Flack's Revenge

Tablets Lead Way to Power News Consumers, and Apps for PR

More people are using tablets, and in some cases spending more time with them than other devices and media channels. What are the implications of this trend for the PR field?

For starters, tablets can update and improve on many applications and projects. E.g. in my series of posts we explored reinventing the clip book, turning it into a dynamic, electronic magazine (see this post for one solution, devised by team member Kesley Judd). I am sure there are other examples of tablet apps, and potential apps that have relevance for PR.

Further, our jobs have gone beyond simply getting a nice placement to also caring about how the hit is shared and read, and to playing more of an active role in keeping stories alive and increasing exposure through social media channels. If you look at the tablet within this context, and consider the results of recent research, then ideas for PR start to jump out.

Paid Content wrote about a new report from Pew Research that describes news consumption habits of tablet users.

Tablet owners read a lot of news… The Pew study was conducted in conjunction with The Economist Group and found that half of tablet users use their devices to consume the news on a daily basis.. According to the report, 30 percent are spending more time with the news than before they had a tablet, and one-third are seeking out new news organizations on their tablets they didn’t frequent on their computers or televisions.

The article and report revealed that tablet users in large numbers (40%) are reading news via Web browsers, and (sadly, for the news business) paying for news content only in small numbers (14%).

Further, according to Journalism.org:

Eight-in-ten tablet news users say they now get news on their tablet that they used to get online from their laptop or desktop computer... [a majority] say the tablet takes the place of what they used to get from a print newspaper or magazine (59%) or as a substitute for television news (57%).

Also, it is not just about consumption but also WOM and social sharing:

Fully 85% of those who get news on their tablets said they had talked with someone about a long article they had read there. Some 41% of tablet news users say they share news through email or social networking...

The results point to the emrgence of tablet users as power news consumers; PR efforts need to align with this trend. We should be tracking how news gets on tablets, and exploring ways to get through to the tablet news consumer.

B-M Fiasco Another Example of the Transparent PR Campaign

One week later there are still some rumblings about the Burson Marsteller Facebook fiasco. It is a spectacle that continues to draw attention and coverage.

If we look at the episode more closely, however, it becomes clear that all the hyperventilating is a bit overblown. Also, I'd like to take the story back to where it started, as a PR pitch made public, and question assumptions people may have about what has become a now familiar story line, namely the outing of PR tactics and pitches, and offer advice and context in terms of what this means for the field and the future.

I, for one, am a little tired of seeing the PR industry and our pitches swatted around like sport. When one approaches a journalist in confidence, the assumption is that the information and source will be protected. If they don't like our pitches, there are many options outside of publicly outing offenders and destroying reputations and careers - change the channel, hit unsubscribe, delete, filter, etc.

I'd also like to point out that in other fields the types of tactics employed by the B-M team are done all the time. E.g. in political PR, opposition research, planted stories - all in a day’s work in politics, and doesn't raise too many eyebrows. I am not justifying sleazy behavior, but just pointing out it is not at all that unusual.

In his post Hyperbole Meets Hypocrisy: Googlegate Jeremy Pepper also said, essentially, that the outrage is overblown, and that in tech too, there is a long history of competitive sniping and creating fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) - he is correct, but I have to say in my many years in the field of tech PR, I have not seen PR teams brought into the mudslinging and story planting all that often.

This episode (and others like it where PR pitches and tactics are outed) seems to show that we are entering an era of the transparent PR campaign. I pointed this out in my post Media Wonderland: Down a Rabbit Hole and Through a Looking Glass.

The best defense is to be good at your craft, focus on relationships and not transactions, deliver great and targeted pitches, and adhere to the highest level of ethical standards. As much as PR desires confidence in media interactions, it is safest to assume that your tactics and motives will be outed and communications will be thrust onto the public stage and held under close scrutiny,

Google Refresh is a Good Thing for PR, Social Media and the Web

Google was in the news this week for making significant adjustments to its search algorithm. Their move was an apparent response to all the outcry about high rankings for low quality content, which in turn has been driven by the growth of content farms and other attempts by many to game the search system.

