Micro Persuasion

The Rules of the Road for Journalists on Twitter

"But some employers are either so afraid of the platform or so disdainful about its journalistic potential that they've tried to bar their reporters from even accessing Twitter in the workplace. The Sydney Star Observer's (SSO) Harley Dennett says he's denied access to both his Facebook and Twitter accounts at work via web filters on office computers."

via pbs.org

Fascinating look at how journalists, particularly in APAC, are engaging on Twitter. This nugget jumps out as do the 20 tips for journalists.

Posted via web from The Steve Rubel Lifestream

Search Engine Visibility and PR - An Edelman Digital White Paper

Regular readers here know that in addition to focusing on emerging technologies, I also have long taken an interest in how search engines are evolving. Fundamentally, I believe that Google is media and also every brand's home page. Therefore, search engine visibility (and all of the reputational concerns that go with it) are front and center an opportunity for the public relations industry to shine.

With this in mind, my colleagues and I have co-authored a 13-page position paper on Search Engine Visibility. We released it to our clients last month but now we are making it available to the public today at the Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington. You can download it here (PDF). It's also embedded below. This is the second in a series - the first is here.

In the paper we posit that today there are two primary search visibility tactics: Paid Search (more widely known as search engine marketing - SEM) and Optimized Search (e.g. SEO). Both of these are generally not managed by public relations professionals.

Now, however, there are two new disciplines emerging. And both sit squarely in the public relations professional's domain...

• Reputational Search - The premise and promise of Reputational Search is that any company, NGO or brand can apply a search mindset to tried-and-true PR tactics and, in the process, influence the search results around certain keywords.

• Social Search - With Google and competitors increasingly prioritizing social content from Flickr, blogs, Twitter and others in result pages, it is imperative that brands build out "embassies" in all relevant networks – places where employees work to serve the interests of the community, as well as their company.

If you read the paper you will see that we are convinced that search engines for the foreseeable future will have a critical impact on how brands are perceived - far more so than any single social network site, which tend to come and go. As always, we're interested in your views. Please share them below or on Twitter or Friendfeed.

Open publication - Free publishing - More steve rubel

Could Twitter One Day Replace Email PR Pitches? Maybe

Over the last few months as I travel the country I have noticed that lots of people in PR that I meet are giving out their Twitter IDs in lieu of their email addresses. Many feature it front and center in their email signature. There's even a site that will generate a graphical version for you, which I have embedded above.

On a related note, more of my inbound and outbound communication these days is in the form of Twitter direct messages or, sometimes, public replies. The direct messages arrive through email, but I find myself often reviewing or responding to these in one of my preferred Twitter clients - either Tweetie or TwitterGadget.

At first I despised the bacn. Now, however, I embrace it. What's more, I have come to see the benefits of direct messages and its potential for PR. It has me wondering: can direct message pitches become an accepted practice that journalists can live with? There is upside for them.

For starters, just like with RSS, journalists are in complete control of the relationship. A PR pro can't direct message a reporter unless he/she is following. This means we have to earn our way on to a reporter's screen by providing valuable content, which many of us but not all of us do. Robert Scoble alluded to this in his recent note to PR pros. 

The key benefit here is that a journalist can always un-follow any PR professional who abuses the relationship. Still, with spam weaving its way into Twitter though replies, it threatens to put the whole kibosh on the plaform's potential for media relations (I am drawing a distinction here from direct to audience engagement via Twitter, which is very different).

Second, for the journalists and bloggers that do encourage PR pros to pitch them via Twitter they can streamline the process by keeping missives down to 140 characters. That's less than the three sentence format some are embracing. It ensures people make their point quickly. This makes it more mobile friendly too.

Now some pitches could be public tweets, others will have to be private direct messages depending on their nature. And of course Twitter will never replace email pitching entirely. 

Despite all the growth and hype, Twitter is still small. Pre-Oprah, Harris Interactive found that in the US, even among the ever-wired 18-34-year-olds, only 8% of those surveyed said they use Twitter. Other demographics break out down as follows: 35-44 (7%), 45-54 (4%) and 55+ (1%). Net, email is ubiquitous, Twitter aint. 

