Had an interesting chat the other day about the concept of two paradigms existing within the PR world: 1) traditional PR i.e. media relations and 2) digital relations. So I thought I’d jot it down…

Basically, the concept highlights a divide in the mindset of today’s PRs. The first paradigm said to encompass those traditional PRs who view digital as a means for pushing the same message down different channels. The second, those PRs who use digital channels to create communities and speak directly to stakeholders. Think column inches vs Facebook friends.

It swiftly moved onto a debate about whether PR is actually best placed to own the ‘digital relations’ paradigm, given that sometimes there is no media involved, or whether it was one of those other marketing disciplines (shudder).

Naturally, I was fighting the PR corner.

For me, the term ‘digital relations’ consists of the following disciplines:

1. Social media relations: creating and distributing content to the likes of blogs, social network users, on forums and message boards etc. and then interacting with them
2. Digital media relations: the online form of what PR people do offline, but to ‘newsbrands’ like the BBC, Times Online and The Guardian, rather than ‘newspapers’. This approach also includes finding alternative ways to provide content, e.g. video, graphics, animation, images etc.
3. Creating digital communities: establishing a community, or communities, of influential stakeholders within key digital platforms and using a combination of the to simulate the community and increase its size
4. Traditional media relations: generating press coverage offline to generate a buzz and drive search online

My argument was / is that the PR industry is best placed to own the business of creating communities and building relations without a media filter, directly to the stakeholder, rather than other digital marketing practices, because it is what we have always done: tailor messages, phrases and words, and communicate with stakeholders on our clients’ behalf.

You’ll notice in the above list that I’ve included both digital and traditional media relations. I’ve done so because I don’t believe that you can create ‘effective’ communities without using third-party sources, like the media to generate a buzz.

I don’t believe that the media, or journalism, will ever die. We PR people will always need a filter for one reason or another. Whether it is to create a buzz offline, secure third-party endorsement, or leverage the authority of a particular journalist / news brand.

Either way, if you strip the different disciplines of ‘digital relations’ back to basics, they are fundamentally about using words, messages and phrases to get a clients’ point of view across. As well as building relationships with key stakeholders and influencing them to endorse your clients’ brand to change the behaviour of the individuals within a relevant community.

So basically, what digital PRs do and what PRs should be doing. This is why we are best placed to create communities rather than any other those other marketing disciplines…

Great story on the BBC website yesterday: Was the media hoodwinked by Sarkozy rumours?

So, it appears the great Sarkozy affair was only a social media rumour after all. So why did the Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail print it? Surely they must have known / been able to find out?

Seems to me that as long as the papers can trace it back to someone to blame, they’ll print whatever sells a story.

Sacrificing editorial respectability for short term commercial gain and social media ‘credibility’ is lazy journalism – shame…

The latest craze (yes CRAZE!!!) to hit the internet is without doubt Chat Roulette – a site that pairs random people through videochat.

To me, the whole idea of speaking to someone you never knew existed, without any kind of agenda, or any boundaries, seems to be completely absurd. So what is the appeal?

Is it just a site for complete and utter wierdos seeking a new channel to promote self-published entertainment? Or does it have any commercial use whatsoever?

This well-put-together, hilarious video by Casey Neistat sums Chat Roulette up in a nutshell:

It also, thank god, gives me enough of an idea about what Chat Roulette is all about without having to login myself.

For those of you who are tempted to find out more, before you do, here is snapshot of what lies in store:

• You can click “next” any time, or stay with your current pairing.
• You might see people in horrifying masks dancing around.
• Chinese users seem to love virtual high fives.
• One person’s shtick is a puppet who makes like a caring psychotherapist and will sit with you for hours.
• A man holding up a sign that said, “Assroll?”, and promptly rolling over backwards, naked. (Nudity is hard to avoid.)

Strangely, I can see the concept of Chat Roulette taking off in the world of online dating, and possibly environment in sport, e.g. in football forums of betting platforms such as Betfair.

