced political news cycle.

What do you think Edward Bernays would be doing if he were practicing PR now?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Porter Wagoner’s The Cold Hard Facts of Life

jeff — Fri, 29 May 2009 19:14:10 +0000

I have this regular Friday feature on my blog – country music lyrics. For an explanation of why I do this, you can check out this post. It’s Friday afternoon, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and it’s time for some more country music lyrics.

The Cold Hard Facts of Life by Porter Wagoner

I got back in town a day before I’d planned to
I smiled and said I’ll sure surprise my wife
I don’t think I’ll phone I’ll just head on home
For I didn’t know the cold hard facts of life

I passed a little winestore on the corner
I pictured big champagne by candle light
I stopped the car right then got out and hurried in
My mind not on the cold hard facts of life
A stranger stood there laughing by the counter
He said I’ll take two bottles of your best
Her husband’s out of town and there’s a party
He winked as if to say you know the rest
I left the store two steps behind the stranger
From there to my house his car stayed in sight
But it wasn’t till he turned into my drive that I learned
I was witnessing the cold hard facts of life

I drove around the block till I was dizzy each time the noise came louder from within
And then I saw our bottle there beside me
And I drank a fifth of courage and walked in
Lord you should’ve seen their frantic faces
They screamed and cried please put away that knife
I guess I’ll go to hell or I’ll rot here in the cell
But who taught who the cold hard facts of life
Who taught who the cold hard facts of life

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What would Thomas Edison be working on if he were alive today?

jeff — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:40:07 +0000

I recently discovered the great 10 Golden Rules of Internet Marketing podcast. If you have listened to the podcast, I highly recommend it. As an aside, I originally discovered Jay Berkowitz of 10 Golden Rules from an interview on Cliff Ravenscraft’s Podcast Answer Man podcast.

In episode 17, Jay interviewed Sarah Miller Caldicott, great-grand niece of Thomas Edison, and co-author of Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America’s Greatest Inventor. I’ve been a huge, huge fan of Thomas Edison for more than 20 years. I distinctly remember reading a voluminous biography of Edison in high school. At the time, a lot of the background about Edison’s business dealings, contracts, negotiations, litigation, flew right over my head, but Edison’s passion for knowledge and invention certainly captured my attention. Since then, I’ve read several other Edison biographies, and I’ve had a copy of Innovate Like Edison: The Success System of America’s Greatest Inventor in my To Be Read pile for ages.

In the podcast, Jay asked Sarah Miller Caldicott what Edison would be working on if he were alive today, and that question immediately captured my attention. Caldicott mentioned social networking (because Thomas Edison was known for cultivating friendships and working relationships with people he could learn from), and she also mentioned Edison would probably use the Web to keep track of international scientific experiments and developments, because even when he was alive he tried to stay abreast of what European inventors were working on.

I also wonder what Edison would be interested in and working on today.

Here’s what I think:

Twitter – Yes, Twitter has jumped the shark twice this week alone. Yet, Edison would have been fascinated by the communication implications of Twitter. Edison got his start first as a telegraph operator, and his first inventions were telegraph related.

Semantic web – I think Edison would look at the Web today, and inevitably ask, what’s next. He would want to figure out some way to easily structure the data already on the web – text, video, and audio – so that computers could act on that data and lead to web-based apps we can’t even dream of today.

Electric vehicles – Edison would almost certainly be ringing up Elon Musk, head of Tesla Motors for a lunch or dinner meeting. Only months before his death Edison oversaw the introduction of electric trains on the Lackawanna Railroad in suburban New Jersey.

3-D movie technology – Edison invented the kinetoscope, an early motion picture exhibition device. Edison would be fascinated with current 3-D movie technology and would be interested in how he could improve and expand on the 3-D technology.

Smartphones – While most people associate Edison with inventing the incandescent lightbulb, he also invented the phonograph and recorded sound. I think he’d be fascinated with smartphones and the computing power that can be held literally in one hand.

What do you think Thomas Edison would be working on if he were alive today?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Twitter – Restaurants using Twitter for marketing

jeff — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:00:53 +0000

With the growth of Twitter, many companies and businesses are trying to figure out how to use Twitter to drive business.

We all know the importance of using social media tools to listen to customers, but can social media also be used for promotions and coupons to actually drive business? Let’s face it, as much as listening is important, restaurants are one business category that simply don’t have the time to devote to “listening.”

This recent Nashua Telegraph article details how several New Hampshire eateries using Twitter and Facebook for promos. Interestingly, given the recent stats that many Facebook users don’t remain users past 30 days of signing up, these restaurants are seeing more response from their Facebook pages than Twitter.

Axel’s Food and Ice Cream (@eatataxels) - is alerting customers via Facebook and Twitter to special offers. For example, on Earth Day, Axel’s offered free soft-serve ice cream per order to anyone who walked, biked, or drove a hybrid, and mentioned “Twitter” when they ordered.

The Sugar Mommy (@thesugarmommy) – a brand-new dessert and bakery, has started Twittering what she’s baking and cooking. Her hope is to drive interest in her business while keeping marketing/advertising costs low.

If you were building a social media strategy for a restaurant, what would you recommend to help them drive awareness and attract customers?

Photo by Unique O’Mania on Flickr.

Related posts:
Using Social Media – Twitter, YouTube, etc. – For Crisis PR. What BP America Could Have Done Differently To Respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion Erik Saas at MediaPost wrote a recent story about how...

HJ Heinz Wasn’t Listening. Are You? How to Set Up a Real-time Twitter Monitoring System Today – Twitter PR strategies Earlier this week, Advertising Age featured an article by Michael...

Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social Media for “Boring” Products and Services

jeff — Wed, 06 May 2009 16:04:40 +0000

Josh Bernoff at Forrester Research recently wrote a report Social Technology Strategies for “Boring” Consumer Brands. Alas, the report costs $749, so I haven’t read it – yet. But, Bernoff’s executive summary explains his key point – “borrowed relevance.” If you have a “boring” brand or product that doesn’t necessarily lend itself to digital conversations and social media, you shouldn’t give up on leveraging social media.

Instead, Bernoff suggests creating an application that taps into your customers’ problems, and then using that application to capture the online enthusiasm of consumers.

Josh’s colleague, Chad Mitchell, followed up Bernoff’s report with an article in Insurance Networking News where he gives specific examples of “boring” insurance companies/brands using the “borrowed relevance” strategy. Some examples, include:

Geico’s MyGreatRides – a site for motorcycle enthusiasts.

Allstate’s Allstate Garage – another site for motorcycle enthusiasts with articles and content related to motorcycle safety.

Though Bernoff’s report focused on consumer brands, the “borrowed relevance” concept can also be applied in a B2B environment too as I mentioned in an earlier post.

If you’re a B2B company selling a product and service and you’re wondering how to capture the digital passion of your potential customers, you may want to ask yourself what problems those customers are having that don’t currently have an online solution. It could be as simple as a dedicated messageboard so that your potential customers could connect, vent, and problem solve with other people in their field.

Maybe you’re working in a specific niche that lacks a go-to blog or news source. You could consider creating that blog or news source as long as you commit to building a truly neutral news site. If you start excluding articles that mention your competitors or giving prominent placement to your own press, your customers will start doubting the value and authenticity of the site.

further elaborate

* Social media can sell “boring” brands, too
Using a social-media marketing strategy to sell something dull and practical isn’t as tricky as it looks, writes Chad Mitchell, especially if firms are willing to follow the examples of a couple of market leaders. Companies such as Geico have used social marketing to reach out to specialty clients such as motorcycle enthusiasts, while companies such as Nationwide and Liberty Mutual have tried to hook clients with educational content, Mitchell notes. Insurance Networking News (4/29) LinkedInFacebookTwitterEmail This Story

* Century 21 marketing is all social media, all the time
An online radio talk show about real estate issues that includes an unbranded forum is the latest element in Century 21 Real Estate’s shift from TV to an all-digital marketing strategy. The company, which in January stopped running national TV ads, also is using social networks and Twitter as elements in its C21 Communities social-media platform. Advertising Age (4/29) LinkedInFacebookTwitterEmail This Story

Related posts:
Using Social Media – Twitter, YouTube, etc. – For Crisis PR. What BP America Could Have Done Differently To Respond to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion Erik Saas at MediaPost wrote a recent story about how...

Social Media Self-consciousness At Podcamp Boston on Saturday, I mentioned to a couple...

Using Social Media For Crisis PR – What Maclaren Could Have Done Differently Oh, the wrath of frustrated, angry affluent parents. And, it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Today My World Slipped Away by Vern Gosdin

jeff — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:55:53 +0000

I have this regular Friday feature on my blog – country music lyrics. For an explanation of why I do this, you can check out this post. A few weeks ago, I featured a song Chiseled in Stone by Vern Gosdin. At the time, I didn’t know I’d be featuring another song so quickly by Vern Gosdin.

But, sadly, Vern Gosdin “The Voice” died this week. I interviewed Gosdin in 1989 or 1990 for my country music show, Dirt Roads & Honky Tonks, for WUOG, the University of Georgia college radio station. I don’t have any tapes of that interview, but he was a great interview, and a great country music singer.

Well, it’s Friday afternoon, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and here are the lyrics to Vern Gosdin’s Today My World Slipped Away.

We made it final today
I gave you all I had, you made your get away
All the love we once made
Turned to memories today.

I left the courtroom and went straight to the church
I hit my knees and told God how much I hurt
There’s nothing left of my heart
It’s going to be so hard to make a new start.

Chorus:
‘Cause today my world slipped away
We buried the plans that we made
And tonight I’m alone and afraid
Cause today my world slipped away.