Nevertheless, more journalists are using Twitter. So this makes it increasingly attractive to PR professionals. It also makes it essential that we behave ourselves. A few bad eggs will kill this fast.

What's your view? PR pros, have you built relationships with reporters and/or enhanced them using Twitter? Journalists, I am sure you're worried about any such trend, particularly since many of you use Twitter for both personal and professional communications purposes. Weigh in with a comment below or reply to me on Twitter @steverubel. If there are interesting responses, I will round them up in a subsequent post.

Media Companies Ask Google to Favor Their Content Over Blogs

Nat Ives reports in AdAge that a number of major media companies have asked Google to give it favorable positioning over blogs...

Many publishers resent the criteria Google uses to pick top results, starting with the original PageRank formula that depended on how many links a page got. But crumbling ad revenue is lending their push more urgency; this is no time to show up on the third page of Google search results. And as publishers renew efforts to sell some content online, moreover, they're newly upset that Google's algorithm penalizes paid content.

"You should not have a system," one content executive said, "where those who are essentially parasites off the true producers of content benefit disproportionately."

What year is this? I thought it was 2009. But when I read this I felt like it was 2004 all over again. Although there may be two sides to this story, the way that AdAge is reporting it, there are number of major flaws with the media's argument here...

First, the lines between media and blogs have been obliterated. What's TechCrunch or Engadget? Sure they are blogs but they run ads. So are they social media or media? To me, we don't have zebras and elephants anymore. They have mated and we're all one species.

Second, corporations are now creating their own media. Some are calling this trend content marketing. Take a look at what Intel or Wal-Mart (a client) are doing. So should Google not favor their content either? I will eat my hat if that happens.

Finally, there's no greater friend to media companies than Google and bloggers. Witness, for example how Google is partnering with Life Magazine. Google has found a way to unlock the value in old content. These media companies need Google to help it monetize in an age where digital advertising as it stands now is not working. Further, in a world where links rule, the media companies need bloggers as well for traffic, credibility and more. Take a look at this recent data from Technorati.

A neutral Google is a good Google. They should continue to deliver an algorithm that rewards the highest quality sources that have earned a following, interest and links from other sources. If the media companies don't want Google to favor bloggers, why not just stop linking to them or use no follow tag? That may over time, erode their Google Juice. However, I suspect most realize it's too late to put the genie back in the bottle.

This argument will die on the vine I suspect. That's the way it should be.

Google Makes Submitting News Comments a Little Easier

Google has added a link on the Google News home page that encourages sources quoted in stories to submit comments. The link directs people to a form to fill out. Previously, this was all done via email.

In addition, they have also added a bit more detail into which comments go up on Google News and why. This includes the following video, which the team added last week to YouTube.

Unfortunately, as far as I can tell the entire process still remains slow because it's mired in human authorization.

The Amazon Kindle is the Great White Hope for Monetizing Print Media

Dear media companies,

Thank you for making so much content available for free online for 15 years. I am sure you're eager to monetize it all beyond ads. 

The good news is your great white hope has arrived. It's the Amazon Kindle. My unsolicited advice is to jump in now. This could be your last chance to monetize content. Please do so now before tangible media evaporates.

Let me share with you one media junkie's experience - mine.

As a huge fan of books, magazines and newspapers, I was enthralled when Amazon launched the Kindle digital reader in late 2007. However, unlike other occasions, I did not jump in as an early adopter. I was put off by the many negative reviews and I did not want another device to carry. When the Kindle 2.0 debuted last month, however, I decided it was time to get one. Even then I was skeptical it would stick with me.

Now that I have been a Kindle owner two weeks, I am sold. I believe the device and seamless user experience is a winner - particularly as it synchronizes across phones. However, more importantly, the Kindle 2.0's debut is a watershed moment for print media. You have one last solid shot to monetize your digital content - if you move quickly. 

The iPod was the last digital great white hope. And thankfully, the music and movie companies (reluctantly) jumped on board. 

The Kindle, like the iPod, is an emerging critical mass device that actually encourages people to pay for content rather than get it for free. When Apple launched the iTunes Music Store, people were skeptical that people would shell out cash for music they could snag for free from file sharing networks. They did. The same was true when Apple, and later others, rolled out movies. However, today millions rent or buy movies online.