I think this is a great move and should result in changes that benefit those who work in PR and social media, among others. I work hard to generate original content that I hope will be interesting to others, and is not  driven by what people are searching for at any given moment. So do the people I work with and our clients.

The growth of content syndication sites and content farms has led to a lot of noise and garbage that just gets in the way of things on the Web. Sure, there is some good content on these sites. But as anyone who tries to monitor topics and brands and wade through never-ending streams of Google alerts quickly realizes, there is a ton of redundancy and garbage. Even when you do find good articles, the syndication sites make it hard to understand the original source and date of the information.

The Wall Street Journal had a couple of stories this week on the topic.  Google Reorders Web Winners discussed likely winners and losers, and included the following quote from a Google spokesperson:

... "people generating original content and maintaining high-quality websites" benefit Google.

Another article in the Journal introduced the term "article vomit,"  which, amazingly, was coined by someone from one of the offending sites, who also pointed to changes that are forthcoming:

He added that authors will now be required to write a minimum of 400 words an article, up from 250 words, along with many other changes to improve quality.

Clearly, given Google's influence, the changes will hopefully encourage longer and higher quality articles (and perhaps even stem an apparent decline in blogging, a topic that I wrote about in Builldog Reporter this week).

As the Media Turns: Has Apple Bulldozed One Deal Too Many?

It is one of those truisms that is especially relevant in the PR world: don't pick fights with those who buy ink by the barrel. While in most cases it is electrons that are at stake these days, the principle is the same - and one that seems to be lost on Apple.

Using the same approach and sharp elbows that worked so well in music and smart phones, and in an apparent attempt to convince yet another distressed industry that rising tides of coolness and brand can lift all ships, Apple is playing hardball with publishers and media companies.

I am talking, of course, about Apple's efforts to find a mutually agreeable model for monetizing content from publishers, and this week's chapter, in which the company announced the launch of subscriptions on its App Store.  If the move was meant to appease the industry - which had complained about lack of support for subscription pricing - this has not worked, judging by the headlines.

Let's not forget, these are media companies, which all have pretty big megaphones, of course. These are the downtrodden left-behinds of the digital era, a group that has the sympathy of the public and vaunted principles of the Fourth Estate (and its status as a special and protected institution) behind them.

If Apple is helping them find a way out and show a way forward with new content platforms and monetization gambits, it is on their terms.

Did they make their latest move because they want to respond to industry conerns, or is it because others like Google are cozying up to publishers with better deals? Probably a little of both, see this post Clash of the Tech Titans: Google One Pass vs. Apple.

I have started to see some negative articles about a vendor that has always been a media darling (what a tortured relationship, this morning an NBC Today newscaster discussed possible government antitrust action Apple and almost in the same breath gushed about an Apple store coming to Grand Central Station).

Yesterday's Wall street journal article Apple Risks an iPad Backlash said: 

By playing hardball with media companies on App Store subscriptions, Apple risks a painful rebound. Few media outlets can afford to not have their mobile applications available through Apple's App Store. With the iPad, Apple has an early lead in tablets, with a 75.3% share of global tablet shipments in the fourth quarter, Strategy Analytics estimates. And while its share of smartphone shipments was only 16.1%, the iPhone is the phone of choice for many affluent consumers. But that hardly justifies Apple's terms for subscriptions sold within its App Store. The company will keep 30% of the revenues and won't automatically give publishers information about their subscribers.

Yesterday, TechCrunch ran a post Why are You Defending Apple? It said: 

As you’ve doubtless heard by now, yesterday Apple revealed its new fee structure for premium content: all apps that offer premium content outside of the App Store have to also offer it via Apple’s official in-app purchases (this includes Amazon’s Kindle) and Apple takes a 30% cut of all subscriptions...

My reaction has been one of trepidation. I don’t like where this is headed, and I think that many who consider themselves technophiles are completely dropping the ball by rationalizing what Apple has done......

I don’t like the precedents that Apple continues to set. The App Store has existed for less than three years, and Apple has been drastically changing the rules on the fly...