All my friends say I’ll make it alright
I’ll recover and start a new life
But that’ll be so hard to do
‘Cause livin’ ain’t worth livin’ without you.

Chorus:
‘Cause today my world slipped away
We buried the plans that we made
And tonight I’m alone and afraid
Cause today my world slipped away.

‘Cause today my world slipped away…

And, finally, here’s a video of another Vern Gosdin song – That Just About Does It.

Click here to view the embedded video.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Podcasting 101 – simple steps to launching a podcast

jeff — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 16:51:58 +0000

Are you listening to podcasts? Have you thought about starting a podcast?

Here are some simple steps to recording and launching a podcast.

1. What’s it all about? – First things first. You need to decide on a theme/subject for your show. Sure, you can just turn on the microphone, and start rambling, but you’re not going to get many repeat visitors if you’re offering a scattered, unfocused podcast. Finally, if you’re starting a podcast to help promote your business, don’t just talk about yourself! For example, if you’re a realtor, record a podcast about the 3 Steps To Buying Your First House.

2. Equipment – An inexpensive USB, headset microphone will work perfectly in the beginning. Once you’ve recorded a few episodes, and you know that podcasting is for you, then you can upgrade to a more expensive microphone to get a better sound.

3. Software – Again, you don’t have to spend a lot of money. If you’re a Mac person, you can easily record and edit your podcast via Garageband. If you’re on a PC, Audacity is probably the most popular software for recording and editing podcasts, and it’s free.

4. Hosting – This is the issue that I had a hard time understanding initially when I started a podcast. If you’re small business, and you don’t have unlimited bandwidth, you need to find a host for the actual Mp3 files of your podcast episodes. Why? Every time someone downloads your Mp3 file, you’re using a sizable chunk of your web hosting bandwidth. If 50 people download your podcast, then multiply that one download fifty times.

Don’t worry though. There are several, low-cost hosts for your podcast. I recommend Libsyn. Their basic plan is cheap – $5 per month, your bandwidth is virtually unlimited, and Libsyn currently hosts tons of podcasts, including many well-known, heavily trafficked podcasts such as Grammar Girl. Once you finish recording and editing each podcast episode, you sign in to your Libsyn account and upload the file to Libsyn.

5. Blog/website – Again, you can do this for very little money. You can start a blog at Google’s Blogger or WordPress.com. After you create your blog, you can write a Post announcing the first episode of your podcast, including a link to the MP3 file hosted at Libsyn. Note - this is something that confused and frustrated me initially, if you register your podcast with iTunes (so that it will show up in the iTunes podcast store), iTunes will use the title of your blog post for the title of your podcast episode. So, if you want the title of your podcast to be “Episode 1 of the Exciting Podcast,” then you need to title your blog post exactly that, “Episode 1 of the Exciting Podcast.”

6. iTunes – it’s easy to register your podcast with iTunes. The first time you submit your podcast to iTunes it will take 2-3 days for them to review your podcast and add it to the iTunes store.

7. RSS Feed – I recommend that you use Feedburner for your podcast’s RSS feed. Feedburner offers you lots of great stats about your podcast feed.

I look forward to hearing your podcast.

Photo by Duchamp on Flickr.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Did you Etsy Today? Grassroots Twitter movement

jeff — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 20:35:55 +0000

In case you missed #etsyday on Friday, Geoffrey Fowler explains on the Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog. Etsy is an online marketplace for artists to sell their wares. Susan Schumann, an etsy user who sells her photos, decided to start her own grassroots campaign to increase awareness. She encouraged people to Twitter about etsy and to post fliers in their car windows or local coffee shops that read “Did you Etsy today?”

Keep in mind, Schumann took on this campaign herself. She has no connections with Etsy. She simply wanted to organize a one-day event to try and get the word out about a site and service that means a lot to her. (If you’re in doubt about Etsy’s faithful, buoyant fans, check out the comments on the WSJ.com story. I quickly scanned more than 60 comments and could find only one negative comment buried amidst positive raves from Etsy fans).

Again, Twitter proved its viral nature as #etsyday reached the top of Twitter discussions for Friday.

Numerous companies are trying to figure out how Twitter will fit in with their digital marketing efforts. However, before companies try to figure out how to replicate an #etsyday of their own, they should stop and study #etsyday. Schumann was so passionate about the service that etsy offers, she started the campaign herself.

Are your customers so passionate about your product or service that they want to tell thousands of their family and friend and strangers? If not, before you try to manufacture a Twitter or grassroots digital buzz, maybe you should think about what steps you could take to create a product that customers not only use – but love.

If you’re a B2B company with a product or service that people depend on, but don’t necessarily love, what can you do to fan the digital flames of a grassroots movement? One possibility is creating a definitive resource for your customers – and potential customers – to learn about industry news, trends, and issues (even – gasp! – if that news doesn’t include mention of your product or service). If a B2B company worked long-and-hard to build a vendor-neutral clearinghouse of industry facts, figures, and news, I’d bet money that someone in their industry would Twitter about using the resource.

B2C or B2B, what can you do to create an etsy passion with your customers?

Related posts:
HJ Heinz Wasn’t Listening. Are You? How to Set Up a Real-time Twitter Monitoring System Today – Twitter PR strategies Earlier this week, Advertising Age featured an article by Michael...

Data-driven public relations – Using Numbers, Surveys, Stats to Secure Media Coverage Unless you’re a company that is on a constant development...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social media backlash or Advertising Age comment trolls?

jeff — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 17:32:55 +0000

Josh Bernoff, co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies, a book that I highly recommend, recently wrote a column for Advertising Age about how the term “media” in social media is tripping up many marketers and business executives who often associate media with being a one-way communication channel.

I thought Josh’s column was interesting, but what really surprised me was the vitriolic comments blasting social media as a fad and navel gazing. Here are a few selections:

– I want to tell you a story but social media doesn’t allow me much space so I have to go. bye! Wait, how “social” is that? In ten years I see a new industry that will teach people how to communicate.

- Tweeting, texting, blogging but never actually speaking to anybody. Maybe “social” needs to be replaced with “anti-social” as well.

- What is the perverse attraction of the Internet? Why do advertising and marketing people insist in discussing aspects of the Internet endlessly? Because it is all totally meaningless!

And, my absolute favorite:

- Do any of you people work for a living? Whatever you want to call it, this “social” thing is part narcissism, part anonymous communication (which is very much anti-social) and part work avoidance. No wonder why the economy is horrible, so many people are “socializing” at the big internet water-cooler and nobody is working.

Admittedly, Twitter has exploded into the media spotlight within the past 4 weeks or so, beyond any web app or technology in recent memory. Last Friday, of course, Oprah discussed Twitter on her show and launched her own Twitter account. Then, this week, on Wednesday, Twitter was mentioned in three separate New York Times stories in the same day:

In the Dining section, a woman in N. Ireland who tweets recipes.

Also from Dining, the restaurant critic from the Daily News is suing a guy who is pretending to be her on Twitter.

And, finally, Maureen Dowd interviewed Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the co-founders of Twitter.

In the glare of media overexposure, it’s interesting to see the antipathy of the Advertising Age commenters. And, they’re not alone either, I’ve seen other comments comparing Twitter users to fat guys sitting in their parents basement Twittering in between dungeon runs in World of Warcraft. And, finally, there are many people who use the oft-repeated example, “Why the f*ck should I care what you’re eating.”

That misconstrued perception of Twitter simply isn’t true. Initial tweets about meals and minutiae have fallen away to reveal powerful discussions and information exchanges (yes, 140 characters long).

I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t get Twitter at first. I glanced at the site, followed a few people, posted a tweet or two, but then didn’t really follow up. Now, I firmly believe that that first opinion had to do with the Twitter User Interface itself. Now, that I use a variety of Twitter desktop clients – Tweetie for Mac, Nambu or Tweetdeck – the power of Twitter revealed itself.

People can scoff or lash out at Twitter, but they may as well stick their finger in a dike and try to stop the evolution of communication technologies. Ever since Thomas Edison set up his laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey, and even before that with Leonardo Da Vinci’s many inventions, the progress of technology has marched forward unstopped.

Twitter, or some variant, will be with us for a long time to come. Instead of sending mass emails, then managing the chaotic back-and-forth email conversation, Twitter allows people to carry on discussions and conversations with a wide variety of friends and acquaintances, and manage that information flow in whatever style suits you.

And, the stereotype of someone Twittering their every thought and action during the day will eventually dwindle as well. Plenty of people dip in and out of Twitter for short periods of time throughout the time and join the conversation. Then, at the end of the day, they turn off their machines, and converse and break bread with friends or family members, in normal, well-adjusted conversations. And, many of those people will probably mention ideas or news that they were exposed to via Twitter.

Related posts:
Social Media Self-consciousness At Podcamp Boston on Saturday, I mentioned to a couple...

Using Social Media For Crisis PR – What Maclaren Could Have Done Differently Oh, the wrath of frustrated, angry affluent parents. And, it...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Twitter Early Adopters Adjusting to Oprah

jeff — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 20:01:51 +0000

Over the weekend, I saw more than one early-adopter technology pundit wringing their hands on Twitter about @Oprah’s discussion of Twitter on her show on Friday. More than one person asked something along the lines of, “Where are we going to go now that the masses are discovering Twitter?”

What?

This just reeks of elitism, and is something I simply can’t understand. I’m sure there were plenty of people in 1993-1994 who were happily accessing text links online, and were horrified by the first graphical Web browsers.

Twitter is a fun, useful communications tool that has already proven its usefulness as a mass medium (many people were updating Twitter during the Mumbai terrorist attacks in November 2008).

