Micro Persuasion

Here Comes Cronkitegate

It's hard to put the puck passed the bloggers. Here's another example of the sound bite that won't go away. It's reminiscent of the watershed Trent Lott incident.

Apparently on CNN the other night former CBS Newsman Walter Cronkite told Larry King that he believes Bush adviser Karl Rove is possibly behind the new Bin Laden tape. Cronkite said he is "inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing."

That's quite a statement, no? Yet as of this writing the press has largely ignored it, but not the bloggers. Just check out how many of them are linking to the official transcript!

I don't personally believe what Cronkite said, but I do think this is worth noting because it's a potential blog scandal in the making. David Sifry may soon need to add another link to his blogs and politics wiki.

Former CNN Reporter Starts a Wiki for Blogging

Former CNN journalist Rebecca MacKinnon has set up a Blog Wiki. Her goal is to create a single website where newbies can go to find a clear explanation of what blogs are, links to blogging tools and other how-to resources, etc. Great idea! I look forward to seeing what folks contribute.

Ten Days in the Wild

Konfabulator, a wildly popular OS X application that lets you run little apps called Widgets, is gearing up for its upcoming Windows launch with a creative weblog that compares Mac and PC users.

Blogging for a Living

Newsday's Lou Dolinar continues his series on blogging with a piece on how bloggers can generate revenue from their endeavors.

Google's Head of Corporate PR is Blogging

Did you know that Google's head of Corporate PR, David Krane, has an active weblog? I sure didn't, until I stumbled upon it via Bloglines. I checked to see who is linking to Google's special election edition Zeitgeist page and found David blogging it. Apparently David's been blogging for quite awhile, but hardly anyone else is linking to him. The notable exception is another Google corporate blogger.

This certainly is interesting. Why? Well, for one, David had some kind and unkind things to say this week about Yahoo! Mail. Will posts about the competition change how the press perceive him? Perhaps. If I were a reporter, I sure would respect this. It reassures me that David is a human being, not just another Googler singing the corporate song. There's not a lot of substance on the blog about Google, but maybe his Yahoo! post is a harbinger of things to come.

By the way, David is not the only high-profile in-house PR blogger out there. Andy Lark, VP, Global Communications & Marketing, for Sun has a blog and of course Tom Murphy from Cape Clear has been at it practically since we were all in diapers. Hopefully soon we'll see more of our in-house brethren join the blogosphere.

Bloggers Drive the News Agenda

Independent.co.uk: This was the year when the mainstream media outlets unexpectedly found themselves looking over their shoulders at the internet and, perhaps most surprisingly, at the new armies of political bloggers.

Free Masks for Halloween

Via Mike Elgan I see that Forbes and Yahoo have posted some free celebrity masks for Halloween. This one is downright scary! Scoble, this your costume? Happy Halloween everyone.

AMA Plans Blog Marketing Road Show

The American Marketing Association (AMA) is sponsoring a series of events on blog marketing in Seattle, New York and Chicago. The events feature a cast of A-list bloggers, including Robert Scoble. I will be participating in the January 21 New York event, but I am hardly an "A-lister." Rather, I am second-string quarterback who was lucky to get drafted! In addition, the Boston chapter of the AMA has another related event coming up on November 11, featuring the great PR blogger, John Cass.

GM Launches a Blog

GM has launched a weblog called the GM Smallblock Engine Blog devoted to a Chevy engine that is turning 50 years old. Autoblog believes its only the first GM blog we will see. They have more details.

Free Blog Ideas

Out of ideas on what to blog about next? This is a site you can turn to.

Podcasting's Possibilities

Amy Gahran has an excellent post called What Is Podcasting and Why Should You Care? She outlines several ways people can put the technology to good use. Many of them tie directly into what PR people do every day. Highlights include...

* Backgrounders or interviews to supplement news coverage or commentary
* Audio recap of the top stories on a news site (as a way to draw traffic to the news site or provide an additional advertising channel)
* Issue updates from advocacy organizations or their PR firms
* Specialized industry news from professional or trade groups (NAM, AIA, etc.), or from foundations or educational/research institutions

Power to the People!