The Kindle offers a similar experience in a much larger market - text. This one is tougher to monetize. In the digital age books have managed to remain premium content. However, beyond books, magazine and newspaper content is available in abundance online for free. Yet, I still believe that people will pay to receive some of their favorites on their Kindles or their Kindle-enabled phones. Meet them there now while you can.

Consider this piece in the Statesboro Business Magazine by a 43-year-old individual who bought his first newspaper subscription in 43 years. Or the fact that now Instapaper is available in a handy offline version for the Kindle. Both remind me of the early days of the iPod when it was still geeky, yet a game changer.

My advice to you is to offset part of the cost of the Kindle and get them into the hands of your loyal readers with your content pre-loaded. Imagine, TIme Warner, if you gave readers $100 off a Kindle that came with a year of digital subscriptions to Time, Sports Illustrated and Fortune. I bet a lot of people would jump in and stay with you for years.

The Kindle, like the iPod, overcomes the hurdle required to get people to pay for content. The secret sauce is easy and instantaneous delivery of content as soon as it ships. This need not be limited to daily, weekly or monthly publication schedule but also for breaking news.

A little over a year ago, I converted all my media to bits. However, it's work. Even with RSS, I still have to go out and get the content I care about. Now with my Kindle, the media comes to me and it's available offline. I love that Fortune magazine shows up on my device whenever a new issue is published. The same is true for the New York Times. Eventually, Amazon will extend publications to the iPhone and other devices.

So, media companies, please jump in now. Embrace the Kindle. Subsidize it. Create value-added content for it, such as e-books. Or even partner with advertisers to offer advertorials. This could be your last shot at getting people to pay for your content. Don't miss the next iPod.

Sincerely,

Steve (a media junkie)

Ads in Google News Turn it into a PR Playground

The Google News team blogs that contextual ads are now running alongside of news search results...

"What this means is that when you enter a query like iPhone or Kindle into the Google News search box, you'll see text ads alongside your News search results--similar to what you see on regular Google searches or Google Book Search."

Read between the lines and guess what that really means: Google News is now a PR playground. Given the relative ease of launching a simple Google Adwords campaign we're going to see a lot of companies - some legit, others not - buying up real estate on Google News solely for influence, not clicks. Google may bounce these ads if they don't perform - time will tell.

It's already happening. Here's a case in point. Last week an eagle-eyed reader alerted SEO blogger Barry Schwartz that one advertiser tried to use Google News sponsored links as a way spread fake news - in this case a false rumor that President Obama was killed. The ad, Schwartz notes, was pulled down. But you can bet there will be more. And clearly some people saw it.

On the whole, I am bullish about ads in Google News. The PR industry largely missed the first search engine marketing wave and I believe that, at least when it comes to smaller campaigns, we still have time to catch up. Richard Edelman, our CEO, is also thinking the same way (see point #3). For more, see this post from my colleague, Marhsall Manson, on how good SEO is an outcome of good PR. Ads on Google News will serve as just another log on the fire that will encourage PR pros to boost their search knowledge. 
However, the ethics issues around contextual news ads and search overall are huge, particularly on sites like Google News. It will fascinating to see what Google deems as kosher/not - and to what degree people in PR and outside may try to push the boundaries.

Three Ways the Media is Innovating with New Interfaces

Several months ago I had lunch with a major media company executive who told me that, in the future, content will not be subsidized by banner ads splashed liberally on news pages. This is something that the current economic situation is hopefully accelerating as display ad quality plummets to new lows. I remain convinced that the media must innovate their way out of this situation from both editorial and sales, but no one seems to be really doing so on the advertising side.

If you want a glimpse of what's next for media then you need to really look to the editorial side of the house. As we've seen, that's where all the innovation is happening these days - and its changing how we engage with content. Here a look are three promising approaches and their potential implications.

Throwback Interfaces

Most news web sites all pretty much have the same look and feel - the same one they have utilized since 1994. The interface in some ways closely resembles a traditional newspaper. Usually, the most important story is at the top and it carries the largest headline. Other, less important stories, follow. However, that's where the similarities to old media ends.

Some media brands, though, are dabbling in new models that are a throwback to print - and with some success too. Take the Sporting News, for example. The venerable sports daily, which to some degree sits in a commodity market, last summer launched Sporting News Today. The free, opt-in service attracted 75,000 subscribers by the time it launched and probably has a significantly higher circulation today.