And, despite what some early adopters may think, I think more Twitter users will only enrich the Twitter conversation. In fact, if Twitter’s demographics explode, you’ll most likely see Twitter search reflect that changed demographic – tweets re: the new Tweetie for Mac app will be far outweighed by people Twittering about American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.

Regardless of what the dominant conversations on Twitter are, you’ll still be able to find people you’re interested in, talking about things that interest you. And, if you’re getting bombarded with @replies that you’d rather not deal with, you can always block. And, I think Twitter’s features for following, building, and controlling your groups of friends will only grow as the service matures.

If Twitter does continue to grow, will instantaneous customer service from Comcast, Zappos, and others be able to scale? There’s a huge emphasis right now on close-to-immediate responses from some large companies via Twitter. Will that be able to continue as the user-base grows?

Related posts:
HJ Heinz Wasn’t Listening. Are You? How to Set Up a Real-time Twitter Monitoring System Today – Twitter PR strategies Earlier this week, Advertising Age featured an article by Michael...

Twitter – Don’t Forget Friendster Here’s the TechCrunch article – Hey, Where’s The Twitter For...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Summertime by Kenny Chesney

jeff — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 17:40:43 +0000

If you’re curious why I’m posting these, check out my explanation.

It’s Friday afternoon, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and it’s time for some more country music lyrics.

Summertime by Kenny Chesney

Summertime is finally here
That old ballpark, man, is back in gear
Out on 49
Man I can see the lights

School’s out and the nights roll in
Man, just like a long lost friend
You ain’t seen in a while
And can’t help but smile

And it’s two bare feet on the dashboard
Young love and an old Ford
Cheap shades and a tattoo
And a Yoo-Hoo bottle on the floorboard

Perfect song on the radio
Sing along ’cause it’s one we know
It’s a smile, it’s a kiss
It’s a sip of wine, it’s summertime
Sweet summertime

Temperature says 93
Down at the Deposit and Guarantee
But that swimmin’ hole
It’s nice and cold

Bikini bottoms underneath
But the boys’ hearts still skip a beat
When them girls shimmy off
Them old cutoffs

And it’s two bare feet on the dashboard
Young love and an old Ford
Cheap shades and a tattoo
And a Yoo-Hoo bottle on the floorboard

Perfect song on the radio
Sing along ’cause it’s one we know
It’s a smile, it’s a kiss
It’s a sip of wine, it’s summertime
Sweet summertime

The more things change
The more they stay the same
Don’t matter how old you are
When you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout
Yeah baby when you got

Two bare feet on the dashboard
Young love and an old Ford
Cheap shades and a tattoo
And a Yoo-Hoo bottle rollin’ on the floorboard

Perfect song on the radio
Sing along ’cause it’s one we know
It’s a smile, it’s a kiss
It’s a sip of wine, it’s summertime
Sweet summertime

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social Media Book Publicity Case Study – Jack Kilborn, author of AFRAID

jeff — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:00:12 +0000

Businesses and entrepreneurs of all types are trying to figure out how they can use social media marketing. Authors and writers have been using a variety of digital PR techniques for several years now, including: creating their own blogs, conducting blog tours (guest posting on other blogs to coincide with the publication a new book), recording podcasts, and filming or producing video book trailers.

Joe Konrath, successful mystery writer and author of the popular Lt. Jacqueline “Jack” Daniels series (published under the name JA Konrath), recently conducted an extensive digital PR campaign for a new book AFRAID, a horror thriller that is being published by Grand Central Publishing under the pen name Jack Kilborn. Konrath and his publisher decided to publish AFRAID under a pen name because the tone of the book was much more intense and shocking than his Jack Daniels mystery series. To try and jumpstart sales and excitement for AFRAID, Konrath began a blog tour on March 1st – four weeks before the publication of AFRAID on March 31st – the last day of the month.

Each day in March, Joe either wrote guest posts or answered interviews questions from a variety of blogs. Currently, since March 1st, Joe has been featured on more than 200 blogs. And, each day, Joe would post the links to that days interviews or guest posts on his popular blog – A Newbie’s Guide to Publishing. Prior to his blog tour, Joe posted on his blog and wrote of his plans in his email newsletter and asked for any interested blogs or podcasts to contact him for a guest post or interview.

Kilborn isn’t stopping with just digital PR though. In a few days, Kilborn will be leaving on a “signing tour.” He’s planning to visit more than 200 bookstores, winding up in Florida for the Romantic Times convention at the end of April. Kilborn won’t be conducting any formal book signings on this driving tour, he will be signing the copies of AFRAID that each store has in stock. However, Kilborn is using his digital connections for his book signing tour – he has issued a request via his website for fans to offer him a place to sleep each night while on his driving tour.

Results of Kilborn’s digital PR outreach for his new book AFRAID:

Before his blog tour, Googling “Jack Kilborn” received 2,880 hits. Following the tour, “Jack Kilborn” has 15,600 hits in Google.

Konrath’s blog averages 1,000 unique visitors a day, and he saw a slight increase in daily traffic during his March blog tour.

The Amazon ranking for AFRAID changed from 1,200,000 to 2,000.

AFRAID currently has 45 customer reviews on Amazon.com – much higher than most new mass-market paperbacks published by a first-time author.

Finally, I asked Kilborn about the future of digital book PR.

“I like blog tours. I think, ultimately, books and book tours will be digital. Your Kindle (or whatever the hot ereader is) will give tour updates, allowing readers to interact with authors while simultaneously downloading the book.

It’s going to be a fun future. ”

Social media book publicity - Jack Kilborn, Afraid

Related posts:
Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...

Social Media Self-consciousness At Podcamp Boston on Saturday, I mentioned to a couple...

Seth Godin and book PR – should he have staggered his Linchpin PR splash? Seth Godin’s latest book Linchpin was published on January 26th....

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Using Twitter to Respond to a PR Crisis – Amazon.com Failed To Act

jeff — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:47:41 +0000

I try to unplug during many weekends. Part of that is the fact that I have two small children, and I’m spending most weekends doing dad things. Another reason is that I like to try and take a break from the firehose of constant info that I’m dealing with throughout the week.

So, I was certainly surprised to check Twitter while waiting for a table at a sushi restaurant late Sunday afternoon and see post after post re: AmazonFail (lots of background info here, here, and here). If you’re not in the loop, Amazon began removing sales rankings from a wide variety of books over the weekends. And, surprise, surprise, almost 100% of the titles affected were books dealing with gay, lesbian, and transgender issues. Sales rankings can impact whether or not a book shows up on Amazon’s various bestseller lists and in customer searches on the site.

Regardless of what actually happened, a) Amazon made the egregious decision to delist numerous gay, lesbian, and transgender books, or b) there was a genuine backend computer glitch that resulted in the delisting, Amazon compounded their mistakes by not using social media to deal with this PR crisis.

I just checked out Amazon’s twitter account. As of 1:40 p.m. ET on Monday, April 13th, more than 24 hours after this PR crisis started, Amazon’s latest twitter message reads, “Amazon Daily: The Bldg Blog Book: The Blog Made Flesh http://bit.ly/uK5babout 16 hours ago from Perl Net::Twitter.”

I’m sure there were panicked conference calls yesterday among various Amazon.com execs. But the company’s PR response was to give the same exact statement/quote to multiple journalists reporting the story, ““We recently discovered a glitch to our Amazon sales rank feature that is in the process of being fixed. We’re working to correct the problem as quickly as possible.”

Why didn’t Amazon.com use Twitter to respond to the crisis – a crisis that could have an impact on their revenue/sales since many of the Twitter posters were threatening boycotts?

Here’s what I would have recommended.

1. Figure out what the hell happened, and figure out what we’re going to do to correct the mistake. And, let’s figure out how we want to communicate ASAP what happened to our customers and the press.

2. Communicate what happened to reporters proactively – call the top 25-30 reporters who routinely cover Amazon.com – and respond quickly to any incoming calls from reporters.

3. Communicate what happened via Amazon.com’s twitter account. I would recommend hourly updates too – either repost the same basic explanation or add any additional info that surfaces.

4. Respond to #amazonfail posts on Twitter with explanation of what happened. This could get tedious – and wouldn’t scale. However, if Amazon.com’s corporate communications team had responded to 25-30 complaints per hour yesterday afternoon, they would have gone a long way in turning the conversation around.

How would you use Twitter and other Social Media tools to deal with a PR crisis?

Related posts:
Using Social Media For Crisis PR – What Maclaren Could Have Done Differently Oh, the wrath of frustrated, angry affluent parents. And, it...

Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise. Bezos never misses an...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Chiseled in Stone by Vern Gosdin

jeff — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:01:19 +0000

If you’re curious why I’m posting these, check out my explanation.

It’s Friday afternoon, it’s five o’clock somewhere, and it’s time for some more country music lyrics.

Chiseled in Stone by Vern Gosdin.

You ran cryin’ to the bedroom
I ran off to the bar,
Another piece of heaven gone to hell,
the words we spoke in anger
just tore my world apart,
And I sat there feeling sorry for myself.

Then that old man sat down beside me
and looked me in the eye,
and said “Son, I know what you’re going through,
You ought to get down on your knees
and thank your lucky stars that you got someone to go home to.”

(Chorus)
You don’t know about lonely,
Or how long nights can be,
Till you lived through the story
That’s still livin’ in me,
And you don’t know about sadness
’til you faced life alone,
You don’t know about lonely
’til it’s chiseled in stone.

So I brought these pretty flowers
hoping you would understand
sometimes a man is such a fool,
Those golden words of wisdom
from the heart of that old man,
showed me I ain’t nothing without you.