I don’t take issue with Apple demanding a small processing fee to handle credit card transactions, but 30% is too much, especially combined with the restriction that publishers can’t change their pricing to adjust to the tax. Not every business will be able to offset the decrease in margins with the increased purchase volume promised by one-click payments. And companies that are in the business of reselling premium content with fixed costs, like MOG or Amazon, don’t have many options… The App Store isn’t a storefront in the way that Amazon.com or Walmart are — this isn’t just an extravagant affiliate fee. We’re talking about the primary method of app distribution for one of the most important computer operating systems, ever.

What's Wrong with Tech Marketing - and How to Fix it (Forrester Interview)

As I blogged last week, I spoke with Dr. Thomas Grant of Forrester about a new report: Tech Marketers Pursue Antiquated Marketing Strategies. Our wide-ranging discussion covered many topics that should be of interest to Flack's Revenge readers.

The report calls technology marketers out on the carpet for being too focused on lead generation and new business.  When compared with other industries, the techies simply do not spend the time or money that they should on market research or customer relations, and do not use social media or PR to full advantage - it is instead all about big bang events, product releases and other news, and talking rather than having thoughtful conversations.

No doubt, some will wince at its conclusions, however, the report does offer suggestions for improvement.  In Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Grant, I tried to zero in on these things, elicit examples and also find out more about ways in which tech marketers can more productively use PR and social media, and work with media and analysts.

Read on, and if this is a topic that interests you, I encourage you to visit the Forrester site as they have a selection of interesting reports that pertain to marketing.

Do companies ever make the transition (from being product-driven to market and customer-driven)?

it is wrenching... and sometimes takes disruption.

Discussion about SaaS as an example of disruption that is changing thinking

What really struck me about SaaS was that it kind knocked people for a loop... they started saying things like "Well, this isn't just a delivery model, this is a business model... we have to have a very different engagement model around our customers, we have to design our products differently."

In a way, what had happened was that they had been thrust into a very close relationship with customers that didn't exist necessarily in an on-premises world... with many layers of obfuscation between you and ultimately what people were doing with the technology... and suddenly people realized, well, damn, customers aren't just interested in things that are new, and they're not just interested in products, and they're not just interested in us as a vendor in delivering products that are new...

[This] has led people away from emphasizing too much what is new, and new leads and so forth... obviously from the statistics, not everyone is there yet.

Emphasis on the new, new thing

One of the things that companies have learned is that, [while] new is good... new is not always intrinsically and obviously valuable.   That is why the pace of innovation in the tech industry is a double-edged sword... on the one hand, it allows people to come up with things of value and deliver them to the market quickly, but often also lets them deliver things that are not of value, or not explain the value as effectively as they should because they're rushing to get it out and then they move onto the next thing.

On relatively small budgets for press and analyst relations (see chart)

The conceit that because we are developing new technology, we are defining the market, ergo there is no market research to be done is patently wrong.  Aside from the fact that not every technology [and] innovation is disruptive to that level, also, too, it is the case that you are addressing a human need; people do express their needs usually in a pretty clear fashion that you can then do market research about...

it is unfortunate that they don't tap available resources as much as they do, nor... other sources of influence... It is, especially in the B2B world, a pretty complex process... in the best of all possible worlds, you are trying to create some sort of a cascade of positive viewpoints on what you offer as a vendor that go, ultimately, into not just a press release or a piece of marketing collateral but ultimately go in a conversation between a CIO and a colleague when they sit down together... you're ultimately trying to reach that kind of conversation.

I don't think that is something the tech industry has effectively mastered... again, not just press and analysts, but other people might be important influencers... they don't get that picture too clearly.

There's an unfortunately standard model for doing analyst relations...  what analysts don't enjoy is talking to a vendor only when there's a huge announcement, and there's this carefully stage-managed conversation... frankly, the analysts have a hard time getting a word in edge-wise, because there's this gushing fire hose of information about this big new thing... that's not as effective as being in a more conversational mode with analysts....

Are tech companies under-investing in PR relative to other industries?

I think they are under-investing where PR is going... PR doesn't have to be just about announcements about new products.

One of the areas that is often misunderstood is the value of a new success story... what people look for in a success story is not necessarily what vendors think they are looking for... which is usually just validation that the vendor is wonderful.