Sporting News Today delivers to your inbox either via RSS or email a beautifully designed virtual newspaper - and on weekends too. The content is fully searchable and it is supported by full-page ads similar to what you would see in the print publication. You can also bookmark and share individual pages. The reading experience is terrific.

Watch for more magazines to try a similar approach and to port this to sophisticated mobile devices like the iPhone or Amazon Kindle.

Hyper-Vertical Navigation

In the old days newspapers and magazines were limited by space in the number of sections they could legitimately offer - e.g. news, sports, business, entertainment, etc. However, that's not true anymore as the Long Tail and infinite space of web allows millions of niches to bloom.

Media companies are recognizing that some readers/viewers want to drill down deep into very specific areas of interest. They are slowly adding topical navigation features or creating APIs that allow independent developers to do so.

The New York Times is among the more notable innovators here. Times Topics classifies and categorizes every single article (even older ones) into thousands of topical pages. Some of these get very specific. For example, you can track a single company- like PepsiCo or GE, two of our clients.Every page has an RSS feed too. Here's the feed for the PepsiCo page.

In addition, through their developer network, the Times offers a rich library of APIs that are spawning all kinds of new creations. The latest is the NYT Explorer (above). This tool not only makes it easy to search the Times archives but then to do so by drilling down further using the same topical taxonomy.

Mobile Apps

Finally, while the web browser remains our primary entryway to digital content, some power users are particularly attracted to applications. This is particularly true among smart phone users. Many media companies are filling the void with own smart phone applications. Variety, for example, just launched an iPhone app powered by Newsgator (below). People magazine will roll out one powered by ScrollMotion later this spring.

As a next step I would expect media holding companies to roll up several of their premiere brands into a single app so that you can say get content from Entertainment Weekly and People via one interface. In addition, I bet they will let you subscribe to RSS feeds as well.

These are some of the editorial and user interface innovations that are on my radar. What's on yours? What have you seen that's novel when it comes to news delivery? So far it seems like the editorial side is way ahead of anything on the advertising front these days. At some point they may catch up. However, if they don't it could spell trouble for ad-supported content.

Five Digital Trends to Watch for 2009

This has also been cross-posted on the Edelman Digital blog.

In my role as Director of Insights for Edelman Digital I am writing monthly white papers for clients on key trends. Sometimes we will release these broadly. For the first one, I drew on members of the Edelman team, as well as third party research, to highlight five digital trends to watch for 2009. Each includes specific recommended actions.

Even though the economy is slowing, all signs show that audiences are still spending a lot more time on the web. Marketers need to invest to meet them there. However, what's changed today they are smarter about where they focus their time, dollars and energy. Experimentation is giving way to tactics that deliver ROI. These include public engagement, search and social networking — three themes that connect the major macro trends.

There are five trends covered in this white paper...

Satisfaction Guaranteed - Customer care and PR are blending as consumers use social media to demand service

Media Reforestation -  The media is in a constant state of reinvention as it transitions from atoms to bits

Less is the New More - Overload takes its toll. Gorging on media is out. Selective ignorance and friends as filters are in

Corporate All-Stars - Workers flock to social media to build their personal brands, yet offer employers an effective and credible way to market in the downturn

The Power of Pull -  Where push once ruled, it’s now equally important to create digital content that people discover through search

You can download the full paper here(PDF) or simply browse or read it below. I look forward to hearing your feedback.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Research Business & Legal marketing media

The Newspaper Reporter of the Future is Here Today

The word newspaper is really a misnomer today. Or at least it will be soon. Increasingly news is delivered digitally and it's interactive. People are certainly writing newspapers off for dead, but I think they have a bright future (in digital form) and it's right in front of them.

Everyone's looking for a solution to the newspaper problem. But the answer is right under their nose. The picture is slowly evolving through the breakthrough work of individual reporters who are using social media to build a stronger connection with their audience (and their own personal brands in the process).

There are tons of examples. Dwight Silverman is one. But here's another that's also near and dear to my heart. It's so spot on that it's noteworthy as an example of where the news business is heading - or where it needs to go.