You don’t know about lonely,
Or how long nights can be,
Till you lived through the story
that old man just told me,
And you don’t know about sadness
’til you faced life alone,
You don’t know about lonely
’til it’s chiseled in stone.
You don’t know about lonely,
’til it’s chiseled in stone.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Is True/Slant the Future of Journalism?

jeff — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:55:43 +0000

Is True/Slant the Future of Journalism? I doubt it. But, at this point, if anyone says they know what the future of journalism is, I certainly don’t believe them.

There are a lot of digital journalism experiments – True/Slant, Outside.in, Placeblogger, etc – being thrown at the wall right now, and who knows what’s going to stick? I sure don’t. Though, I do think that advertising-funded, publicly traded newspaper companies (i.e. The New York Times) are going to have a tremendously difficult road ahead. In fact, if they don’t diversify beyond newspapers, I will guarantee that they’ll have to either go private, so that they’re not buffeted by market demands for X% increase every quarter and every year, or else they’ll transform into non-profit organizations with endowments.

But enough about newspapers, what about True/Slant? Walt Mossberg wrote about True/Slant this morning in his Personal Technology column in the Wall Street Journal.

In Mossberg’s words, “It covers a wide range of topics, such as politics, culture, sports, business, health, science and food. It is launching with 65 journalists, or “knowledge experts,” assigned to specific topics. Each of these contributors gets a page to house their journalism and, it is hoped, an active social network of followers who will regularly discuss the articles they read there.”

For someone so conversant with technology, I’m surprised that Mossberg didn’t point out the similarity between True/Slant and About.com. Sure, for True/Slant, the “knowledge experts” will be published journalists, but they’re curating, finding, selecting news, just like the About.com guides do.

It’s certainly a laudable idea and effort, but will they be able to drive enough traffic, attract enough eyeballs to make money from digital advertising? The realist in me says, “That’s going to be awfully hard to do.”

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

3 Ways To Keep A Public Relations Client Happy

jeff — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:06:46 +0000

Media coverage – the more the better – In the last 10 years, PR companies have relegated media coverage to a small subset of their services. They’re more interested in making money on brand articulation, messaging, media training, etc.When most CEOs, CMOS, and other executives, evaluate their PR success, they’re going to ask themselves, “How much press coverage have we gotten? Are people writing about us, and more importantly, reading about us on a consistent basis?”And, by media coverage, I’m not talking about just mainstream media. If a client only values newspaper-TV-radio, then you’ve got to educate them about where most people are getting their news – digital – and more importantly the SEO value of digital coverage.

Candid feedback – if a client explains a new project or product offering to you, and your stomach sinks, and you start thinking, “How in the hell am I going to explain or sell this to reporters,” you’d best air your concerns from the beginning. There are ways to do this without extinguishing a clients’ enthusiasm.If you know what reporters are writing about, you can figure out a way to reframe the clients’ announcements or reposition in a way that fits into what the media is currently interested. But, it’s better to have that conversation up front. If you ignore the sinking feeling in your gut, you’re going to have an uncomfortable conversation with client eventually. It will happen.Why wait until you’re trying to sugarcoat the response of reporters who had the same reaction you did, “This doesn’t make sense – or this doesn’t fly?”

Media Junkie – If you’re not a media junkie, you’re going to have unhappy clients. If your clients are sending you relevant articles and pointing out what their competitors are doing – or memes specific to a client’s industry – you’ve got a problem. Clients are paying you for your media expertise – and you’ve got to consistently show that you know what’s going on and who’s writing about what.

Related posts:
Data-driven public relations – Using Numbers, Surveys, Stats to Secure Media Coverage Unless you’re a company that is on a constant development...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Can Microsoft buy search share from Google and Yahoo?

jeff — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:28:01 +0000

At this point in the evolution of search engines – and more importantly in consumers current use of search engines – can Microsoft basically change consumer behavior through advertising?

It may be a fruitless task, but Microsoft is going to try. According to Advertising Age magazine, Microsoft is planning to spend $80-100 million advertising their new search engine. Unfortunately, the marketing/advertising dollars they’ve spent on building a brand with MSN, and then Live Search, are going to be wasted. Because, yet again, in Microsoft’s quest for online success, they’re planning to unveil yet another brand.

MSN Network’s Live Xbox Zune Search engine. Who knows what they’re going to call this thing. Depending on which Microsoft exec you talk to you, and on which day, the names for this new search engine have varied – Kumo or Project Kiev or Live Search. And, the latest name speculation, based on Microsoft’s trademark filings – is Bing. (I guess they could go for the ironic advertising angle and get Vanilla Ice out of rehab to do some play on the word Bing and Bling).

Microsoft has hired Crispin, Porter & Bogusky, the inventive, popular Miami ad shop for the new search engine campaign. But, the much larger issue, is can Microsoft change people’s default use of Google via an advertising campaign? I doubt it. The difference in search results between Google and Microsoft’s new search engine will be negligable. And, consumers would need to feel they’re truly getting a different, unique, wowing experience via Microsoft to shift away from automatically Googling a search.

And, don’t forget, Ask.com tried to change consumers preferred search engine too. They even hired the same hot Miami ad shop. Unfortunately, Ask.com wasn’t successful.

According to that same Advertising Age article, “Heavy marketing hasn’t exactly been a winning formula for other search engines. IAC-owned Ask.com, for example, asked Crispin for a major ad campaign that launched in May 2007 and focused on Ask.com’s algorithm. But Ask.com’s share declined two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.5% from July 2007 to July 2008, according to ComScore.”

Related posts:
Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – My Wife Thinks You’re Dead by Junior Brown

jeff — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 19:20:16 +0000

If you’re curious why I’m posting these, check out my explanation.

It’s Friday afternoon, I’m about to end the work week, and it’s time for some more country music lyrics. Yee-haw!

My Wife Thinks You’re Dead by Junior Brown

It’s good to see you baby it’s been a long long while
We’re both a whole lot older and we’ve seen a lot of miles
But things are different now since the good ole days
And you’ve been in some trouble
Since we went our separate ways
Well have to say hello maybe some other time instead
Cause you’re wanted by the police
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

Somebody spread the rumor that you had lost your life
Least that’s the way I heard it and what I told my wife
Now here you’re showing up again and talk is getting round
And I can see that one of us will have to leave this town
If you think that I want trouble
Than you’re crazy in your head
Cause you’re wanted by the police
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

You never called or wrote me just up and disappeared
Nobody knew what happened
Where you been for all these years
Now troubles what you’re lookin like
Cause troubles where you been
And I can see the kind of trouble you could get me in
You better pay attention to every word I said
Cause you’re wanted by the police
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

So goodbye to you baby I’m glad we got to talk
But I’m faithful to my wife and I don’t ever break the law
I don’t know where you’re headed for
But I know where you been
We’ve reminisced now lets just go our separate ways again
Go find another ex-sweetheart to hang around instead
Because you’re wanted by the police
And my wife thinks you’re dead.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Fujitsu launches ebook device in Japan with color display

jeff — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:48:15 +0000

Fujitsu has released an ebook device in Japan with a color display.

From Book Business, “The Flepia, which weighs 385g and is 12.5mm thick, features an 8-inch touch display screen capable of showing up to 260,000 colors in high definition. It enables 40 hours of continuous battery operation when fully charged, and does not require power for continuous display of a screen image. When used with a 4GB SD card, the device can store the equivalent of approximately 5,000 300-page print books.”

As I’ve written, more than once, here, I still use my old Gemstar eBook – because I can read it in bed. The eInk ebooks (Sony Reader, Kindle) require you to use a booklight – and even then the experience isn’t great.

As screen technology improves, we’re very close to magazine-sized eBook readers.

Related posts:
Napster for eBooks – the eBook Genie is out of the Bottle I’ve written about a Napster for eBooks before. And, unfortunately,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Social networks – friends conundrum

jeff — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:57:32 +0000

Why can’t we be friends?

Someone that I follow on Twitter asked a question this morning about joining an online marketing community, and one of the other members automatically added her to their email newsletter list – without asking for her permission.

First, that’s just bad permission marketing. I have no problem if you alert me to your newsletter so that I can check it out, figure out if the content is compelling and relevant to me, and decide whether or not I want to subscribe. But, don’t just subscribe me. You’re just going to piss people off, and at the end of the day, you’ll defeat whatever purpose you had in the first place, because you’ll have a ton of unsubscribes.

But, that situations leads to a question that I think many people will continue to ask as social networks continue to grow, mature, and morph. Is this person truly my friend? Are they a business contact? If I’ve never done business with this person, what is that person’s value in my network?

In addition, if you’re a solopreneur or consultant, and things end badly with a client (and lets face it, if you’re in business long enough, you’re going to have a client pull the plug because they weren’t happy or it just wasn’t the right fit). Now, if that happens, do you immediately defriend the person, or do you continually see their updates and ignore them.

Maybe there should be an awkward ending button on most digital networks. You click it, and the connection will gradually fade away, so there’s not a sudden delisting.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Well-written blog = great digital media strategy for Goodwill of Washington, DC

jeff — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:32:47 +0000

Digital marketers and social media “experts” sure love the shiny and new. As soon as one technology develops – email, Tripod, theGlobe, online forums, blogs, SMS, social networks – anything and everything that came before is old news, boring, stale, dead.

And, of course, Joe Q Public is usually 4 or 5 circles – or more – behind. As an aside, I drink coffee and read my newspapers every morning at a small, country store/diner with mostly a blue-collar crowd. I always enjoy hearing and eavesdropping on their consumer habits – especially when it comes to online and digital. Needless to say, if I mentioned Tweets to this crowd, they’d look around for a bird.