If you are looking at PR as a conduit for information that will have an effect on a potential buyer or will help keep a customer loyal, having a story about how someone addressed a problem - even if the vendor is a minor character or not even mentioned - is still going to get my attention... 

What about tuning into vendors content on blogs and Twitter, assuming it is interesting and an area you cover you'd want to tune into that, right?

Yes... and I do, for example since I do write a lot about social media as an input into the development process, I'll follow a blog like, the social product development blog that PTC has... I've gotten to know one of the persons who posts there a lot and I have a lot of respect for what she has to say.  We're willing to follow what a social media outlet has to say regardless of whether it is a vendor or somebody else. 

We asked Cisco how has social media effected their launch process... they said, well what happens is that the spike of activity flattens out a bit, there's more conversation they have to engage in leading up to a launch event and there's actually, on the trailing side,more going on afterward... not just a "show up and throw up" event, then they rush off to the next big launch, but they have to engage over a longer time.

From Telephone to Twitter - Hits and Misses in Andrew Cuomo's PR Playbook

It is a new political season, and there's been lots of coverage about the new landscape and incoming class.  Politics follows not too far behind my primary passions of PR, technology and social media.  So I especially like to track and read the articles that combine a number of these things.

On that note, the New York Times had a couple of great stories recently about Andrew Cuomo, the new Governor of New York.  It was interesting that one article focused solely on Cuomo's use of the telephone as a power tool, in dealing with the media and others.  It is an old school approach that is apparently effective (well, anyway, this was a very long article and the reporter seemed somewhat enamored and impressed).  According to the story:

The call comes with no warning, at almost any time of the day...The unhurried, instantly recognizable voice on the other end of the line belongs to Andrew M. Cuomo. There will be long pauses. There will be many questions. Get comfortable: you may be on the phone for a while...He makes relatively few public appearances, rarely gives on-the-record interviews and disdains the Sunday chat show circuit. His e-mails are restricted to a small circle and, frequently, to two words: “Call me.”

But more often, Mr. Cuomo calls you... he will first ask about the foot surgery or Little League game that came up during the last conversation. Only rarely does a secretary ask you to hold for Mr. Cuomo’s call: he makes it a point to be on the line when you pick up. He almost never puts anyone on hold.

The effect, many say, is a powerful sense of intimacy.. Mr. Cuomo also relishes the visceral feedback of a phone call, he said: the sound of the other person’s voice and the sense of his or her mood...“I am not an e-mail person,” he said. “You don’t get context, you don’t get emotion and you don’t get a connection.”

I think the subtleties in how we communicate often go underappreciated, and this article serves as reminder about the importance of these choices.  While an in-person meeting might even be more effective, Cuomo can cover more ground using the telephone - and the phone is clearly better than other forms of communications when it comes to the nuances, the seemingly small touches that can make all of the difference in the world when it comes to relating to people.  Cuomo's direct approach is also noteworthy, and might cause some PR folks to cringe because there's apprently no PR intermediary in the mix - yet I am sure jorunalists appreciate having that type of access (even if it is on his terms).

Then again, in this era it is never enough just to master one mode of communications, and another article in the New York Times covered a misfire in the Cuomo administration's use of Twitter.  Apprently, they were quick to publish the name @NYGovernor, but someone beat them to the punch in establishing a Twitter account under that name.  Here is an excerpt:

At first glance, the Twitter page...  seemed perfectly plausible for a politician, and featured the same snapshot of Mr. Cuomo — smiling and looking off into the distance — that can be seen on the home page of the governor’s new Web site.. [the] first few Twitter messages seemed right out of the governor’s press office...

But the tone eventually got less statesmanlike, as the subjects veered toward his dislike of the Executive Mansion (not enough parking for his muscle cars)...

If that did not raise enough suspicion, there was Mr. Cuomo’s Twitter biography: “First elected governor of the State of New York since the Luv Guv.”

Birth of a Buzzword; Augmented Reality, and Apps for Tech PR

It is a phrase that conjures interesting imagery.

Some might think it is what happens when you have one drink too many.