In the US baseball spring training is getting underway in full swing in Florida and Arizona. I am a Yankee fan and have been paying close attention to what Peter Abraham has been doing. He should win awards for breaking ground in sports journalism.

Abraham is the Yankees beat writer for the Journal News in Westchester county (a NYC suburb). According to Burrelles Luce, it's the 94th largest newspaper in the US with a daily circ of 100,000 readers.

Abraham is on the scene in Tampa where the Yankees are training and he's doing it all - in addition to filing regular reports for the paper that appear in print. Here's an inventory of his social media footprint....

First, he has a blog with a full-text feed that includes several posts/day and hundreds of comments/day from readers. It dates back to 2006.

In addition, Abraham has a Facebook group that has about 1600 members.

He is posting photos from spring training using his iPhone. Note the gear the others are using by comparison.

There is a podcast up on iTunes that right now is updated daily with audio.

FInally, today he was using both CoverItLive and Mogulus to have a live video/text chat with readers.

All Abraham is missing is Twitter, YouTube and maybe Flickr but he seems to be doing just fine with what he has here.

Now imagine for a moment that Abraham wasn't a Yankees beat writer but instead covering your company or industry for the business section. Or imagine she is the newspaper's food columnist. This multi-platform method of engaging is right for all of them. If every reporter did this on staff they can build not only a more engaged audience, but also redefine local media since it's all potentially global.

For PR professionals, this is a boon. More content creates more opportunities for us to tell our stories and to also engage journalists using these same channels. If we're not there as individuals and companies then we won't be top of mind.

What Abraham is doing represents not only the future of journalism but also what PR professionals themselves need to do to build connections in the years ahead.

All Media Is Social, All Social Is Media

The following is another excerpt from "Five Digital Trends to Watch," an Edelman Digital insights white paper that will be released on February 17.

Companies have done a decent-to-good job adapting to the new era of democratized media. For example, bloggers today are considered an important part of the ecosystem. The best in PR view them as a sounding board that can help shape or even re-shape strategies.

Unfortunately, some of what we’ve learned these last few years may need to be unlearned — or at least modified.

Where once journalists sat on one side, bloggers on the other, today all media is social and all social is media. Yet many, particularly in PR, still treat ordinary citizens, traditional journalism and branded content as distinct islands of media. Going forward, it’s best to see them as a contiguous archipelago.

Consider that in 2008 some 58 percent of newspapers featured some form of user-generated content on their sites, according to the Bivings Group. This is up from just 24 percent in 2007. The mix includes: user-generated photos (58 percent), homegrown video (18 percent) and articles (15 percent). Meanwhile, the number of newspaper sites that are allowing readers to comment on articles has more than doubled to 75 percent. 

On the other side of the coin, we've seen time and again that social networks like Facebook, Friendfeed and Twitter are now essential sources of news and information for millions. This is particularly true around big events and breaking news.

The upshot is that today it's impossible to draw a line between social media and traditional media - it's all one. We need to take a bird’s-eye view of the entire landscape and conceptualize it in the broadest context when planning, executing and measuring campaigns. Anything short and we're operating in a vacuum.

IBM Turns Old NYT Editorial and PR Into Ads

What the Internet does - and quite well - is blur lines.

Where once there was social media and media, that's no longer true. All things social are media and all things media are social. Where once there was PR and advertising, the lines of influence today are grey thanks to new paradigms. And where once there was display advertising and editorial, today things are not so black and white anymore. 

Here's one example that certainly got me thinking.

Last night when I was on the New York Times web site, a new ad campaign from IBM jumped out at me. It was startling not because of its imagery or messaging but for its unique approach.

The campaign is different in that the ads curate archived editorial on the environment from the Times and displays it right in the unit itself. The reader doesn't need to leave the page he/she is on to peruse the articles. Branding is light and the focus is on content. Needless to say, since all of the articles are by star columnist Thomas Friedman, the writing is strong. 

As you can see from the screen grab below, the Times calls the program "Sponsored Archive." Some of these articles highlight IBM media coverage. So in effect, IBM is turning positive PR it generated with the Times - in some cases two years ago - into fresh advertising.