That’s just a setup for mentioning Goodwill of Washington, DC’s success with a simple ole blog – running on Blogger nonetheless – not even a WordPress installation. It’s important to keep in mind the power of a good blog with compelling content - especially when I’ve seen more than one person say that blogs are dead in favor of Twitter.

As detailed in this Search Engine Guide story, in June 2007 Goodwill of Washington DC decided to increase their social media strategy.

They had two goals for the program:

1. Transform their live fashion show into a virtual fashion show – to help drive traffic to Goodwill’s new eBay store.

2. Reach a younger, hipper audience online.

Em Hall, Goodwill’s retail marketing manager, wrote her first blog entry on the DC Goodwill Fashion Blog as the DC Goodwill Fashionista on July 12, 2007.

Check out these results so far:

The blog now averages 3,500 unique vistors a week.

1 out of 14 people who read the blog clickthrough to Goodwill’s online stores – eBay, ShopGoodwill.com.

1 out of 6 people who visited the virtual fashion show visited one of the online stores.

The blog rentention rate is over 60 percent.

All that from a targeted, well-written blog hosted on Blogger.com

Related posts:
Local event digital marketing, search engine optimization, PR – Festival of the Hills case study For the last several years, I’ve volunteered to handle PR/marketing...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The most interesting bookstores in the world

jeff — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 13:35:13 +0000

If you love books, or love bookstores, you should definitely check out the Most Interesting Bookstores of the World site – complete with beautiful photos.

Here are two of my favorites:

El Ateneo in Buenos Aires.

Borders Bookstore at the Time Warner Building on Columbus Circle – New York City.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Stephen King discussing the Amazon Kindle 2

jeff — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:57:45 +0000

width="425" height="344"> name="allowFullScreen" value="true"> name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"> type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always"
allowfullscreen="true" width="425"
height="344">

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Shelf Awareness

jeff — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 19:48:22 +0000

Shelf Awareness, an email newsletter about bookstores and book retailing, published a letter to the editor I emailed them last week.

This was in response to several previous letters about independent bookstores grappling with the rise in eBooks.

Jeff Rutherford of Jeff Rutherford Media Relations writes:

With e-books, and especially the Amazon Kindle, the barrier for instant gratification has plummeted. If I hear about a bestseller or backlist title, I can order it and have it delivered within seconds. I hope that independents don’t lose out on the e-book phenomenon. As much as I love printed books, the increase in e-books is inevitable. While Amazon Kindle remains tied to Amazon, why aren’t independents courting Sony for the Sony Reader, Fictionwise or the many iPhone e-book companies?

Scannable barcode technology is available on most smartphones these days. Why not develop a relationship so that a customer in your independent store could scan a barcode on a book and order the e-book immediately from one of these companies? Or better yet, there are numerous Asian electronic companies working on their own e-book reader devices. Why doesn’t the ABA partner with one of those companies to offer an ABA-independent bookstore branded device? When users register their devices, they plug in their favorite locally-owned bookstore and the store receives a small cut from any book that customers purchase on the device.

Sure, there are technology hurdles in the various scenarios I just outlined, but those can be solved. I’d hate for independent bookstores to miss out on the rise of e-books because of a lack of vision or risk taking.

Related posts:
Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise. Bezos never misses an...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

HarperStudio tries non-returnable

jeff — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 15:03:03 +0000

Bob Miller explains HarperStudio’s efforts at selling books to bookstores on a non-returnable basis. I’m actually surprised given the emphasis on “green” in so many industries that environmental activistis haven’t seriously attacked the book publishing biz. ENORMOUS amounts of gasoline are wasted shipping books to bookstores, packing them up two months later, shipping them back to the warehouse. Then, if those same books are sold as remainders, more gas is spent to ship them back to the very same store.

(I’m trying to insert a video into this post, and I’m having trouble. Hopefully, I’ll figure it out soon).

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Second Is Coming

jeff — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:39:42 +0000

Kindle 2.0 is scheduled for first quarter of 09. Or so says Techcrunch.

I agree with Michael Arrington. Why is Amazon controlling the production of the Kindle? Why not license the technology, provide the digital content for Kindle devices, and let Asian tech manufacturers innovate on a wide range of Kindle devices.

Does Amazon really want to be in the hardware business? Their whole interest here is selling as many digital books as possible. Plus, if Amazon were to give up control of the device’s form factor, maybe we’d get some innovative tech company interested in designing a sleek Kindle that looks and feels as sexy as the Sony Reader or even a MacBook.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Read All About It

jeff — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:54:41 +0000

Like a lot of things that Google announces, this announcement came and went in less than a 24 hour news cycle. On September 8th, Editor & Publisher wrote about a Google deal with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph to digitally publish thousands, if not millions, of old newspaper articles that aren’t currently available online.

This makes a ton of sense. How many of those articles are earning revenue for publishers now? I’m sure the Google ad revenue will be small initially, but it could certainly grow over time into a nice revenue stream.

I was struck recently about the lack of access online to newspaper articles more than a few years old. I grew up in Macon, Georgia and went to high school in the 1980s. A few months ago I was looking online for some articles about Vex, a local punk band, that played in Macon in the mid-80s. But, with the exception of a few very, very obscure music sites, it was like the band never existed – online that is.

It’d be nice to have full and unfettered access to newspaper articles from not only 20 years ago, but 40, 60, 80, and 100 years ago.

Related posts:
I Love the Web, But We’ve Got A Long Way To Go I wish I could distinctly remember the first time I...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Are You Experienced?

jeff — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:47:23 +0000

The new Xbox Experience – the revamped Xbox Live UI – is scheduled to launch tomorrow. How much you want to bet that they have server issues and download queues a hundred miles long tomorrow? Not sure when companies will grasp the need to improve launch day experiences. I read that the queues to access the new World of Warcraft expansion – Wrath of the Lich-King – was several hours long the day that it launched.

Regardless of tomorrow’s performance, it should be up and running fine within a few days or weeks.

I am excited to see the Netflix streaming functionality featured in the new Xbox Experience, but what’s with the funky avatars? Why rip off Nintendo’s Wii when there’s so much cool technology out there for modeling faces and bodies?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Got Book?

jeff — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 17:28:18 +0000

What took them so long? It’s sad that it took an economic crisis of historical proportions to make book publishers realize that they need to get serious about marketing the joy of reading and books.

According to Publishers Weekly, Random House has spearheaded a holiday advertising campaign touting books as great gifts – and not necessarily marketing specific authors or titles. Let’s just hope that this effort isn’t half-hearted and forgotten in a few weeks.

The American Library Association has had it’s long-running Celebrity Read posters – using celebrities to tout the joys of reading. Also, the AAP has it’s similar Get Caught Reading campaign.

Why haven’t book publishers done more to brand the experience and pleasure of reading? There has been lots of handwringing and prognosticating about the shrinking attention span for books amidst the Web, video games, TV, movies, etc.. If book publishers want to defend, and hopefully expand, their piece of the media pie, then they have to be proactive about marketing the pleasure of reading.

The Random House Books=Gifts program is a web-based campaign of display ads featuring prominent authors touting the joys of reading and giving books as gifts. Initially, the campaign will feature Random House authors, but there are plans to expand beyond that.

Also, MJ Rose, novelist and expert book marketer, has started a new holiday campaign – featuring book jacket images and the message to buy books as gifts. If you’re a blogger, consider featuring an image from Rose’s campaign.

Again, though, publishers shouldn’t forget these efforts once the economy recovers. And, to me the important thing here is that publishers should look beyond their obvious audience – existing book lovers. Digital advertising on book related sites is preaching to the choir.

If publishers want to expand their market, they need to think creatively, i.e. market fantasy-science fiction novels on video gaming sites, market street lit on music/rap blogs, etc.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Now that that’s settled

jeff — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 01:39:05 +0000

The New York Times wrote about Google’s recent settlement, or proposed settlement I should say, of the Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild.

Obviously this gives Google the right to display scanned books and sell ads against those books. And, I’m assuming that there’s some kind of rev share with the authors for that advertising. Or is there a one-time payment?

Here’s the question that I have. Will authors or authors heirs or estates or literary executors, in many cases, be able to get a digital file from Google once Google scans that author’s book? Will those authors have access to the digital files so that they can sell their work digitally in other places – Kindle, Sony Reader, Fictionwise?

Once Google has the scanned book and has the potential to make advertising revenue on that scan, will they be amenable to sharing that digital file with the author? Or will they complain that sharing digital files would be too convoluted – too many authors, too much hassle?

There’s gold in them thar backlists. The beauty of the Kindle or any other digital reading device is in the backlist potential. I’m a huge mystery fan, but right now I can’t walk into a bookstore and buy every Ed McBain 87th Precinct book or Donald Westlake’s Richard Stark novels. The Kindle’s infinite bookshelf will ultimately pay large dividends for Amazon and make Chris Anderson have happy dreams re: the long tail.

Related posts:
Napster for eBooks – the eBook Genie is out of the Bottle I’ve written about a Napster for eBooks before. And, unfortunately,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – October 3, 2008

jeff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 20:16:47 +0000

I grew up listening to Charley Pride singing this song. And, in fact, Charley Pride at the Macon Coliseum in Macon, Georgia, was the first concert I ever went to.

Kiss An Angel Good Morning

Whenever I chance to meet some old friends on the street
They wonder how does a man get to be this way
I always got a smiling face any time and any place
And every time they ask me why
I just smile and say

You’ve got to kiss angel good mornin’
And let her know you think about her when you’re gone
So kiss an angel good mornin
And love her like the devil when you get back home

Now people may guess the secret of happiness
Some of them never learn
It’s a simple thing
The secret I’m speaking of
Is a woman and a man in love
And the answer is in this song that I always sing

You got to kiss an angel good mornin
And let her know you think about her when you’re gone
So kiss an angel good mornin
And love her like the devil when you get back home

Kiss an angel good mornin
And let her know you think about her when you’re gone
So kiss an angel good mornin
And love her like the devil when you get back home.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I’d like to read a book, but I’m tethered to my computer

jeff — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 19:58:18 +0000

Well, Sony announced their third generation Sony Reader last night.