Others would say people experience this when they become politicians (or when joining the PR profession, for that matter; there are no sacred cows here).

Actually, augmented reality refers to a relatively new class of cellphone apps that superimpose data over visual displays to enrich the viewing experience. I first saw it in action when a buddy of mine proudly showed me his new Google Android phone. Being a geek from way back, of the programming and Trekkie variety, Charles was stoked that he could point his cell phone at the night sky and see the constellations conveniently named and drawn on the display. As he panned across the sky, the display changed to show the ones that were in view.

Being a wordsmith and geek too, I am fascinated by jargon, and like to follow the usage and evolution of buzzwords. I thought I'd search Factiva to find the first mention of the term.  I was surprised to learn that augmented reality has actually been around for quite awhile (the first article, at least in their index, was an EE Times piece about virtual reality from 1992).  So I am apparently incorrect when I refer to the phrase as a new one, or technology that necessarily relates to cellphone apps.

However, as the graphic below shows, usage of the term has skyrocketed recently in comparison to 2001, which is as far back as their chart goes.

I thought I'd explore (with tongue firmly planted in cheek) potential augmented reality apps that could be a boon for those in the tech PR profession:

Real Time Thought Bubbles

This app interprets the incredulous or bored looks of reporters or analysts as they take in demos and PowerPoints and superimposes what they most likely are thinking over their heads like the thought bubbles you see in comics; it can be an invaluable aid to the spokesperson and PR rep.

BS Detector/Crash Saver

Designed to rescue your client when an otherwise great briefing is going off the rails (think software demo crash, or perhaps the hype is going into overdrive). The app superimposes a screen that says "Sorry for the interruption, we will soon return..." or "This is a test of the emergency broadcast system..."

Jargon Translator

This app can be used by the reporter or analyst - it miraculously and in real time translates indecipherable jargon and superimposes it as sub titles.

Serendipity: Not dead yet, not by long shot

Damon Darlin wrote in his NY Times article Serendipity, Lost in the Digital Deluge that a downside of the Digital Age is a loss in serendipitous information discovery:

WE’VE gained so much in the digital age. We get more entertainment choices, and finding what we’re looking for is certainly fast. Best of all, much of it is free...But we’ve lost something as well: the fortunate discovery of something we never knew we wanted to find. In other words, the digital age is stamping out serendipity.

Everything we need to know comes filtered and vetted. We are discovering what everyone else is learning, and usually from people we have selected because they share our tastes. It won’t deliver that magic moment of discovery that we imagine occurred when Elvis Presley first heard the blues, or when Michael Jackson followed Fred Astaire’s white spats across the dance floor.

Although I think the nature of serendipitous info discovery has changed, I do not agree that it is dead - not by a long shot.  In fact, with growing info sources and increasingly diverse ways of receiving and digesting media comes even more opportunities.

I thought what I would do is illustrate this by describing recent jewels I have uncovered - articles and posts from different sources - and in the process show how information from a typical post on Flack's Revenge comes together.

I was casually going about my normal social media intensive day searching for mentions of this blog when I came across a false positive - a link not leading to a mention of Flack's Revenge, but instead to an article called The Revenge of the Flack - one that is perhaps a little dated in terms of being a year old but still extremely topical and interesting.  It is about taking PR directly to the people, and one that I found totally by accident during a Google search.

Not long afterward I was scanning headlines in my email in box to find the nuggets amidst the all the BS I normally need to wade through.  One headline from Ad Age fortuitously jumped out: As Media Market Shrinks, PR Passes Up Reporters, Pitches Directly to Consumers.

The trifecta of information discovery was completed when Andrew Fowler of Newsvetter shared a post via Twitter about diminishing news beats, and what this means for PR (this is perhaps less serendipitous as Andrew knows me and thought I might have an interest).  Nonetheless, the combination of affinity and serendipity led me to several related stories and provided fodder for a future post.

Damon's article assumes that the people in our networks are homogeneous and share the same narrow range of tastes that we do.  This is not true in general.  So, whether you see a Tweet with a link, see the results that surround your searches and search alerts, someone shares something unexpected, or yes watching TV and reading real mags which most of us still do, we are surrounded by info and it is harder these days NOT to accidentally discover something totally unexpected and interesting.