Disclosures make sure the campaign is indeed totally ethical. At the very bottom of the ad unit, you'll note, that the Times clearly says that the units are ads, that the reprinting was paid for by IBM and that the editorial staff was not involved.

Now you can argue this isn't anything new. For years magazines have featured advertorials that are written by journalists on staff but paid for by advertisers. Still, this feels different to me. It opens the door to future where earned media becomes effective paid media.
It essentially takes PR and recycles it into a paid format that is quite effective. However it competes with more current editorial a reader is likely visiting the site to consume.

Like similar programs from Google, efforts like these unlock the hidden value in thousands of articles deep inside archives. It takes what's old and makes it monetizable. All of it has me thinking that this could be the beginning of a new era where archived content is turned into a form of advertising that's more credible than static, generally poor-performing banners.
More importantly, it takes the work that PR professionals do - earn media - and gives it even stronger legs than before and for years to come. And that's exciting.

Frustration with PR Sites Kills Media Stories, Usability Studies Say

In his latest newsletter, usability guru Jakob Nielsen studies corporate newsrooms and found that, generally, they aren't doing a good job to say the least.

"As 3 studies of journalists show, they use the Web as a major research tool, exhibit high search dominance, and are impatient with bloated sites that don't serve their needs or list a PR contact."

The most fascinating passage in Nielsen's report, though, is this one...

Another journalist described what he'd do if he couldn't find a press contact or the facts he needed for his story: 

"Better not to write it than to get it wrong. I might avoid the subject altogether."

The press, much like consumers with customer care reps, want to be able to get a hold of corporate PR contacts quickly and easily, otherwise they won't bother doing business. That should be a wake up call for most. Bloggers, meanwhile, all expect us to be present in their spaces and I suspect don't even bother going to our immaculate corporate PR sites. So PR pros increasingly need to be present and available all around.

If you think it's just big companies that are at risk here of being forgotten, Nielsen debunks that myth. Startups, he says, pepper their sites with buzzword-filled, fatty text. Also, he makes it clear most newsrooms are built for push not pull.

In the near future all corporate media/PR sites will need to emulate the more progressive customer service sites. They will need to showcase how someone can get a hold of you in a hurry, either via IM or Twitter and not just email or phone.

I bet we'll see IM boxes like the one below from Google Talk making their way into corporate newsrooms. Access to humans begets trust and many companies are not prepared to engage 24/7. SImply put, that's the way we increasingly need to operate in a globalized world.

Inside Obama's Social Media Toolkit

Edelman's Digital Public Affairs team in DC has authored an awesome white paper that takes you inside the Obama campaign. You can download it here (PDF). The white paper imparts several lessons: start early, build to scale, innovate where necessary and more. You can find other Edelman white papers on our site. This includes 9 on 9 - key consumer trends for 2009 (also in PDF format).

PR Pros to Get a Database of Twitter Users by Mid-Year

PR Newser reports that Cision, a very respectable company that runs a media database used by thousands of public relations professionals, will expand its reporter and blogger data to include Twitter user handles by mid year. It's unclear if they will only link existing profiles to their Twitter handles or if Cision will also replicate the broader set of tools that Twitter already offers.

Regardless, while this is hardly unexpected given Twitter's growth (and it's the right move for CIsion and the industry), it may mean changes for the more influential users of the micro-blogging service. For starters, Twitter users may soon see an influx of in-bound pitches from PR pros. Most likely these could come in the form of 150-character direct messages (DMs) since most Twitterati don't usually post their email address.

My advice to those of you in PR is to participate first, pitch later (this is counsel my colleague Phil Gomes regularly teaches). Ideally I would love to see everyone in PR be on Twitter but only if we add value. This means that we must transparently and openly participate in conversations, always respect the community and build relationships. Do this (and do this well) and most everyone will be happy to hear our pitches. 

Hopefully when Twitter data arrives on PR professionals' desktops by mid-year it won't encourage us to pollute Twitter with DM pitches. Rather, we'll use the info to be smarter. Then again, alot of this data is already out there so maybe this is all moot.

