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Some Weekend Links
2008-04-18 21:48:00
My birthday is on Monday so I have a fun filled weekend ahead of me. Drinks tonight with friends at Cantina Marina (stop by and say hi if you are in the area), dinner tomorrow at my favorite steak restaurant, Ray's the Steaks, and then a wee road trip up to Baltimore for brunch with old friends and the Yankees-Orioles game.However, before I head out and drink a cold beer in the gorgeous hot sun, let me share some links I found interesting today...Google isn't dead yet! Profits way up!Dennis McDonald continues to be a sane voice of reason in the world of social media. His analysis of Dennis Howlett's post on the 'Poverty of Enterprise 2.0' is excellent.ReadWriteWeb sums up the etiquette and best practices around "Twitpitching"And MediaBistro has an interesting look at the spin and PR strategy around the Papal visit.Finally, if you're a depressed Nats fan like me, please visit DC Optimist's blog and get a healthy dose of 'Timism. Today he breaks down how the Wizards will destr...
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The Fear Industry?
2008-04-17 14:29:00
I haven't spent as much time reviewing the blogs over at FCW or the other 1105 government IT publications. Between all the other verticals I try to keep an eye on (software, wireless, satellite, security, networking, telecom) and well as keeping up to speed on the fast moving changes in my own industry (PR), the goings on the government IT and contracting market sometimes slip off my radar.But an issue that was gurgling to the surface a couple of months ago seems to be gaining speed, how the regulations and red tape around the contracting process are going to choke off the government's ability to contract beneficially with the private sector. Check out this blog post from Steve Kelman at Federal Computer Week to get a flavor.
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The Tipping Point is Gone
2008-04-16 23:21:00
There has been a lot of talk about how social media has reached the tipping point and has been accepted as a valid method to market by the so called "early majority." Certainly, I've noticed in my business development discussions that senior marketers have gone from at best ignoring and at worst denigrating social media as a valuable arrow in the marketing quiver to almost demanding that it be included in any PR strategy developed. All in a few months and sometimes the same people!It's roughly the same pattern I experienced back in the 1990's around the adoption by business of the web itself. First, ignoring, then mockery, then a mad scramble to "get something up!" There were a lot of crap websites developed and a lot of scam "online agencies" that took advantage. Then, as now, early majority type marketers needed to stop, take a breath and think through the purpose of this new medium, how best to use it and when.Joining the conversation of an active, ongoing community of intere...
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Trade Shows, Part 1 (CTIA)
2008-04-11 15:53:00
Well, I've been on the road for the past couple of weeks. I traveled to Las Vegas for the CTIA Wireless trade show then to San Fransisco for the RSA security show. Both shows demonstrated the power and innovation that still drives the larger technology world today. I'd like to recap both shows in two posts.First, the CTIA show in Las Vegas last week was compelling. There is a building transformation in the wireless from the current 3G level of broadband, features and applications to a newer "4G" model. There is still some uncertainty about which technology platform will power this new generation of wireless businesses: WiMax or cellular or some un-invented technology.Needless to say, there will be much fighting and scrambling over the next five or more years between the big carriers (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint) as well as other technology players (Microsoft, Google, etc). All these shifting parts made for very interesting conversations......and it also made for an enormou...
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WiMax Redux?
2008-03-26 16:49:00
According to a story in the Washington Post, the Sprint-Clearwire partnership are in talks with several large cable operators (Comcast and Time/Warner) about a joint partnership to finally build a national WiMax network, and presumably market it to cable subscribers.Google and Intel are also sniffing around the partnership. I wonder how this affects Google's efforts to claim the old UHF bandwidth for a free, ad driven wireless network. (is that the hedging of bets I hear?)More importantly, it will be compelling entertainment to watch these big elephants dance around and jockey for advantage, while the wireless behemoths, AT&T and Verizon consolidate their positions and throw up barriers to entry to the marketplace...
More About: Wimax

Yahoo Joins OpenSocial
2008-03-25 19:29:00
Breaking news from the WSJ- Yahoo has joined the OpenSocial initiative. It looks like Facebook is on the outside looking in now. I wonder how long it will take them to cave in.From the article:Yahoo's announcement Tuesday could also put pressure on Facebook, the closely held social network that so far has not signed on to the effort. Yahoo called itself a "founding member" of the foundation, which is planned to be an independent non-profit entity with a formal intellectual property and governance framework. Related assets will be assigned to the new organization by July 1. The foundation will focus on issues including technology, documentation and intellectual property. Social applications -- which let users do things such as see the music friends are listening to and share photo slideshows - have emerged as a popular activity for users of social networking sites, and a potentially powerful vehicle for delivering advertisements. Prior to OpenSocial, if a developer built a "favorite...
More About: Yahoo!