It's an App, App, App, App, App, App World

It's occurred to me that there has been a shift in how we think about and use software.

The growth of the iPhone, it's app store and myriad others, of smart phones in general and all the apps that go along, has caused software to pervade our culture and transformed it from something utilitarian into cute, bite-sized and cuddly things.

Software has become applications have become apps.   There are apps for every need and all walks of life ("we've got an app for that!" says the Apple commercial)

The boom in apps has led to a growing interest in and demand for software. There have been many stories about app developers striking it rich with humble offerings priced to move.

Apps provide welcome relief from bloatware (I just upgraded from MS Office 2003 to 2007 and my head hurts).  Meanwhile, in the realm of low cost and simple productivity suites, vendors like Zoho have quietly built a large following and $50M in revenue without any big VC backers.

This NY Times article covered Evernote, a great note taking and content clipping app that is proving that you can make a successful business from the so-called freemium model ("charging a few customers for premium service, in the hope that revenue from dedicated users will cover everyone else," according to the article).

Marketers are jumping on board, developing free apps to engage consumers.

Where does this leave enterprise users and software developers?

Will the "appification" of software pervade enterprise suites and solutions? 

That remains to be seen. Just like with cloud computing, there are threats and opportunities when compared with more traditional models of developing and marketing software.

While apps can have the effect of trivializing and perhaps commoditizing software, I personally feel that the trend can be a good thing because apps make software more accessible and user friendly.  Perhaps the growth in apps will lead to modularization and a shift from monolithic software suites to programs that are inexpensive and that people actually enjoy using.

I just saw that SalesForce.com announced an app-syle plan, priced to move subscriptions for the micro-business at just $9 per seat per month.

Multitasking is Like Functioning on a 0.16 Blood Alcohol Level

I am fresh back from not quite a full week away from the office.  It was as a nice break, although I am not sure you could call it a vacation.  I took my daughter, who is now a high school senior, to see some colleges in the greater Washington D.C. area.   It was also nice to visit with family there over the weekend.

While I blissfully shut myself off from social networking and social media for most of the time, my daughter compiled a veritable text messaging travelogue, documenting every step along the way (I force fed her some culture and history as we visited the National Mall, Smithsonian, etc.) by furiously typing on her cell phone.

It  has become part of our lore, how kids zoom past their parents in adopting technology.  I often watch in amazement as my two teen daughters sit in front of the TV, with MacBooks in their laps and cell phones in hands (sometimes a land line phone too, when they lower themselves to having an actual spoken conversation), attention darting between the devices. 

Similarly, lately these days, people seem to take pride in their ability to shift between Tweeting, Facebooking, emailing, texting, etc. while simultaneously staying engaged with home and work projects.

Is all this multitasking a good thing?

There's been tons of press lately about the dangers of texting while driving.  This NY Times article points out that some states are passing laws against texting while driving that come with penalties akin to those for drunk driving.  According to the article:

After a crash here that killed two scientists — and prompted a dogged investigation by a police officer and local victim’s advocate — Utah passed the nation’s toughest law to crack down on texting behind the wheel. Offenders now face up to 15 years in prison

It goes on to say:

Studies show that talking on a cellphone while driving is as risky as driving with a .08 blood alcohol level — generally the standard for drunken driving — and that the risk of driving while texting is at least twice that dangerous.

Another NY Times article described research from Stanford University on the subject of multitasking.

"Heavy multitaskers are lousy at multitasking... The more you do it, the worse you get," said Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass... Compulsive media multitaskers are worse at focusing their attention, worse at organizing information, and worse at quickly switching between tasks, the Stanford scientists wrote.

There's a bright side to all this. Some have said that the growth in social media means a loss of serendipity when it comes to discovering information, because we are spoon fed streams, feeds, and alerts according to our specifications and keywords and limit ourselves to our social circles and search terms.

But the research found that multitaskers have a harder time ignoring spurious information.  According to the article:

A bright side to such distraction may mean that the media multitaskers will be first to notice anything new