IceRocket Live Web Search Rolls Up Twitter, Blogs, News and More

IceRocket is a jewel of a site that has slowly been improving. I highlighted it recently in my post on the state of blog search. Today they unveiled a cool new feature that blends tweets, blog posts, news stories, videos and images. The feature is called Ice Rocket Big Buzz. Founder Blake Rhodes pinged me about it earlier today. (A larger view of the above image is here)

IceRocket Big Buzz fills a void that we desperately need - a real-time view of news events and memes. This feature gets us closer to such a utopia by pulling together live web sources into a single page. Take, for example a newsy search for plane crash. As I write this post it's filling up with lots of very current information all about today's top news story. This includes videos from YouTube and images from Flickr. Plus you can track all of it via RSS with a link at the top right. Sounds like a dream for journalists.

This is a great first start. I would love to see the page automatically refresh and have a mobile version. In addition, an open API would be helpful too. That way, should I wish, I can add a feed from Friendfeed for items that users are only sharing there. 

Still, I am glad to see that someone is out there trying to solve the live web search problem because, as Scoble shows today with the plane crash story, it's where the action is. Google is sleeping at the wheel here.

Google Adds Time Stamps, Inches Closer to Real-Time Web Search

(UPDATE: Note comments from Google's Matt Cutts, which came in after I posted. It appears none of this is new but it is certainly worth watching and perhaps more noticeable to me than it was before.)

Google has quietly started posting a small time stamp next to news stories and blog posts that have been recently added to their main index. In the screen grab below note how one such search lists the hours that have transpired since my recent blog post and Robert Scoble's were first indexed. The same holds for news-related searches too, as you can see here.

As of right now you can't sort Google results by time. From the advanced search page, however, you can limit results just to those that have been indexed in the last 24-hours. You can't get more granular - at least yet. Date-filtered advanced queries are not a new feature but I believe the time stamps are.

 

As Louis Gray notes, the real-time web is going to be a critical trend to watch this year. As more content is generated from social networks, Google is going to feel heat from Friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook as they beef up their algorithms. Already, lots of people go to search.twitter.com to search for breaking news just as we did first when Google News launched a few years ago.

Real-time Google search is something I have been predicting would come for almost four years now. I think we're finally just about there. This will have a major impact on PR as companies recognize that Google is the primary lens by which they are judged.

Three Reasons the Internet is Eroding Apple's Mojo

"Rotten to the Core" by Pupski on Flickr.

I have been an Apple fan and a Mac user much of my adult life. I bought my first Mac in 1992 and have owned half a dozen since. I wrote for Mac magazines in the mid-1990s. I waited on line for many hours twice for the iPhone and I am writing this post on a MacBook Air that I bought sight unseen last year after the Jobsnote.

However, after yesterday's disappointing keynote, I am convinced the Internet is slowly eroding Apple's PR mojo. They are still having a good run, but the times are changing. Here are three reasons why Apple may not make the turn like it did before. There's a lot of lessons here for PR professionals.

1) Bloggers and Citizen Journalists

In the old days, Apple could keep a tight lip on the ship. Steve Jobs has built a no-leak culture since he arrived back in 1996. Today, however, with eyes everywhere and contract manufacturing in China, that's getting harder.

The bloggers are getting pretty good at least at directionally writing about what's coming. The professional journalist are feeding off of it and doing more fact checking of their own. By the time the press invitations are emailed, there's not a lot of oomph left - especially since the iPhone debuted. If you think about it, that was the last time Apple was able to shock and awe.

What does this mean? That expectations are high and Apple can't meet them since the launch of the iPhone.

2) The Rock-Star CEO Era is Over

For years we lived in an age where CEOs were like rock-stars. Edison, Henry Ford, Jack Welch, Sam Walton, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs - all are rock stars.

Today, however, employees and "a person like me" are far more trusted, according to data from the Edelman Trust Barometer. This isn't Apple's fault. It's just times are changing. Recent CEO scandals haven't helped. More importantly, Web 2.0 and social software is giving rise to individual voices and personal brands.

Apple is still living in age where its CEO or executive team are the only people who speak for the company. Compare that to Google, meanwhile, who have an army credible faces in the community like Matt Cutts. Got a Gmail security problem? Matt is on the case. Got a flaming Macbook? Email Steve and pray he isn't too obnoxious.

