My blogebrity is mediocre at best. I hope we can still be friends.
Find out what your blogebrity status is at Kineda.
[via SpinThicket]
The Internet hurts my brain
From the Wired blog:
In a purely academic pursuit, of course, sociological gaming blog Terra Nova has sought a standard unit of value by which to compare currency from across the multiverse of MMOs, and found it…in the Quickie Blowjob.
Apparently, this is the common thread across MMOGs. A virtual blowjob in Second LIfe will cost you $360 Linden Dollars, or about $1.50.
Antisocial nerds need love too. But they have to pay.
Pitching bloggers – from a blogger
Tony Walsh, a Canadian blogger whose Clickable Culture is an excellent resource for anyone interested in the sociology of gaming, has a great post today about the pitches he gets from PR people. It’s a must-read for anyone including bloggers in their media lists, but here are a few of the great reasons he’s not writing about you:
“You have no idea what I write about”
If you’re pitching a blogger or mainstream reporter without knowing their beat, you’re not doing your job. You don’t have to know their life history, but when you’re talking to bloggers, it’s not hard to give a quick read to find out whether they write about kitchen gadgets or movies.
“You’re talking but you’re not saying anything.“
This is something that most PR people are guilty of at least a few times in their career. If you pitch something that isn’t news, or at least interesting, you’re probably wasting your time and your client’s money.
“You’ve sent me something I can’t write about yet.“
Okay, seriously. Who the hell uses embargoes anymore? Secondly, wouuld you trust a blogger not to break your embargo and spill your news early? Rookie moves.
“Is it on the record or isn’t it?“
Tony Walsh is a very nice man for asking this. Assume it’s all on the record and you reduce your chances of looking like an idiot.
“You seem to be passing yourself off as an anonymous tipster or are otherwise astroturfing.“
Another rookie move from PR people who like to pretend they’re spies. Don’t do it… you make the whole industry look bad, and yourself look like a wanker.
Walsh finishes by saying:
I’m highly cynical, jaded, crotchety, and ornery. I might discuss one or more aspects of your product, service, client and/or company that will make you unhappy. I might use framing or language you’re not comfortable with. I appreciate you want to read stories that stay “on message,” but those aren’t necessarily the stories I write (unless my views and yours happen to match).
This is a very good thing to remember. I actually did ask a blogger to change a story once, but it was because I had a very… shall we say… sensitive client and the blogger made it look like I personally had more to do with the product than the client did. While I appreciated the praise, it likely would have thrown my client into another crying fit while I was on the phone with her. It was worth it to give them the “would you mind” email to avoid that.
Again, I highly recommend Clickable Culture to anyone into online gaming, metaverse, or technological culture.
Second Life and the medium de jour
I wrote a few weeks ago that I didn’t understand Second Life. After a few insightful comments, a few more kicks at the virtual can, and reading a plethora of articles about the online world, I now think I do understand it. Now, I just think it’s stupid.
This is not to say, however, that I don’t think it’s important. But I think that this is the infancy of metaverse marketing, not the pinnacle. From a communications perspective, I think the entire concept is fascinating, and if I was still a student, this is probably what I would write my thesis on. From a marketing and public relations point of view, I think that our bizarre fascination with Second Life is going to blow up in our faces.
What are the reasons to establish a presence in Second LIfe? At this point, it’s cheap headlines, it’s a minor outlet for sales, and it’s getting your brand in front of a few people’s avatars who probably don’t want you there in the first place. But now, first mover advantage is gone, PR people are being voted off the island, and yet we persist. If you have a brand – it must be in Second Life.
There are a lot of things that I think Second Life is great for - the odd meetup or conference, virtual presentations, and of course, naked skydiving. I also think that in the coming years, the metaverse will provide a number of incredible opportunities for performance, marketing and social communication.
The way I see it, Second Life is the medium-de-jour, and as marketers, we’re at risk of ruining it the same way we ruined MySpace. We go in hard and fast, build up ad clutter everywhere and all of a sudden, it’s not worth it for the community. We did the same thing to mobile, and now the advertising lemmings are jumping off the Second Life cliff.
If we, as marketers, really want Second Life to be the next greatest medium, we should be adding to the community, not just covering it in ads.
PR Freelancer needed
Friends of mine are looking for a freelance publicist to promote a professional theatre festival in the Ottawa area. If you know of anyone who would be up to the challenge, drop me an email at my first name at ryananderson.ca, or forward this post on to them.
It mostly involves mainstream media relations, so good contacts with local media are a definite asset.
Buzzword 2.0
Marketing, public relations and advertising all have one thing in common: an unhealthy, psychotic obsession with buzzwords. We’re so desparate to attach a new words and pseudo-words to things that most of the time, it’s meaningless.
The idea of Web 2.0 came around, and, at least to me, it made sense. It outlined the dichotomy between a web created by technology and a web created by society. Just as we started getting accustomed to the monicker, we’re already talking about Web 3.0. Ugh.
The whole thing was apparently started by NYT reporter John Markoff, and talks mainly about a “smarter” web – one guided by common sense or, at least, artificial intelligence.
The classic example of the Web 2.0 era is the “mash-up” — for example, connecting a rental-housing Web site with Google Maps to create a new, more useful service that automatically shows the location of each rental listing.
In contrast, the Holy Grail for developers of the semantic Web is to build a system that can give a reasonable and complete response to a simple question like: “I’m looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child.”