MetroWest Daily News Columnist Peter Reuell writes that for maybe the first time in history, the media, which for so long seemed to be inscrutable institutions cloistered in monolithic high-rise skyscrapers, are finally within the grasp of the average guy on the street. And he's quite happy about it too!

To Bot or Not to Bot?

Which is better, news selected by bots on Google or news selected by editors on Yahoo? One blogger says Yahoo! News' editor-directed model is drifting towards irrelevancy, largely because he does not think the site's editors do a good job in selecting stories. The writer, Brad Hill, goes on to add that blogs do a far better job of filtering the news, as do many large news aggregators such as Topix.net.

Marketers Will Soon Find a Home in Social Bookmark Sites

If you're not familiar with social bookmark sites, now is a good time to get acquainted with them. At least in the short term, they hold a lot of potential for PR professionals and marketers.

Social bookmark sites, which include del.icio.us and Furl, are becoming increasingly popular. They are basically free online repositories where you can easily store, categorize and share online links.

For the PR professional, Furl and del.icio.us are useful on a number of different levels. First, they hold a lot of potential for knowledge management. If you head a team and need to regularly share info with them, you can file away links that they can access at their convenience, either online or via RSS. In addition, by checking out each site's list of most popular links you can look through the open window into the psyche of heavy online users and influencers. But this is just the beginning.

Furl and del.icio.us are also places where at least right now you can plant mini memes. I found this out myself recently. On October 4 I blogged that Gmail added Atom feeds. I posted the link into del.icio.us and quickly I noticed an influx of traffic from the bookmark site and also watched as the link began to spread. As of this writing my site is one of the top links on Google for the terms Gmail and Atom.

Now imagine that instead of sharing a blog link I had used del.icio.us to spread word in the influencer community about a new gadget I was pitching. Rather than offering a reporter an exclusive or running an ad, I instead elected to plant a mini meme. Sound far fetched? Not to me. Right now this tactic holds potential, but perhaps at some point it will lose its punch as these sites become a haven for bookmark spam. Enjoy it while you can.

Bloggers Can't Accurately Call the Election Just Yet

Charles Cooper at CNET thinks that a blogger might be the first to leak the predicted winner of Tuesday's election. Charles writes...

Pure speculation on my part, of course, but is it so crazy a guess? News organizations now abide by an agreement not to project a winner until after the polls close on the West Coast. The folks who conduct exit polling usually have a pretty good idea which candidate is going to come out on top.

That information is closely held. Four years ago, blogging had yet to burst upon the mainstream. Even if an insider wanted to spill the goods, the blogosphere did not figure on the Official Leaker's short list.

I disagree. For one, bloggers have a 50-50 chance of calling the election. So anyone can say they have the polling data, take a guess and still have a 50% chance of being right. Second, they don't have access to the same data resources that the pros have. If, however, a large group of bloggers across the country were to organize, conduct state-by-state exit polls then I think they would have a chance to. This is something we will see in 2008, but not in 2004.

CNET Gets Serious on Blogging

Rafat Ali has the full scoop. CNET is getting serious about blogging. It has hired one of the founders of the popular Wordpress blogging software.

Getting More Out of Google

Tara Calishain, author of Web Search Garage, writes in PC Magazine on how to get more out of Google. She spotlights Google Alert, Google-to-RSS and Google by email. On a related note, Google also posted this cheat sheet this week.

Tips for Choosing a Blogging Platform

Heather Carle has written an article (PDF) on behalf of the PRSA Tech Section for the current issue of PRSA's Tactics, entitled "Blog on: Tips for choosing a software platform." It reviews a number of blogging platforms that anyone can use to launch a blog on behalf of a client or for personal use. This is article is copyright 2004 PR Tactics and is reprinted with permission by the Public Relations Society of America.

Cingular's Election Moblog

Douglas Fisher writes that the Newsplex at the University of South Carolina and Cingular will again re-start its Wireless Election Connection student moblog to cover of the election. Doug writes...

After a succsessful run at the February primary and the summer conventions, we're expanding it to include students armed with camera phones in Florida, Georgia and the Washington metro area. The posting starts Monday with pre-election preparations.

Stardock Launches an RSS Aggregator

Stardock, the company behind various popular Windows skinning programs, has launched an RSS reader called Blog Navigator. More info here and here.