Whatever...

Gung-ho approach to PR divides opinion over Wikileaks

By Dana Hashem

It seems to me that what Wikileaks needs to position itself as is a ‘knight in shining armour’ if it is to win the support of its critics and stave off threats of closure from the Pentagon.  Surely, such a touchy subject as the freedom of information should be handled with great care, and requires nothing less than utmost caution when it comes to addressing the media?

Julian Assange appears to disagree with me.  The now infamous face of Wikileaks has been coming across as more ‘vigilante’ than ‘virtuous’ of late, making waves in the media by relentlessly defending the leak of intelligence reports that exposed the details of dozens of Afgan informants.  Now it may be a well known fact that a little controversy can help to rack up those column inches and get people talking about your brand, but the question is; where is the line between ‘stirring up healthy debate’ and ‘engendering widespread public scorn’? 

This is just a personal preference, but if I was in the business of forging the public reputation of Wikileaks, I’d probably be inclined to avoid belittling human rights groups and shunning an offer from an Amnesty official to discuss the issues surrounding the leaks in a civilised manner.  After all, there’s nothing like cosying up to the very organisations you claim to share ideals with, right?

Wrong.  Assange happily waded even deeper into the fray with a defiant tweet after a somewhat feisty exchange with Amnesty, posting: “Pentagon wants to bankrupt us by refusing to assist review. Media won't take responsibility. Amnesty won't. What to do?"  Feel free to correct me, but I’m not sure Assange can realistically expect the Pentagon to help Wikileaks release secret files – I suspect this falls somewhat outside of its remit.  All Amnesty did was to point out that the freedom of information comes with a level of responsibility that should be respected, and Assange seems to come out of it with an air of someone that’s throwing his toys out of the pram rather than a saintly crusader of justice.  I can’t help but think that he should tread more carefully in future.

However, while it’s tempting to stay firmly perched on my high horse over this, it has to be said that – love him or hate him – people are clearly fascinated by Assange.  His recent interview on TED spread like wildfire through the Twittersphere, and the debate around the freedom of information has stormed to centre stage thanks to his controversial antics.

So, in the style of the man himself, I’ll leave you to make your own minds up: Julian Assange – PR genius or cavalier renegade?

Net Neutrali-what?

by Jonathan Mathias

Over the past week or so, following the revelation that Google and Verizon have been discussing net neutrality in The States, the age-old debate has blown up all over again. 

 

Since then, no end of interesting articles and blogs about what net neutrality means for us have been published.  In addition, pretty much every national news source has run a guide to what net neutrality actually is.  I myself needed a refresh, and not for the first (or the last!) time.  It’s pretty confusing. 

So, is it a good thing, or a bad thing?  The ‘neutral’ connotations make it difficult to distinguish.  For what it’s worth, this seems like a simple summary from the ACLU:

Net Neutrality ensures that you, not a corporate monopoly, choose how you access and use the Internet. It protects your ability to access and send any lawful information on the Internet. It prevents Internet Service Providers, such as cable and telephone companies, from preferring certain content, applications, or services over others. Net Neutrality means individual freedom, not corporate control, on the Internet.

 

Obviously the argument has two sides and each side has a case to make.  I just wonder why what is essentially a simple concept has been so successful in remaining so widely confounding for so long?

Help! My smart phone's turning me into a ‘Jack of all trades’

Interesting report from Ofcom today saying that the average Brit spends seven hours a day watching TV, on their phone, listening to the radio or surfing. 

 

However, when you take into consideration that many people surf or chat whilst they’re in front of the goggle-box or tuned into the radio, the actual time spent consuming media hits almost nine hours. 

 

Those aged between 16 and 24 are the best at this multi-media-tasking – condensing around nine-and-a-half hours of use into just over six-and-a-half hours of real time.  That’s a neat trick.

 

With smart phones permanently welded to most people’s fingers this isn’t much of a surprise.  But doesn’t this mean we now just pay lip service to what we’re watching, reading or listening to, rather than giving it the full attention it deserves? 

 

No mention from Ofcom about whether this is one kind of multi-tasking men can actually do, but here's a cool analysis of how we all spend our time:

Media warnings for PR assisted journalism?

Tom Scott recently blogged about the common use of media warnings to point out content that includes sex, violence or strong language.  However, he didn’t feel that these warning went far enough and has made his own labels to point out other questionable content.

These stickers have been designed to point out “sloppy journalism” (Tom’s words, not ours) and include journalist faux pas such as not understanding the subject of an article, merely copying and pasting press releases and quoting statistics generated by PR agencies.  Tom has been sticking these stickers around London in free papers left on public transport – have you seen any of these lying around?  Also, do you believe that journalists working with PR agencies to get expert information or statistics to back up an angle is lazy or do we all love a good old survey, regardless of the source?