There’s a lot to like about the new Sony Reader – PRS-700 – touch screen, LED for reading in bed or low-light conditions. (As an aside, can someone explain that type of numbered branding to me? Why not call it Sony Reader 3, the Third, Sony Reader – the third chapter. Nope. We’re gonna name it the PRS-700).

But, unfortunately, Sony is missing a key, vital, feature here – there’s no on-board wireless connectivity or built-in Wi-fi. Hence, the title of my post. To get content onto the Sony Reader PRS-700, you have to connect it to your computer. Until Sony incorporates wi-fi or built-in wireless for its 4th generation, they’re going to have a hard time competing with the Amazon Kindle.

Sony is still struggling with content. Sure, they’re supporting ePub, PDF, and other formats. But, they’re still way behind the number of titles available for the Kindle. According to PW’s story today, Sony is planning to increase the number of titles availabe in the Sony Reader store to 100,000 titles from 50,000 now.

However, that still puts them behind the Amazon Kindle by 80,000 titles.

For competition’s sake, I’m excited by the touch features, the LED lighting, and the promised redesigned Sony eBook store. But to truly go head-to-head with Amazon, Sony has to incorporate wireless sooner rather than later.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sony Reader event tonight

jeff — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:46:35 +0000

What is Sony planning to announce tonight?

A new Sony Reader model with built-in wireless? New deals with publishers to expand the number of available titles?

Are they going to end the Sony Connect software in favor of a web-based platform? The search functionality of Sony Connect still leaves a lot to be desired?

I wonder what Sony will be announcing.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Will Maghound Have Much Bite Behind Its Bark?

jeff — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:47:37 +0000

Kudos to Time Inc. for innovating and launching Maghound. But is it going to work?

What is Maghound exactly? It’s a unique way to subscribe to magazines. Instead of the traditional fill out a subscription form, send in a check, and get your magazine every month, Maghound offers something new.

You select the magazine, or magazines, you want to read, and you pay for them month by month. And, if you realize you’re not reading your Entertainment Weekly each week, and you’d rather keep you finger on the pulse of pop culture and loony vice-presidential candidates by subscribing to People magazine, then you go onto the Maghound website and change your Maghound subscription from EW to People.

What’s the benefit here? You don’t have to endure 6 months of a magazine subscription that you realize you don’t really read anymore. You can either end the subscription the following week or month, or switch to another magazine.

At first, I thought Maghound was a supremely odd, and doomed effort. But, as I’ve written this explanation, I’ve realized it makes a lot of sense. But, here’s my initial reservation, and one that remains – who has the time and energy to manage their magazine subscriptions so closely? If you decide you don’t want a magazine, you toss it in recycling each week, and you don’t resubscribe.

To me, Maghound seems to be an answer to a problem that most people just don’t think about dealing with – except for not resubscribing.

It will be interesting to watch how Maghound fares.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday afternoon country music lyrics – Sept. 19, 2008

jeff — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:30:39 +0000

If you’re curious why I’m posting these, check out my explanation.

Up today, a wonderful Johnny Paycheck tune – The Real Mr. Heartache.

“The Real Mr. Heartache”

Written by Johnny Paycheck

There we were all three of us sitting side by side
Three guys who have loved her, but to someone she lied
Now everybody’s wondering, just who’s the lonely guy?
So will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?

Chorus

The real Mr. Heartache is every guy she’s known
Loved by her, left by her with a heartache all his own
Everytime I hear that question the number multiplies
Will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?

Verse 2
There we were all three of us standing side by side
While six little teardrops tickled from our eyes
And I even see a stranger that seems to qualify
So will the real Mr. Heartache please stand up and cry?

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sony Reader graces shelves at Target

jeff — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 13:07:04 +0000

I’m a couple of days behind on this, but as Joe Wikert noted Sony Readers are now available at both Target’s online store and brick-and-mortar stores.

I was emailing a friend in publishing yesterday about this, and we both agreed that this is a great move on Sony’s part. However, I can’t help but wonder, does the deal with Target include exclusivity?

If not, I wonder if Sony execs are on a plane to Bentonville? If Sony really wanted to floor the gas pedal on the Sony Reader, they should seriously consider it.

Not to stereotype Wal-Mart shoppers, but every retail exec knows their demographics. What would happen if Sony went out and cut deals with Harlequin, Zondervan, and publishers of various best-selling self-help books?

Some may argue that Wal-Mart shoppers aren’t huge readers and certainly not readers looking for a Sony Reader device. However, romance readers have shown a huge interest and passion for ebooks. Romance readers tend to read a ton of books, and they’re constantly looking for new titles and new authors.

If Sony wants to win the race vs. Amazon’s Kindle – or at least compete aggressively – they should give it some serious thought.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Friday – Country Music lyrics – Sept. 12, 2008

jeff — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 20:12:10 +0000

I’m a huge country music fan. In college, I started a hardcore country music show Dirt Roads & Honkytonks at WUOG, the college radio station at the University of Georgia. Go Dawgs!

I thought I’d post some country music lyrics once a week for everyone’s pleasure.

First up, Two Dollar Toy by Stoney Edwards.

One brief aside re: digital media. Why doesn’t Amazon have Stoney Edwards available in their MP3 downloads? Repeat after me all you media execs, backlist, backlist, backlist.

TWO DOLLAR TOY by Stoney Edwards

Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me

Last night I woke up like I done many times before
But this time I had evil on my mind
I quietly packed my clothes and headed for the door
But in the hallway stumbled and fell over a toy

My little girl says daddy cover me
And daddy please don’t go
That’s when the love in my heart
Overruled the thought I had in my mind
Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me

[ steel ]
I’d felt a two feet tall as I walked by down the hall
Put my clothes back on the rack where they belong
I lit a smoke and I thought what a fool I almost was
And how a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me
Last night a two dollar toy made a million dollar daddy out of me

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Plastic Logic – Mr. Bezos on Line 1

jeff — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 11:55:34 +0000

This week at Demo, Plastic Logic demoed the second generation Amazon Kindle.

Okay. I’m joking, of course. Plastic Logic is a separate company in no way associated with Amazon – yet. But, they did display a new eReader device with a form factor that Bezos’ design team should be studying intently for the second generation Kindle. Lots of people are writing about Plastic Logic’s demo – here, here and here.

Currently, you can read the New York Times, and many other newspapers and magazines on the Amazon Kindle. But, would you rather read the morning’s New York Times on an airplane or your morning train ride on the cramped Kindle screen or Plastic Logic’s large screen? Plastic Logic’s eReader more closely resembles the typical size of a magazine page vs. the Kindle’s paperback book size.

As much as I love Plastic Logic’s large form factor, I seriously doubt they’ll achieve long-term success, unless Jeff Bezos is on line 1 to discuss a partnership or acquisition. Why so negative?

What’s their content strategy? – Joe Wikert beat me to this argument. But, I want to echo what he said.

I spent some time this morning perusing Plastic Logic’s website and management profiles. Plastic Logic has a huge amount of talent – technology talent. I didn’t see any manager with high profile, deep experience cutting deals with book publishers and other content companies – magazines, etc.

From the Plastic Logic demo, it appears that the company is aiming their reader squarely at the enterprise market. Why limit the device to corporate documents, newspapers, and other business content? Once again, consumers and business people will be forced into a device with a narrow focus.

Unless Plastic Logic execs are hard at work in New York City cutting deals with numerous book publishers to get thousands of front list and backlist novels and non-fiction book, ereader fans are going to face a frustrating choice. They’re going to have to shove their Kindle and their Plastic Logic devices into their briefcase for a flight. After they read their latest sales documents on their Plastic Logic (on a beautiful, large screen), they’ll have to dig out their Kindle to read a science fiction or mystery novel published four or five years ago.

I love the Plastic Logic’s form factor, but I’m seriously concerned about their content strategy. Launching with a few thousand bestselling novels and non-fiction books is just not going to be compelling, especially with 140,000+ books available on the Kindle.

I’m looking forward to seeing what Amazon has up their sleeve for the second generation Kindle, and I think I hear a phone ringing at Plastic Logic’s corporate offices.

Related posts:
Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise. Bezos never misses an...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

I Don’t Have A Clue

jeff — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:19:21 +0000

Bob Minzesheimer (someone whose book publishing articles I’ve been reading for years and enjoying) wrote in today’s paper about Scholastic’s launch of 39 Clues. (As a complete aside, Scholastic you need to call an SEO swat team today. I just Googled “39 Clues,” and the site is the third organic search result. That’s not good! Do Scholastic’s target audience look at anything but the top one or two search results?)

I’ve been watching The 39 Clues idea for the last several months. In addition to other coverage, Hillel Italie at the Associated Press wrote about it too.

So what is The 39 Clues? In marketing speak, it’s a cross-platform interactive reading experience combining action-adventure lite novels – with elements of the Da Vinci Code for the pre-teen set – with online scavenger hunts and trading cards that come with the books and are sold separately for $6.99 per pack. Wow, that’s a mouthful.

Will it work? I have my doubts, but I certainly laud Scholastic for putting money behind the experiment. I certainly think it will appeal to a subset of preteen and teen boys and girls. When I was a kid, I was fascinated with codes, invisible ink, etc. I think kids who are into those kinds of things will eat this up and ask for more.