Monday's Links
2008-03-24 23:18:00
It's a Monday, so here is just a quick list of the blogs that caught my attention today:38 Must Reads on Online Reputation Management, Glen AllsoppThere's Plently of Value in Awareness, Josh CatoneD.C. Social Media Has Blown Up, Now to Get the Entrepreneurship Going, Nick O'NeillOh, and let's see- local PR firm gets caught with less than sharp interns.
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Grab Bag of Miscellania
2008-03-21 01:10:00
The technology business is rolling along, March Madness starts, the Dow is down 5% then up 5%, Bear Stearns goes bye-bye (maybe!) and old school, hard nosed marketers are funding wild-eyed social media projects- it is a wild, wild month. In like a lion, out like a lion.The outstanding team here at Strategic has been working with our client Tellabs for almost two years now. Broadband access is a huge issue in the telecommunications industry and Tellabs has been leader in promoting broadband. Today, we and Tellabs put out a survey of telecom professionals that captures their opinions on the penetration and regulation of broadband. You can read the release here: http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080320/aqth50 1.html?.v=3Take a moment and read Chris Parente's take on the survey and it's larger meaning.In other news, the Wall Street Journal gave it's implied endorsement to social media resources. Watch out boys and girls- the days when social media was a romantic, cutting edge advancement in...
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FriendFeed
2008-03-13 19:19:00
Thanks to a post on Louis Gray's blog, I've discovered FriendFeed. As many of you probably realize, keeping track of all of the conversations happening simultaneously on dozens of social networking sites is a challenge to say the least. FriendFeed aims to solve (umm, maybe just help deal with) this problem by providing a place to pull all the feeds from all your social media networks in to one large feed. I've signed up for it and it makes things a bit easier to deal with.Check out my feed here: http://friendfeed.com/theprguy

AOL Buys Bebo?
2008-03-13 17:01:00
A very interesting development today...AOL has announced that they will be buying Bebo , an online social network with 40 million members, mostly in Europe, according to the Social Times. As Nick points out, there is a bit of a disconnect as AOL is based mostly here in the States. Perhaps AOL is positioning for international expansion, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me.Hmmm.I haven't posted in a while. Sorry to all my regular readers...I've been rather busy at work and, of course, following the minute by minute disaster that is the end of Eliot Spitzer's career.But you can count on me from now on! Posts galore on the continuing mainstreaming of social media and networks, the start of the Nats baseball season, tech marketing in a recession, St. Patrick's Day, the CTIA Wireless show and RSA Security show- all over the next three or four weeks!

Social Networks- Good PR?
2008-03-04 15:05:00
The question of PR versus advertising has been around for a long time. Al Ries wrote a book entitled, "The Fall of Advertising and The Rise of PR", that describes how PR is better suited to marketing today's products and services. Nowadays, the growth of cheap (land line and mobile) broadband combined with free, easy to use simple CMS software like weblogs, wikis and social networks has empowered users, customers, prospects, and critics to organize themselves on their own terms.Nothing new about that.So I chuckled when I read in BizReport about WPP's results from social networking for their customers (emphasis mine).WPP found that more of their clients were interested in keeping consumers updated on company changes, events and specials and that social networking sites were a good way to do this. However, advertising on social networks was not as popular, leading the company to deduce that social networks are helping businesses but in a different way than originally thought. From ...
More About: Social , Social Networks , Networks , Good