 

  

We're all tweeting on a summer holiday

By Stefanie Nowak

 

Besides the Christmas period, the summer holidays must be one of the most profitable times for mobile phone operators.  School’s out, day trips a plenty, and holidaymakers are packing their bags for far flung exotic destinations.  The European holiday mentality means big business for the networks – and not just in terms of call charges, as nowadays we’re also talking data.

 

But how did we all cope with keeping in touch with those back home before the digital revolution?  Simple.  People  sent ordinary, old fashioned postcards which might – depending on the destination – even arrive on the recipient’s doorstep  before the sender made it home.  It was all part of the holiday experience.   

 

Now with the increased uptake of Wi-Fi and standard adoption of mobile devices like the iPhone, traditional holiday-maker behaviour has changed dramatically.  While travellers are sightseeing and sunning themselves abroad, they’re also shouting (or should that be tweeting?) about what a great time they’re having via social networking apps.     

 

Call me old fashioned, but when I go on holiday, I usually enjoy the freedom of not being available anytime, any place over my mobile or email account.  Not to mention avoiding the extortionate costs associated with call charges, roaming fees and data packages while abroad – particularly in those exotic locations.  By the time you’ve tweeted about the delayed flight and the pool-side cocktail bar, followed by a review of the hotel on Trip Advisor, you’ve more than likely exceeded your usual monthly bill.  Would you really spend the same amount of money on stamps for postcards?  Unlikely.

 

And it’s not just the cost issue – it also takes forever to grasp the different rates charged by each operator for different countries, different continents, and the difference between EU and Non-EU countries.  Not exactly the stress-free time your brain was hoping for on vacation.

 

I better stick to old-fashioned postcards while I’m travelling!

 

To pay or not to pay?

by Ginnia Cheng 

Would you pay to use Twitter? Apparently not.  Research  released last week revealed that a big fat zero percent of people would pay to use it.

 

While I view that figure with a good pinch of salt, the study has taken the industry by storm, serving as an unwanted reminder of how time is running out for social media services – and indeed, any sort of online content provider – to get to grips with making their free services profitable.

 

You only have to look at how The Times is supposedly ‘celebrating’ a dismal 33 percent of retained online visitors (which includes those who simply arrive at the home page and leave without signing up) to know that, in the long term, forcing people pay to for something they can get elsewhere for free just isn’t going to work.

 

So where does that leave the new media industry?

 

Even though the majority of publications speculated (and in fact, made fun of) how The Times paywall would be a total failure, part of me thinks they were secretly hoping it would be a success, as it would restore faith in the profitability of the internet and in new media services in general.

 

The natural alternative to paying for content is, of course, adverts.  But with further figures from the aforementioned study revealing that 70 percent of people find online adverts annoying, even though they’d prefer display ads to paid-for content, the industry seems to be speedily hurtling towards a bleak future.

 

But success stories, rare as they may be, do exist. Take free online music service We7 for example. The first in the market to cover its running costs while still paying proper royalties to artists, We7 uses techniques like localised adverts to run a successful funded-by-adverts free content model.

 

We7 has therefore proven that advertising can be used to fund a successful, profitable online content service.  Let’s just hope that more companies follow in its footsteps, otherwise free, top-quality content may soon be a thing of the past. 

 

Digital data overload

Some interesting stats released from Wikibon earlier this week project that the amount of digital information created in 2010 could equate to 75 billion fully-loaded 16GB Apple iPads.  Just to put that into perspective for you, that’s enough to cover the Wembley football pitch.  Or reach 339 miles into the sky. 

 

But it seems it’s not the users who will end up taking responsibility for the (affectionately dubbed) iStack.  With the uptake of Web 2.0 and the Cloud, responsibility in fact falls on the enterprise – since they’re the ones providing the service, they remain responsible for the content created as a result of users interacting with the service.  Still fancy that iPad?

 

 

 

The average value of a Facebook fan

Earlier this year, JK’s Tom Kirkham and Jonathan Mathias asked, "Where is the ROI in social media?" on the Affect Strategies blog.  This post asked if there was any way possible to measure social media.  This quandry continues to trouble many companies, marketing strategists and communication professionals and will probably never be solved completely.

 

However, the Syncapse Corp has had a go at putting a value on social networkers by surveying 4,000 North-American Facebook users.  The surprising results show that the average value of a Facebook fan is $136.38.