But, I don’t think that that audience is a mainstream audience. Call me cynical, and god I hate sounding old when I write this, but I fear that many of the Harry Potter fans are sucking up those books as part of a mile wide, inch deep pop culture that bombards them every day. How many Harry Potter fans finish the last page and grab a Lloyd Alexander, Andre Norton, Susan Cooper, or whatever is the next book in their to-be-read pile? Not many, I think. Instead, I think they close the last page of Harry Potter and turn on Hannah Montana or watch High School Musical 2.5.

I’d love to see The 39 Clues succeed. Anything that captures kids’ interest in reading is a-ok with me. But, The 39 Clues has a “manufactured” feel to me, and I don’t think it’s going to have legs to survive and thrive beyond the planned 10 books.

I hope that I’m wrong. I think what Scholastic is trying to do is something that marketers face every single day – trying to replicate the lightning-in-a-bottle of a grassroots phenomenon such as Harry Potter. At the end of the day, even though I work in PR, I often wonder if that’s a chicken-and-the-egg dilemma.

Can you manufacture and propel grassroots enthusiasm? I honestly don’t know.

The last two paragraphs in Minzesheimer’s story sum up my misgivings:

“But will magic strike as it did for other series with heroic orphans — J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events? Young readers gradually made them publishing phenomena before grown-up marketing set in.

Despite all its off-the-page enhancements, The 39 Clues will rise or fall on the strength of its story, and that’s best told, so far, in the book. The next one, One False Note, by Gordon Korman, is due Dec. 2.”

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

What Books Will You Be Reading This Fall?

jeff — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:27:46 +0000

Hillel Italie’s Associated Press article about the lineup of fall books has gotten a lot of media coverage. So what fall books are you looking forward to?

At the top of my list are The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder and The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly.

I’ve had a long fascination with Buffett. I’m not awed by his wealth. I’m impressed that despite his unimaginable wealth, he’s managed to stay humble. He doesn’t buy into the trappings of wealth and still lives in the same house he’s lived in for many, many years – a house that is far from a McMansion.

And, I’ve read every book that Michael Connelly has written. The first 5 or 6 Harry Bosch novels are some of the best mystery novels ever written in my opinion. I enjoyed Connelly’s The Lincoln Lawyer, and in the Brass Verdict he brings together Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller the defense attorney introduced in The Lincoln Lawyer. I can’t wait!

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

More Thoughts About The Sony Reader

jeff — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 10:13:49 +0000

Joe Wikert’s post about Penn State’s Sony Reader experiment got me thinking about the Sony Reader again.

I’m a big fan of the Sony Reader, and I would love to see them succeed. But, I also feel that Sony has to gird for daily battle with Amazon. Jeff Bezos has proven over and over again that he’s willing to invest for the future regardless of Wall Street analysts trashing his decisions for long term success because of their impact on short term profit. (As an investor and someone passionately interested in business, that’s a Wall Street stance I’ve frankly never been able to understand. I guess I’m a value investor at heart. Give me long-term profit and invest for that profit any day over a short-term mindset – trash the company’s long term prospects to eek out good numbers for the quarter).

Back to the Sony Reader, I had an idea this morning about what could lead to a successful rival to Amazon’s Kindle. Drum roll please . . . Sony should seriously consider spinning off the Sony Reader (maintain the Sony brand and the Sony Reader’s stylish design) into a joint venture with Barnes & Noble.

Despite its many critics, I’ve often admired Barnes & Noble and the Riggios’ business acumen. Granted, as someone who loves bookstores of all kinds – locally owned independents, Barnes & Noble, Borders, the Strand, Powell’s, The Tattered Cover, etc. – it pains me to see any small independent bookstore go out of business. But, I also believe that Barnes and Noble has offered a wider selection of books ever available to many of the towns where they have stores. How can that be a bad thing for people passionate about books?

Again, back to the Sony-Barnes & Noble idea, I would guess that Len and Steve Riggio are watching the various Kindle sales estimates with heightened interest. Who knows? Maybe they’re writing off those Kindle owners as customers who would have purchased from Amazon anyway vs. buying a book at Barnes & Noble. So, they may reason that those Kindles really aren’t having much of an impact.

As a bibliophile, I would strongly disagree. I routinely buy buys via Amazon. But, I also love spending an hour or two browsing in Barnes & Noble at least once a week. If I don’t get my Barnes & Noble fix, my wife can tell. And, I routinely buy books at Barnes & Noble. Why? Because the physical bookstore browsing experience still hasn’t been replicated online, and I doubt it ever will.

Historically, Barnes & Noble has struggled with the rise of digital media and the online sales channel. Let’s be honest. If Amazon or any other sizable online bookstore didn’t exist, I’d wager many dollars that there would be no bn.com. Just look back at the launch of BN.com, the financial spin-off of the website, etc. It wasn’t pretty. And, every step of the way, the Riggios were dragged kicking and screaming.

But, at the end of the day, they’re business people who want to compete and succeed. Do they really want to wake up in 2015 and have herds of customers wondering around Barnes & Noble stores armed with their Kindles, discovering new physical books, then downloading them on the fly. I don’t think so!

So, why not take a very calculated risk, cut a deal with Sony now and hit the floor running. Does Sir Howard Stringer really want to be dabbling in the ebook business anyway?

Think about it. Barnes & Noble could create a unique sticker that they slap on every book when it comes out of the box? Buy this book today or download it to your Barnes & Noble-Sony Reader device right now. And, if you really want to think about the possibilities, that sticker could have a readable bar code – or a numerical code or something – that would allow a customer to access and start downloading the ebook with one shot.

And, if you think the barcode idea is farfetched? Seriously bar code technology is hugely popular in Japan and other countries. How hard would it be to release a next generation Sony Reader with a quick inclusion of a bar code reader.

Do you think this will happen? If not, what is Barnes & Noble’s planning to do to combat the rising sales of Amazon Kindles? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

Related posts:
Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise Jeff Bezos spoiled my Christmas surprise. Bezos never misses an...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Sony Reader vs. Amazon Kindle

jeff — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 13:28:41 +0000

John Gapper, a Financial Times writer, has written an interesting article about Sony’s fumbled Sony Reader. Gapper makes some interesting points and argues that Sony Reader’s lack of a wireless connection has doomed the device vs. the Amazon Kindle.

While I agree with much of Gapper’s article, I don’t necessarily agree that all is lost for Sony. However, for the Sony Reader to go head-to-head with the Kindle at this point, it would take a passionate, fanatical executive in charge of the Sony Reader team.

Here’s my prescription for the Sony Reader not to be an also ran vs. the Kindle:

Celebrate the design – Have you seen the Apple vs. PC commercials that have blanketed the TV and web for years now? Sony should follow Apple’s lead and immediately launch a marketing campaign celebrating the Sony Reader’s design vs. the Kindle. Would you rather pull the sleek Sony Reader out when you’re on a plane or in a meeting, or would you rather pull out the Kindle which could be mistaken for a 1980s PC keyboard chopped in half. And, if the Sony Reader team doesn’t have the budget for TV commercials (which I doubt they do), record some video spots on the cheap and get them on the Web tomorrow.

Newspapers-magazines – A Sony Reader contracts exec should buy a tent from REI and camp out in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal offices until they have a digital deal to offer those newspapers on the Sony Reader. And, why stop there? Once those deals are inked, Sony should go straight down the list of the Top 50 (hell the Top 100) newspapers in the U.S. and abroad and get those newspapers – and magazines – available on the Sony Reader yesterday.

Wireless – The next generation Sony Reader HAS to have wireless to compete with the Kindle. Is there a next gen Reader ready for production? Does it have wireless? If not, scrap it now Sony and integrate wireless in whatever next gen Reader you release.

Software – Do you own a Sony Reader? Have you ever connected a Sony Reader to your PC to download books? And, don’t even bother trying to connect your Sony Reader to a Mac, the Sony Connect software for the Sony Reader won’t work on a Mac.

Well, if you have tried the Sony client software for the Sony Reader, that probably has something to do with your early onset balding. You’ll pull whatever hair out of your head trying to use the Sony Reader software. I’m not a software engineer, but this needs serious work. Is it possible to scrap the client software all together and log in via a secure web page for your Reader downloads? Maybe that’s the way to go vs. trying to fix the Sony Connect client.

RSS – Currently, the Sony Reader supports limited RSS feeds. Going back to marketing vs. the Kindle, Sony should be crowing about the fact that they’re not charging for RSS vs. the Kindle’s nickle and diming RSS strategy. Also, open it up. Set up feed software that enables me to grab any RSS feed out there for the Reader – not just the RSS feeds that Sony has chosen.

Additional content – Sony should be adamant about not allowing Amazon to take the lead with more books available. If Amazon announces a new digital rights deal with a publisher that Sony doesn’t have a contract with, that contract exec noted above needs to pull out his tent and prepare to camp out in the publisher’s office until Sony has an equal deal. And, try to take the lead with the number of ebooks available on the Reader vs. the Kindle. Right this minute, there are probably more than a hundred literary agencies in NYC sitting on a goldmine of digital rights. Sony should be meeting with all of those literary agents to get thousands, hundreds of thousands, of long tail, out-of-print novels available for the Sony Reader.

In addition, Amazon has set up a process for authors, and others, to publish their own content digitally and make it available for the Kindle. Sony needs to set up a similar process. Right now, I can load a PDF on my Sony Reader. The formatting doesn’t always work great. But, there should be an easy way that I can upload a PDF and push it to the Sony store – or even push it to other select Sony Reader users. That would be a wonderful selling point for sales forces everywhere. Salespeople would no longer have to carry around briefcases bulging with documents and catalogs. It could all be stored on the salesforce’s Sony Readers.

