PRobecast Episode #70
July 29th, 2008 by Tim Allik
This week on PRobecast, Tim Allik, Wendie Larkin, and Glen Zimmerman discuss:
How uncool is Cuil? The new search engine launched with the best buzz money could buy - but landed with a thud. The PR lesson learned? Terrific PR just isn't enough without a great product or service behind it.
Corporate blog relations. Friday's New York Times covers the trials and tribulations of blogger Brandon Dilbeck, who gripes about Comcast on his blog - and then complains when the company emails him to ask if they can do anything to work things out. Earth to Brandon, you can't have it both ways. If you want to keep your thoughts to yourself keep a personal diary. Otherwise, prepare to engage. And kudos to Comcast for reaching out.
Help a Reporter Out. At www.helpareporter.com, Peter Shankman's effort to distribute reporters' request for sources is taking the PR world by storm, with 20,000 subscribers to the service in just a few months. Are the folks at Profnet quaking in their boots? They probably should be, because HARO is free. D'oh! Our panelists float and consider a related idea: Could PR folks create a aggregated list of PR pitches (protecting embargoes and anonymity, of course) that could then be distributed on a regular basis to reporters? What do you think?
Is the press release dead? Before you start yawning in the face of the age-old question, consider our experience at Topaz with our client Language Weaver, a leader in statistical machine translation. We distributed a press release that linked to a podcast with one of the company's founders. The release itself was interesting enough for famed inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil to link to it from his website, www.kurzweilai.net. The one element missing from this equation? A reporter.
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PRobecast’s opening music is “Junk In A” by Pat Zelenka, available on the Podsafe Music Network. Our closing music is “Chase Me On A Bike” composed by our own Rob Capra.
Have a listen to some of our past PRobecasts…
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 9:57 am and is filed under Blogging, Journalism, Media Relations, PR, PRobecast, Tips & Tricks, Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:55 am
I have to admit that I was indeed surprised to receive an e-mail from Comcast, but I think the article in the New York Times blew my mild discomfort into something more like morbid paranoia. I think the only reason I said it was like Big Brother was because I was currently reading 1984.
Sometimes, I wonder if any of the people reporting on this story did any research beyond the New York Times article and actually visited my blog, at brandonnotices.blogspot.com (the Comcast articles are in the June archive) to do any research. I directly address Comcast, at least rhetorically, in the first of my two articles about it. Many people, including yourselves, talk about this as though this were my personal diary meant only for myself, but this isn’t true. I write for others, and I find it unfortunate that the Times suggested that I write only for my own benefit. If you look through previous months of blog articles, you can see that there really aren’t very many comments, so I’d been used to the feeling that nobody was reading my blog; I was surprised that the first response was from Comcast.
Something that disappointed me about this was that Frank Eliason contacted me by e-mail, rather than by commenting in my blog. I would have preferred him to comment, to make it a sort of continued discussion that anyone could pick up and add to. Instead, the e-mail he sent me turned it into a one-on-one thing. My metaphor is that a student complains somehow about a homework assignment, and instead of having a discussion with the whole classroom, the teacher pulls the student out of the classroom and talks patronizingly to the student. And Eliason’s article did seem patronizing: he talked reassuringly to me, but no further actions were taken to remedy my issue. These ads still plague my guide, and I feel disgusted to use it.
August 14th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Hey Folks! Awesome tip in this Probecast about Help A Reporter (HARO). I’ve subscribed to Peter’s emails and absolutely LOVE them…and his humorous daily excerpts.
On another subject, you MUST check out this very cool video showing new marketing innovations using water in Japan:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HeUixe_Lpg&eurl=http://b3ta.com/links/
Leave it to the Japanese to figure out a cool way to get you to watch ads!
See ya’ll at the softball game on Monday! Go Termites!
August 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Brandon, thanks for commenting here. I guess we got a dose of our own medicine. We, too, aren’t quite convinced that anyone is really reading our blog or listening to our podcast.
It’s key that Comcast didn’t address your issue. The New York Times article kind of buried the lead on that one!
You’ve engaged in great blog relations here and we sincerely appreciate it. We will be sure to mention this in an upcoming episode of PRobecast.
And Peter - thanks for the link. I’ll check it out!