In sum, think of YouTube, with even more exhibitionism because everything is live and there are no boundaries…

Stumbled upon a good investigative blog post by BNET yesterday, which details a patent application filed by Google titled: Web-Based System for Generation of Interactive Games Based on Digital Videos…

After reading through the abstract below it seems that what they want to do is patent the process of using video annotations to develop simple games. A bit like what Crime Stoppers did with its brilliant ‘A Different Ending’ campaign (have a play below), but a little more fun.

Full abstract of Google’s patent:

“Systems and methods are provided for adding and displaying interactive annotations for existing online hosted videos. A graphical annotation interface allows the creation of annotations and association of the annotations with a video. Annotations may be of different types and have different functionality, such as altering the appearance and/or behavior of an existing video, e.g. by supplementing it with text, allowing linking to other videos or web pages, or pausing playback of the video. Authentication of a user desiring to perform annotation of a video may be performed in various manners, such as by checking a uniform resource locator (URL) against an existing list, checking a user identifier against an access list, and the like. As a result of authentication, a user is accorded the appropriate annotation abilities, such as full annotation, no annotation, or annotation restricted to a particular temporal or spatial portion of the video.”

If the patent is passed, and YouTube works this into an interface for its users which includes some basic editing software, we may just start seeing people starting to create their own games.

It also has potential applications in advertising mechanics too.

I will eagerly watch this space…

Read a couple of reviews about Google’s Nexus One during my two hour commute (bloody snow) into the office this morning.

While I’m sure there are genuine improvements to the Android operating system, possibly even functions that are better than the iPhone, it seems that thanks to Google’s PR team, the poor Nexus One was on a hiding to nothing before it was even launched.

One of the first rules of PR is to avoid over-hyped headlines in press releases, but to continually leak information that suggests it’s an ‘iPhone killer’ seems ludicrous. They’ve certainly minimised its chances for success…

However, PR gripes aside, history tells us that when it comes to hardware Apple is rarely beaten.

For me, you only have to look at the failed attempts of MP3 companies to take on the iPod to know that the Nexus One will not beat the iPhone.

But as they say: “time is a healer”. So let’s see what positives both customers and Google’s PR team have to say about it in the coming months.

In the mean time, I’m sticking with my iPhone and the video below shows one of the many reasons why:

Had an interesting chat yesterday with a couple of colleagues about the Metro…

Do people read it in the morning because it’s convenient, i.e. their local train station does not sell other newspapers and the local newsagent is not on their way? Or is it a question of price, i.e. reading it instead of The Times everyday saves them £20 a month?

Decided it was a convenience thing first and foremost, and then price. Reckon most people read the Metro as it’s light entertainment first thing, and then rely on the internet when they get to work to get more factual, industry related news.

We then got onto news aggregators and discovered that many people have many different habits, e.g. iGoogle, NewsNow, Ananova, Press Gazette and Yahoo! News etc.

Also found a useful website detailing a list of web-based, desktop, email, mobile and browser extension aggregators: NewsOnFeeds.com.

I then spared a thought for the paper boy…

What’s he up to in this digital news age? Do people still get a paper delivered in the morning? Is he out of a job? Has he evolved? If so, how? And would people be interested in receiving news from an electronic paper boy?

A quick Google search curbed my excitment (ThePaperBoy.com), but, as always, am convinced I could do better…

SideWiki allows members of the public to contribute information next to any webpage. You install it as a browser sidebar and once installed, you can read and write entries along the side of the page.

Having already been sidetracked by the new gizmo and a client with poor reviews, I am of the opinion that it will be another important thing for digital PRs to manage.

While there are some safeguards built in, it is essentially a licence for web-rogues to have a pop on any website they want to.

Some say it’s a good thing for the legal professional, but for PRs is it just another thing to monitor in a long list?