Short stories – Sony is offering short stories now for the Sony Reader, but they should ramp up that process even faster. There are hundreds of thousands of authors sitting on previously published short stories, and they control the digital rights for those stories. Get those short stories available for the Sony Reader now.

Well, that’s all my ideas for now. Regardless of what happens, it will continue to be interesting to watch Sony’s competition against Amazon. Sony may have taken a few lumps, but they’re not out of the game by any means.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Um, what took you so long

jeff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:55:55 +0000

Dell is marketing a new stylish PC – called a Studio PC.

I admit. I think that computer is pretty cool looking. I certainly wouldn’t mind having one sitting on the corner of my desk. But, I doubt it runs OS X. So, alas, I won’t be using it anytime soon. But, I do have to wonder, why has it taken computer manufacturers, especially PC makers like Dell, so LONG to move beyond the beige box.

Design gurus have been saying for years that consumers would love stylish PCs – and pay more for them. I guess when you’re on the ascendancy, and selling millions of boring beige boxes every year, you don’t really stop to experiment with design. The incremental sales increase of a stylish design wouldn’t matter all that much when you’re phone is ringing constantly with new orders.

But once those sales have peaked, you’ve got to find something to distinguish your commodity boxes. And, so Dell launches a stylish PC.

The first computer I was ever aware of was the Apple II which was originally released in 1977. My brother was in high school at Mt. de Sales Academy, a Catholic High School in Macon, Georgia. I remember my brother Tony talking about this new computer, and I have a memory of seeing the Apple box that the computer came in with that distinctive multi-colored Apple. I also have a dim memory of seeing either a Time or Newsweek with Steve Jobs on the cover.

The first computer I ever owned was a Radio Shack Color Computer. Check out this vintage ad featuring none other than Isaac Asimov.

It’s amazing that it took 30 years for computers to look as stylish as the Dell Studio PC noted above. I know, I know, Apple has been making stylish machines for years. I’m typing this on a MacBook Pro. I bought a MacBook about 2 years ago, and I’ve never once regretted making the switch. I spent years and years dealing with blue screens of death.

I do wonder what kind of computing devices my sons Zachary and Noah will be using. I’m sure they’ll be small and mobile, and I bet they’ll probably be using some type of Tablet style machine with Touch controls when they need to work on a document or file not suited to a tiny, handheld device.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Kindle is selling

jeff — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 16:26:01 +0000

According to this Silicon Alley Insider post, Amazon is indeed selling lots of Kindles – 240,000 of them since they went on sale in November.

I’m actually surprised at those numbers. Sure, Amazon has done a pretty good job of marketing the Kindle. And Amazon has an advantage that any online marketer would kill for – the Amazon home page – front and center and above the fold.

I don’t have a Kindle, but I’ve played around with one my friend has. I’m not wild about eInk. I have a first-gen Sony Reader. My biggest complaint about eInk is that I can’t read the darn thing in bed without fiddling around with an awkward book light. That’s why I continue to use my old Gemstar eBook. The Gemstar eBook is still around thanks to the guys at Fictionwise. It’s now called the eBookwise – 1150, but except for a few minor tweaks it’s the same as my Gemstar.

The Kindle’s true killer app is the built-in Sprint wireless connection. If you hear or read about a book you’re interested, the eBook is only one click away on your Kindle (provided of course that the Kindle eBook version is available).

However, I will be very interested to see where the prices for Kindle books end up. Right now, most new hardcover titles are available on your Kindle for $9.99. And, for many of those titles, Amazon is selling them for a loss. How happy will Kindle owners be when those prices start going up?

Frankly, eBook pricing just doesn’t make sense. The pricing is based on a physical book, and it’s a price based on buying paper, ink, printing, cover art for a physical book. When distributing an eBook costs pennies (or less than a penny) how does that antiquated pricing make sense?

And, given the lower distribution cost of selling a digital eBook, why don’t publishers lower the prices for eBooks, sell more books, and make more money in volume. That’s certainly the model that worked for Wal-Mart – lower prices and make money on volume.

Related posts:
Napster for eBooks – the eBook Genie is out of the Bottle I’ve written about a Napster for eBooks before. And, unfortunately,...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The Night Is Darkest Before The Dawn

jeff — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:03:40 +0000

Okay, okay, I admit it. I’m a complete and total fanboy. I saw The Dark Knight last night at a midnight screening Hadley, MA.

As another dad of a small child said to me via email last week, “I can’t remember the last time I was awake at midnight, much less started an activity at midnight.” I know, I know. Me too.

But, there I was last night, standing in line by myself, reading a Harry Turtledove novel on my Gemstar eBook. And, yes, I’m dragging a little today, but I haven’t been able to think of anything else.

And, let’s make this clear, I’m a humongous Batman fan. Back in 2001 while on my honeymoon in San Diego, I bought a huge Batman ring at a Warner Brothers store that was going out of business. I still have that thing and regularly wear it to business meetings.

So far this summer, I’ve seen Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, and Hellboy 2, but with every one of those movies, the movie had faded from my mind by the time I reached the parking lot. Now, granted, we could have an entire conversation about the fact that as you get older, pop culture entertainment doesn’t have quite the impact it does when you’re younger. When you’re trying to remember if you mailed the latest mortgage check or wondering if you’re son is okay after he fell off a picnic table and bopped his eye, it’s sometimes hard to concentrate 100% on the latest superhero movie.

But, it’s the next day, and I’m still thinking about scenes from The Dark Knight. The movie stuck with me well beyond the parking lot.

Christopher Nolan has done something with the Batman movies that other superhero movies just haven’t been able to come close to. The characters are real. And not the painful, Peter Parker soap opera scenes in the Spiderman movies. These two movies, and even more so The Dark Knight, feel more like well-done crime movies than men-in-tights-fighting-bad-guys movies. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve completely figured out how he’s done it. And, as a storyteller myself (several published short stories to my credit and more than one trunk novel), I’d like to figure it out.

Is it perfect? No. I have some quibbles. More than one. I’ll save those for later. For now though, just go see it.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

eReader for iPhone and iPod Touch

jeff — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 13:23:22 +0000

Here’s a demonstration video of the new eReader for iPhone and iPod Touch.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Where, oh where, is my iPhone keyboard?

jeff — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 20:13:55 +0000

Why is there no iPhone physical keyboard accessory?

I had a Handspring Visor, and I bought a foldable keyboard. Then, I had a Dell Axim, and I bought a foldable keyboard? So, why isn’t Apple allowing third-party companies to build and market a foldable keyboard for iPhones?

When the iPhone launched, a lot of people asked me, “Why would you spend that much money on a cellphone?”

And every time, I explained, “I didn’t buy a phone. I bought a handheld computer.”

I know Jobs is in love with the touch keyboard, but there’s no reason that I shouldn’t be able to buy a small, portable keyboard that I can drop my iPhone into and take notes at a meeting or write a short story.

Let me know if you see one of these.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Literary Executors

jeff — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 16:40:53 +0000

This is very sad. Andre Norton, a prolific science fiction and fantasy author, left a confusing will and estate. As a result, manuscripts that she left behind are entangled in this mess, and who knows when they’ll ever be published.

I’m not a lawyer, but . . .

Writers and authors should remember that their manuscripts and copyrights SHOULD be addressed in their wills.Authors need to be very clear in appointing a literary executor. In addition, as this Andre Norton situation portends, they should also be clear – as part of the process – who exactly benefits from any future royalties.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Hello world

jeff — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 14:57:14 +0000

Why am I so late to the blogosphere?

Well, actually I’m late in actually writing a blog, but I’ve been actively involved with new media and blogs since they became widely known as blogs in 2002 or so. I work in the public relations industry, and in 2002 I was working at Trylon SMR. My team at Trylon SMR was at the forefront of pitching blogs. Yet, we prided ourselves on intelligent pitching – sending bloggers info that they would specifically care about.

As a result, we had a lot of success. Now, most of those co-workers at Trylon SMR have moved on to other PR firms in NYC. And, back in September 2006, I started my own PR consulting firm – Jeff Rutherford Media Relations. And, now I’m starting this blog.

What am I going to blog about? Well, I’m not 100% sure. But here are a few things. I’m passionate about the book publishing industry – and specifically the future of eBooks. I still have and use my old Gemstar Rocket eBook, and I have a Sony Reader as well. And, this past weekend, I downloaded Fictionwise’s eReader for my iPhone.

I haven’t bought an Amazon Kindle yet. The form factor of the Kindle still bothers me. Jeff Bezos is obviously in it to win it, so why would he turn his back on compelling design? Despite what any one may argue, Apple is still the undisputed leader in compelling design of consumer electronics and computers. Would Steve Jobs have approved the Kindle? We all know the answer to that one. He would have sent Bezos scurrying back to his cubicle following a horrible tongue lashing if he would have had the temerity to present the current Kindle design in a meeting.

So, this blog will probably spend some time exploring the future of eBooks, the future of book publishing as a whole. In my spare time, I’m a passionate reader – fiction, non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, and cereal boxes if nothing else is at hand.

What have I read lately? I just finished The Film Club by David Gilmour – a recent memoir about a Canadian journalist who spent several years watching movies with his son after the son dropped out of high school. I enjoyed this book, but I couldn’t stop thinking about and anticipating watching a lot of these classic movies with Zachary, my son who is 4 1/2 years old.

Hit and Run by Lawrence Block. Do you enjoy crime novels? If so, have you read Block’s three novels re: Keller, a hitman who is passionate about stamp collecting. If not, run, don’t walk to your nearest library or bookstore. Block is a master, and I guess that’s why he’s scheduled to receive a Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America soon.

So, this initial post has gone on long enough. Stay tuned for more . . .

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.