3) Cloud Computing and Netbooks Erode Apple's Edge

As an early adopter, I am a huge enthusiast of web-based applications. About 75-90% of my needs are handled in a browser. I do all my writing in Google Docs. I edit photos using Picnik or Photoshop.com. The only desktop apps besides a browser that I still use are Microsoft Entourage and PowerPoint. (Microsoft and Adobe are clients of my employer, Edelman.)

Now I am rare. A lot of you still love desktop apps but I think that's going to change. In the next few years you will do more of your computing online. And that means you will be able to be just fine using a netbook or even a phone. The category is still emerging and many are still 1.0 products. But I expect that to change and if the current economic climate continues, then it could erode Apple's notebook share.

"But Apple has web-apps," you say. "What about Mobile Me and the new iWork.com?" They're gorgeous, for sure. However, functionally, they don't hold a candle to Google or Adobe's web apps. And I think Microsoft's products here for sure will be strong. In three years iLife and iWork will have to be entirely cloud-based and the edge goes to the first movers.

That's one person's view of the situation. There are others. What's yours? (For more, see this thread on Friendfeed.)

ABC News Launches an iPhone Application

As the year rolls to a close, several news organizations have added iPhone applications to the iTunes App Store. These include USA Today, NPR and Accuweather. Now throw in ABC News, which launched this morning.

The ABC News iPhone application features video clips from their national news programs, stories from the web site as well as local clips from affiliates in major cities. In addition, what's unique about the application is that they also have a tab for breaking news and local emergency alerts.

You can download the free application here (iTunes link)

How Increasingly Intangible Media Will Bring Tangible Benefits

The following is also my column this week in AdAge.

Last time in this space I outlined my conviction that five years from now all media will either be completely digital or well on its way to becoming intangible. Two weeks later, the trend has accelerated.

Many are questioning the future of major newspaper companies who, faced with declining print ad revenues, are putting themselves up for sale or filing for bankruptcy. Meanwhile, the Amazon Kindle is sold out until February and book publishers like Random House are racing to embrace the iPhone as the next big growth market.

Even if you don't share my belief that all media will be digital by 2014, the migration is inevitable and it will have a major impact for advertisers. Here are three trends to watch.

Reach Devaluation

Although advertisers increasingly are exploring other metrics, i.e. engagement and reputation, reach still rules -- at least for now. Unfortunately, reach is slowly losing its value as media consumption increasingly moves deeper into the digital realm.

Where in the analog age we might be loyal to a given media brand, today's consumers are far more agnostic. We're more likely to dip into an array of online sources including traditional news sites and blogs  -- and often via search or social networks.

All of this diminishes the entire concept of reach. After all, if a site claims that it reaches millions but they're all just drive-bys, do such figures truly matter? In the years ahead, advertisers will rethink reach and not pay nearly as much for it as they did when they bought media based on a rate base and/or circulation. This will create tremendous disruption for media companies as they have to shift to new ways to prove their value.

Just-in-time Creative

Despite all of the advances in digital marketing, ad creative remains largely static once it's placed. It doesn't change based on news or memes like a mood ring might. But that's about to change.

As digital channels supplant tangible formats it will usher in innovation from vendors, the media and advertisers. The lines between widgets and banners will blur as creative becomes more utilitarian. Ads will change on the fly based on preset conversation and search data triggers. They will more appropriately reflect pop culture and the "memes" of the day and therefore be a lot more engaging and relevant.

Further, as consumers continue their transitory ways, advertisers will be able to better optimize the creative that runs across different sites. Ads will "talk" to each other so that marketers can identify consumers who have already been exposed to their creative on other sites and then serve up something more relevant to reinforce the initial impression.

Google Unlocks the Value of Back Catalog Content

Finally, there's no denying Google's power. It's becoming the primary gateway to the web for both consumers and the digital marketers. What's particularly noteworthy is how Google is digitizing old physical media.

For example Google Book Search now incorporates a vast print magazine archive, including back issues of "New York Magazine." Google News has likewise digitized old newspapers and Google Image Search has done the same with the complete "Life Magazine" photo archive online.

Media companies will increasingly partner with Google to bring their entire back catalog of content online. Right now these are not monetized with ads. But Google will surely layer contextual search ads into these databases and unlock the value of all of this content. This will offer advertisers all kinds of new opportunities and also throw publishers a lifeline as they make the transition from atoms to bits.