To be fair it probably is. But lets not get too down-beat – I’m sure it will present many ‘opportunites’ too. Besides, some clever-tech will soon design a programme were you can monitor all your important websites in one. That’s if Google has not already done so…

More info below:

BSkyB will launch its Sky Player online TV service on Microsoft’s XBox 360 tomorrow.

The Sky Player will provide video-on-demand service and access to live TV on 24 channels including movies and sports.

It will also provide a range of “unique interactive services”, including apps that allow viewers to communicate real time via XBox Live avatars while watching Sky Sports, and Twitter and Facebook apps in association with TV programmes.

For the app loving, football following, social media sort it seems a dream come true…

But there’s a catch. You’ll need an XBox Live Gold subscription for this one, and you’ll also need to be subscribed to Sky Movies and Sky Sports.

Find out more here

PRWeek revealed the results of its inaugural digital survey yesterday (here) which, surprisingly, only received 64 responses.

But rather than debate the reasons for why this could be (confidentially breaches to uncovered industry blag) I thought it would be interesting to focus on the 61 per cent of respondents that found themselves pitching against non-PR agencies in the last 12 months.

For me Porter Novelli’s, Kerry Gaffney, hits an important nail on the head when saying: “Many clients are appreciating that PR is the natural champion of an organisation’s message and reputation, regardless of the particular channel used to deliver it.”

But, while this should be the case, in my experience ‘many clients’ still invite digital, advertising, social media, marketing and search agencies to tender. And who blames them? After all, they’re paying the bills so they unquestionably deserve to find the best agency for the job.

For me, the PR industry still lags a little behind the others. Over the next year or so I envisage the PR industry changing at a speed far greater than witnessed so far and at a level comparable to the impact of the internet on the advertising industry.

As clients and consumers become even more digitally-savvy the challenge will be put upon PRs to reach online communities, e.g. online media, bloggers and social network users, ahead of traditional print media. And in many cases, there will be a need to go direct to the consumer – bringing PR and other specialist forms of marketing, closer together.

There will also be a shift in the way PRs deal with video, audio, graphics and pictures. Indeed, news organisations like the BBC, Daily Telegraph and Press Association (PA Video Wire) have already changed their models to cater for video and digital graphics. And to fulfil this growing demand for content PRs will have to provide quality, rich multimedia content more frequently than before. Again, bringing PR and other specialist forms of marketing, closer together.

While advertising and digital marketing agencies have already embraced this ‘digital marketing communications revolution’, the road ahead remains rocky for the PR industry. PR agencies that have prepared, or are preparing for an increasing ‘digital demand’ will succeed if they can convince clients that their PR agency can not only web-build, run social media campaigns, create content etc., but can also get results, add value and measure all of the above.

However, for those agencies who fail to do this, they will lose clients, stop winning new business and fall by the wayside.

So, the onus is therefore on us, as PR people, to stamp our authority on the ‘digital marketing mix’ and grab valuable market share of this emerging communications market for our industry.

There are still many clients out there who do not understand how this ‘digital revolution’ is changing the way they need to communicate. As such, there are many opportunities for digitally-savvy PR agencies to explore, many potential client hands to hold and many long-term relationships to build…

Up until yesterday I bet if you asked 100 people to name a football team from Nottingham, 90 per cent would have said Nottingham Forest first. But now? I’m not so sure…

I could be here all day analysing Sven’s move to Meadow Lane from a football point of view, but I’ll get this out of my system later at pre-season training, so I’ll just touch on the PR perspective for now.

It’s a cracking story and a fantastic reminder how to use the right celebrity to dress-up a dull news story.

Whether Sven has moved for the money, or “the biggest challenge of his life”, it doesn’t really matter.

And it may not necessarily be financially good for the game but at least the lower tier of English football is now back on the map.

I expect fans to flock en masse to the County’s first few games of the season, but even Severance-Sven will not continue to pull in the crowds or player unless they get the results on the pitch.

Football clubs can do the best PR in the world, but if they lose 5-0 every week the fans will soon turn.

In fact, I may look into the price of Sven taking over from Ian McParland before Christmas…