Do Not Copy Other People's Stuff
2008-03-04 00:09:00
It's been said before. Everyone should have picked this up in school. Maybe in the past, before the Internet, you might be tempted to copy a paragraph or a sentence here and there. No more. The Internet is forever, and everything you write is there forever. And it's almost instantly search able.Don't believe me? Read "How my blog started the avalanche that buried presidential aide Tim Goeglein" by Nancy Nall Derringer in Slate today. Here is the link: http://www.slate.com/id/2185657/I wonder how many people are going to fired ten, twenty years from now for plagiarizing other people's content (...and all the snotty, mean, vicious things they write on their own blogs or while commenting on other people's...). Seriously people, do not copy other people's stuff.
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Whew...what a busy week
2008-02-28 16:31:00
I've been down at the Washington Convention Center for the past few days checking out what's new in the satellite technology world. I've been a regular at the Satellite trade show for four years now. What a change!Back in 2004, the show was basically empty. I made jokes ab0ut tumbleweeds in the aisles. There were maybe 60 companies exhibiting. Morale there was poor, mainly due to the aftereffects of the tech crash and associated satellite industry tumble 2001-2002. The industry was surviving on the first bursts of demand from the military after 9/11. It was the runup to the invasion of Iraq that pulled the satellite industry out of the dulldrums. The government was demanding huge amounts of bandwidth from the satellite industry as its own satellites did not have enough capacity.The past few years however, the Satellite show has grown tremendously and the industry is vigorous and strong. There are well over 250 exhibitors at the show this year. Demand is being driven by military s...
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Is Digg Authentic?
2008-02-25 17:26:00
As a late early adopter, I tend to get into technologies after the hardcore geeks but before the mainstream crowd. I'm coming up on the one year anniversary of this blog, which I'm pretty excited about. Over the three years or so, as I've followed the rise of social media and the PR industry's struggle to understand and leverage it for our clients, I've tried to remain somewhat realistic about the sometimes messianic claims made about blogs, wiki's, etc.As a PR person, I can sometimes see beyond a company's messaging and notice when the reality of its situation differs from its public face. All the talk about the Wisdom of Crowds and the revolution of participatory, democratic communities is an age old dream from the Levellers, to the Sans-Culottes to the hippies. The social media sites Wikipedia and Digg have positioned themselves as the virtuous online version of this vision of truth, justice and equality.But we know that the Levellers failed and was followed by Cromwell's...

Social Media Best Practices
2008-02-21 17:22:00
This morning, after returning from a BusinessWire event, I spent some time catching up on the news and reading my favorite blogs. A lot of the conversation in the PR world these days has to do with the mainstreaming of social networks and the impact they are having on traditional forms of communications. More and more companies are implementing programs that incorporate a social media component. And, increasingly, agencies are documenting their best practices and promoting their success stories.One of the most succinct primers on the granular steps needed to develop social media content is the subject of my buddy Geoff Livingston's Now is Gone blog today. The main takeaway I have is that the basics of PR haven't changed at all- you must still learn about your audience before you open your mouth. It's ready, aim, fire- not the other way around...
More About: Social , Media

Media Down, Marketing Up
2008-02-19 14:34:00
Today, I started off by reading the Wall Street Journal and found a link to this story in AdAge, "Media Work Force Sinks to 15-Year Low." It begins:U.S. media employment in December fell to a 15-year low (886,900), slammed by the slumping newspaper industry. But employment in advertising/marketing-services -- agencies and other firms that provide marketing and communications services to marketers -- broke a record in November (769,000). Marketing consulting powered that growth.Here's the reason behind the disparity: Marketers still invest in marketing, but they have options far beyond paid media: digital initiatives, direct marketing, promotions and events, just to name a few. That creates more opportunities for consultants to help define strategies.Agencies also have adapted, expanding beyond simply creating and placing ads. Indeed, Ad Age DataCenter research has shown that U.S. marketing-communications agencies collectively in 2005 for the first time generated less than half of t...

Ten Years Since Harray Carey
2008-02-19 01:27:00
Just a quick post on this President's Day to point out that today is the ten year anniversary of the passing of Harry Caray. I was raised in a suburb of Chicago where Harry was a near deity. People mostly think of Harry as the famous announcer for the Cubs, but he was first an announcer for the White Sox, which was my childhood team.Here is some video of Harry singing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at the old Comiskey Park.Marketers are talking a lot now about authenticity and brands. Harry Carey was a real as you can get and his trademark glasses were an almost perfect brand for him. So much so, that when I see those odd shaped glasses, I immediately think of him, Chicago, and a fun, happy-go-lucky attitude that he personified.Can you see a man like this becoming an announcer for a mass media outlet these days? Ummm, no. But he had a special, uncommon quality that drew Chicagoans to him. Rest in peace, Harry, rest in peace.
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Where are the Cool Mobile Apps?
2008-02-13 22:00:00
A lot of action in the mobility space this week, most likely prompted by the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week. I've written before about mobile phones, pda's and applications on this blog before, mostly from the perspective of a enthusiastic consumer of mobile technology. However, a couple of data points today make me but on my business thinking cap.1. This blog post by Tom Yager at InfoWorld ("The mobile app god rush"). Tom writes about the opportunities and roadblocks to developing mobile applications with slick GUI's, super fast response times and integration with the mainstream developer community. I love my PocketPC, but I have to put up with a fairly serious step down in prettiness when I view a web site, play a game, or view a spreadsheet. I can voice activate my phone using Microsoft Voice, but the feature isn't integrated into each and every application.2. My colleague, Chris Parente, posted today about a new report on trends in mobile TV users. He says,Her...
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TMI?
2008-02-12 17:51:00
I just read a great blog post by Kyle Flaherty at Engage In PR. He isn't the only one talking about it, but his post struck a cord with me. There is vast amounts of information being generated from social media (blogs, twitters, events, wikis). It's overly time consuming to read and interact with it all.We here are Strategic place a lot of emphasis on work-live balance for our staff. We feel strongly that we best serve our clients by not burning out the employees with 90 workweeks and back breaking scope creep. We are not a "smile and dial" agency that spams reporters with context-less emails. We focus hiring staff with long experience and a deep understanding of technology markets and putting them into a position whereby they can leverage their knowledge to provide the highest level counsel and most efficient execution for our clients.However, the growth of social media implies that, not only is there more information outlets to monitor, but you have to interact with them in a me...