While I think that these ideas have a great deal of merit as to how we can create relevant searches for information, I am extremely opposed to calling these systems a new incarnation of the Web… at least not now. The more we as an industry misuse meaningful words (engagement, viral, conversation come to mind) the less meaning those words are going to have.
I anticipate that it’s only a matter of time before business start claiming to be Web 3.0, ignorant media outlets start throwing around the term to describe things that wouldn’t even qualify as 2.0, and people end up more confused and in the dark than they were before.
Of course, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Web 3.0 is SO last Friday. I’m coining Web 4.0.
[thanks to Hugh MacLeod of Gapingvoid for the use of the cartoon]
Dependence on technology
As I mentioned, I am traveling on business right now. As I also mentioned, I am stressed.
The cause of this stress is largely due to the fact that technology has not been my friend on this trip. I expected to get a good five hours of work in on the train, but the Via WiFi was so intermittent it made it impossible. I expected to do a lot of my non-meeting based work from my hotel room, but I couldn’t connect to our office VPN for no good reason.
I’m currently working out of a Starbucks, solely because I can access my email in a useable way. Thing is, I’m on my Mac, so I’m running Entourage. Even though we have an Exchange server, Entourage only syncs the main contact folder, i.e. not my “media list” folder. Thankfully, I have all my contact data backed up offsite for just such a situation. Sadly, that site is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
All this is to say… the technology that normally allows me to be very productive has failed me when I need it the most. Even with redundancy built in.
This is troubling to me. Mainly, because it tells me that we’re far too dependent on technology. Secondly… well, secondly because it just pisses me off.
I’m sure working out of a caffeine factory is not helping my stress levels any. Serenity now.
On Reputation
Hopefully, anyone reading this blog knows this already, but for the younger PR-lings in the crowd, here’s the best career advice you’ll ever get:
You only have one reputation, and it’s yours to ruin.
If someone gives you an opportunity, use it. Make that opportunity count. Work harder than you can. If nobody gives you an opportunity, make your own. Volunteer, intern, blog – do anything to build your skills, and build your reputation for being good at what you do.
You’re going to be paid next to nothing coming out of school. Perform like you’re making six figures. Stay late, don’t waste time, and overperform. That’s the only way you’re going to move up in the world of advertising or PR. Don’t like it? Work for the government.
More importantly, once you start to grow a reputation, don’t throw it away by disappointing someone, by overcommitting, overpromising or by trying to be an expert at something you don’t know anything about. This is the best way to ruin everything you’ve worked for.
When you have a good reputation, doors are easier to open. People are willing to recommend you, to stick their neck out for you. In some cases, if your reputation is very good, they’ve even heard of you before they meet you. The converse is equally true. A bad reputation can spread just as quickly – often moreso. Most people have a list of people they’ll never work with again, and in most cases, they’re not afraid to share it. Keep your reputation, and you stay off this list.
I’ve mentioned many times that the reason I am where I am is because I worked my ass off for nothing when I was still in school to develop a professional reputation. It wasn’t all successes, but it was drilled into my head very early that my reputation was going to be all I had once I graduated. Fancy letters after my name were a bonus, but worth nothing in comparison. I may not have gotten paid, but that time spent was the best investment I’ve ever made.
These are words to live by at any point in your career, but it’s much easier to ruin yourself early, before you’ve built up “reputation insurance.” Keep that in mind the next time you overpromise and underdeliver.
I don’t understand people
I should, given the nature of my industry. But, more and more, I realize that while we can understand types of people, consumer behaviour, crowd psychology, and the like, I will never understand some people.
I’m on the road all week, and frankly, I’ve got a little bit of work-related stress going on. So, yesterday, before dinner, I went to the gym in the hotel I’m staying at. It’s small and it sucks, so, in the interest of not hanging myself when I was stepping over the abdominal board to get to the dumbells, I took off my iPod. I finished my workout, did some time on the treadmill, wandered out in a bit of a haze of endorphins and went back to my room to shower.
At dinner, I realized that I had never picked up the iPod I put down. I immediately excused myself and called the hotel. The concierge went to the fitness room, and called me back five minutes later. It was not there, and it was not in lost and found.
Okay… I get it. My fault. I shouldn’t have left the thing there in the first place. Thing is, this is a private gym in a four-star hotel. Nobody that is staying here can’t afford an iPod. When my bike was stolen in the summer, I understood. To a crackhead, a bike equals more crack. But in this case, the first person to come across it had to make the conscious decision not to walk it 10 feet to the front desk and say “someone left this in the gym,” but to actually steal something that belongs to someone else – something which, presumably, they could easily afford.
Maybe I was just brought up differently than other people, but my parents were pretty clear on the whole “don’t steal” thing.
Oh well – possessions are fleeting, etc.
Riding the rails
So, I woke up at 4:30 this morning, and hopped the 6am train to Toronto for the Movember media launch, a week full of meetings with Toronto media for my real job, and an awards ceremony on Thursday.
Currently, my microwaved train eggs are sitting heavy in my stomach, and I’m experiencing the joys of Via’s WiFi on-board service which they’ve gone to such lengths to promote. So far, it has taken me five minute to load the survey page for said WiFi where I rated the quality of the service as “utter shit.”
If you’re planning on taking the train because you can spend the trip catching up on your emails and RSS feeds, I would seriously advise against it. I will be spending the morning getting my $8.95 back for this piece of crap. Yes. I am that petty.
I’m not sure if there’s a lesson in all of this, but if there were, I would imagine it would be something along the lines of “don’t promote the hell out of a product that sucks.” Consider it microwaved train food for thought.