All About Analysts
2008-02-12 00:29:00
Brian Muys, a Managing Director here at Strategic, brought to my attention a new website that provides a Google-like search interface for analyst reports and publications. Called All The Analysts (http://www.alltheanalysts.com), the site:"is the place to look for the latest reports, thoughts and trends in the world of industry analyst research. We search everything from the biggest firms, including Gartner, down to specialist independent analysts to find the most relevant reports for your needs. Currently in beta, the ATA team are developing key services for three roles: Technology Professionals, Technology vendors, Industry Analysts." My initial impression is it's about time. Tracking analysts can be a pain, not so much for the big well known firms, but for the smaller more niche specific outfits. A full list of the companies ATA follow can be found here.Mostly, I like the fact that the designers of the website focused on usability and didn't overload the site with videos, banner...

Lovely Link-y Goodness
2008-02-08 17:21:00
Some links of note:A popular, successful social community for IT professionals: http://www.ittoolbox.comCorporatedealmake r.com debuts as stand-alone Web site : http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a rticle?AID=/20080207/FREE/89099387/1078/n ewsletter01Forrester Research is out with a report that addresses the possible impact of a recession on budgets for social media initiatives: http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/ news/digital/e3idcbc5d3b3d8cd77104f087d7e f56ffb7The Arketi Group has compiled a survey that provides data on how B-to-B media use Web 2.0, including how journalists get story ideas and how they use the Internet. Read the PDF here: http://www.arketi.com/pdfs/Arketi_Web_Wat ch_2007.pdf
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Super Bowl!
2008-02-07 18:18:00
So...the exciting part of the my little vacation was that my Dad and I scored two tickets to the Super Bowl this past Sunday. Obviously, this was a can't miss game!I'm not a Patriots or a Giants fan, but this Super Bowl was going to be historic one way or another. Either the Pats were going to go undefeated or the Giants were going to overcome a 12 point underdog spread and have one of the bigger upsets in Super Bowl history.To those of you who watched the game on TV, let me say that it was even more exciting in person. The Crowd was half Pats, half Giant fans and each group was cheering pretty much the whole game. Everyone stood for the last 15 minutes of the game. I can't believe how lucky I am to have witnessed such a great game in person. Life is truly good!!

The FBR Open
2008-02-07 18:03:00
I was on a little vacation last week to visit my parents in Arizona (which is why I haven't been posting). I had high expectations of wearing shorts and getting a nice tan while playing lots of golf. Sadly, the weather was cool- mostly in the lower 60's. Not too bad, compared to some other places, but not what I was hoping for.We spent a couple of days at the FBR Open , a PGA Tour event, held at the TPC Scottsdale each year. It was packed with people- the crowds set an all time record, over 170,000 people were there on Saturday. Known as a party with a bit of golf thrown in, I had heard stories about the rowdy crowds at the famous par 3 16th hole. Surrounded by hills, grandstands and skyboxes, 20,000 fans cheer good shots and boo bad ones. Not normal behavior for the PGA Tour- so bad in fact, some golfers refuse to play the FBR!All I can say is that the stories are true. I spent Saturday afternoon in the crowd at the 16th and we all cheered, and yes, booed the golfers depending on ...

Ah, the Gov't At Work...
2008-01-28 18:11:00
Because of my business development activities, I spend a lot of time talking with a variety of innovative cybersecurity companies. Security, whether intrusion detection, identity assurance, testing, spam blocking, thumbsucking prevention, is an incredibly complex problem with many proposed solutions. One aspect with biggest potential for damage is lack of security around critical infrastructure.Dams, nuclear power plants, Wall Street and government installations are now all connected to the Internet in a way they weren't even a decade ago. The government admits that they haven't done nearly enough to secure these facilities from cyber attack.The problem? Well, the Internet is a private asset, and idea of the government inserting itself into the management and security of that asset raises everyone's alarms about privacy and the proper role of government. Add to that the Bush administration's wonderful track record explaining themselves, and I think you end up with an all out bat...
More About: Work

What is Twitter?
2008-01-25 20:58:00
Many of you may have heard of Twitter . It's a mini-blog type website that allows you to follow the activities of your friends in a highly abbreviated, quick way. Many people have integrated it into their larger social media efforts as a way to drive more traffic to their blog(s). I've decided to check it out and see how it works.Here is my Twitter page: http://twitter.com/jmajkaIn researching the site, I read a fantastic blog post by Darren Rowse on how to use Twitter. If you're interested in learning how to make the most of Twitter, I suggest you read Darren's post.

Nokia Buying Part of Facebook?
2008-01-21 23:33:00
I read a headline earlier today about how Facebook was passing MySpace as the most popular social networking website. I can't say I read the actual story- I think it was on Drudge- but it makes sense to me. Most people I know use Facebook exclusively.Now, I read on one of my favorite newsy websites, StrategyEye, that Nokia and Facebook might be developing a strong relationship.....Hmmmm.Nokia is rumoured to be poised to take a stake in Facebook as part of a partnership between it and the mobile phone maker where the social network will be integrated into Nokia's handsets. A report on tech blog, PaidContent claims that the "the Facebook placement could be as prominent as the YouTube button on the main screen of iPhone." The site also cites "sources" who say the "early stage talks" involve the possibility of Nokia purchasing a stake in the company. Spokespersons from either side failed to comment, although a Nokia exec reportedly admits: "There is talk of a partnership in the works....
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Blogging for Dollars?
2008-01-16 22:33:00
My colleague Tarun pointed out an article from the Wall Street Journal showing how bloggers are using new services to generate advertising revenue. Personally, I'm not looking to generate any cash flow from this blog. I added Google AdWords to this fine blog mainly to see how it worked. So far, I've managed to "earn" 58 cents. Weeeeee.For a well known blogger I can see how this might add up to real money. But for most people, ad revenues aren't going to add up to much.Here is a quote from the WSJ article:Many of the most widely used programs are adding features to allow users to customize the appearance and placement of ads on their sites. Some also are introducing newer money-making mediums such as audio and video ads."There's going to be a lot of new business models in 2008 that are geared toward more monetization," says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Web analysis unit of the Nielsen Co.Blog publishers could certainly use...
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New Site to Me: Gooruze?
2008-01-15 02:34:00
I spent far too much time today reading blogs in Google Reader. I find it endlessly fascinating how this new-ish medium (Social Media- in case you're not following) is impacting traditional PR and how it's not impacting it. During my reading, I saw a link to a site called Gooruze. I went a checked it out and decided to become a member (jmajka.gooruze.com).Gooruze is a social networking site for marketing and PR professionals where they can interact, share advice and rank news, blogs, and other content. A very cool idea that I've seen executed in number of other verticals. I'm hoping that I'll find it as valuable as I hope.
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Overselling Wiki-search?
2008-01-14 23:27:00
Wikipedia has launched a new search engine that it hopes will compete with Google. Here is an article about the launch of the alpha version of the service- http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed891746-bd8a-1 1dc-b7e6-0000779fd2ac.html Normally, I don't pay any attention to the comings and goings of various search engines. Google is the 9,000 pound gorilla and will be for the foreseeable future. But when the founder of one the fastest growing, most transformational, and biggest websites puts his rep on the line for a better mousetrap, you need to at least pay attention.
More About: Search , Wiki

Happy New Year!
2008-01-07 17:10:00
Well, obviously I've been a lazy blogger over the last months. Sales opportunities have been coming at me fast and furious and I took a week's vacation in Arizona to visit my folks. Very nice.However, tech and PR news has been piling up without any comment by me, so I need to buckle down and start......tomorrow.In meantime, I'd like to point you in the direction of a new blog by...my boss, Marc Hausman.Yes, we've all heard the stories about appallingly bland, boring blogs by corporate CEO's, but this one is different, and not just because he signs my paychecks. Marc has some strong opinions about the direction of PR and it's continuing ability to help businesses increase their sales, profitability and valuation. Add http://www.strategicguy.blogspot.com to your feedreader today.
More About: New Year , Happy , Happy New Year , Year