So, as you know, I’ve taken a full-time job and don’t really blog here anymore; I turned over the reigns to B. L. Ochman, Steve Rubel and Todd Sattersten. Why it is that I’m still doing most of the blogging here is something that confuses me, too.

Anyway, you may remember a few days ago B. L. took to task the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) for neglecting the whole subject of blogging in its international conference in NY next week. She went so far as to bluntly challenge the PRSA to change its mind and include blogging on the agenda.

Blogging 1, Old School PR 0: they caved.

For reasons I didn’t quite follow, Steve and B. L. are now having something of a spat on the topic (he said; she said). I’m not going to render any opinions because A) I don’t really give a shit, and B) I’m still hoping they’ll both still blog here and play nice (awk-ward!).

Are we having fun yet?

Richard Edelman

Reader David of ContentCentricBlog points out this new blog by CEO and founder of Edelman PR. The blog is titled 6AM. Edelman explains in his first post:

Why 6 AM?–because I wake up early and hope to get you some useful insights as you come in to work. I plan to post weekly, and by calling it 6am, rather than say, Every Monday, so I’ll have a little wiggle room in terms of when I post!

He’s got the jump on Aaron Bailey by one minute.

Link

Cornell University’s PR department blogs the process of redesigning the university’s web site.

Link

Real Networks just started this blog to influence spin in the debate over its recent enabling of its downloadable music files to be played on Apple’s proprietary MP3 player iPod. Real is undercutting Apple’s 99 cent MP3s by selling its music library for only 49 cents each.
UPDATE:
As usual, it seems that I’ve missed the actual story here (the difference being this time I figured it out, sort of, on my own before a bunch of you left comments here calling me dense). It seems that Real started this site as a petition calling on Apple users to support its effort open up its file format to play on the iPod. But it underestimated the fanaticism of Apple users, some 1,000 of whom signed the petition with vile abuse aimed at Real. Details at Micro Persuasion.

Link

Slowly but surely, the PR industry is starting to take blogs seriously. This long article, published originally in The Holmes Report, a newsletter for the PR industry, is reproduced on Steve Rubel’s site (a guy who does get it), Micro Persuasion. While the points made in the article are generally the right ones about how blogs really are something important for businesses to pay attention to, I can’t help but observing that The Holmes Report’s own “weblog” hasn’t been updated for almost two years.

Link

It really is remarkable how cool Microsoft is about blogs. This post on Community Kitchen explains:

We just launched the Microsoft Community Blogs Portal, a searchable listing of blogs by Microsoft employees, categorized by product or technology topic. The project also makes it easier for pages across Microsoft.com to publish lists of relevant blogs and posts from those blogs.

Isn’t this the kind of thing you’d expect from Apple, considering how innovative they’re supposed to be and all (yet, do they actually do anything with blogs as a company?).

Thanks again to Olivier for the link.

Link

B.L. Ochman writes about this new project:

It’s 28 people who blog about PR all getting together next week to blog about making blogs part of the marketing mix. Being PR people, they’ve turned it into a big academic thing for the most part. I am sticking to practical stuff, examples only, no theory, as is my wont.
:>)

The New PR Wiki is an accompanying wiki.

Link

This post on a fan blog devoted to the movie rental service Netflix is a perfect example of how poorly many companies understand the opportunities of weblogs. First of all, it’s painfully obvious that Netflix itself should have a blog. If you have any doubts about that, just check out GreenCine Daily.

But that’s not even what HackingNetflix.com is proposing. HackingNetflix already has the traffic (~1,000 visitors a day) who are interested in Netflix; all the blogger was asking to do was to forward “Ask Netflix” questions to Netflix’s PR department, but their PR department declined.

HackingNetflix’s blogger (identified only as Mike) notes that he gets on the order of 20-30,000 readers per month interested specifically in Netflix news. Yet this is not enough to register on the radar of Netflix as important? And this is an Internet-based company? Sad.

HackingNetflix.com: Bloggers & Corporate Public Relations Departments

Well, ever since we spotted the trial blog at Google a few weeks ago, we knew this was inevitable. The Google Blog was born on May 10th. Disappointing there hasn’t been a new post yet today — seems like they’d have a lot to talk about, but I wonder whether it will end up being a more occasional blog, like Blogger’s own blog. Another peculiarity of the blog seems to be that there is no obvious author. The first post (see below) is from Evan Williams, appropriately enough, creator of blog software tool Blogger.com, which Google acquired last year. But we know this only because he signed the post within the body of the post. The footer information about each post does not contain an author identification, so the second post is anonymous.

Here’s Evan’s first post to the new Google blog:

Ever since I came to Google, they’ve been talking about putting up an official Google blog. And now, less than 15 months later, voil√†.

Oh well, it’s not like we own a recently relaunched service where you can create a blog in two minutes or something. Okay, we do. (Sorry for the plug.) But I guess other Googlers have been a little busy what with all the searching. And the advertising. And filling out purchase orders for all those hard drives.

Anyway, I’m excited the blog’s up. We’re going to post stuff here – regular bloggy things: What Larry had for breakfast. What Sergey thinks of that Hellboy movie. Which Dawson’s Creek character reminds us most of Eric.

And perhaps, news about Google, and our thoughts on whatever random events cross our horizon.

Oh, and we have email feedback too. So we hope to hear from you, as well.

– Evan Williams

(Blogger Program Manager, Google)

ClickZ makes this pertinent observation:

Interestingly, the launch comes as Google is preparing for an initial public offering of stock, during the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "quiet period" in which companies usually refrain from making public statements that could be interpreted as an offer to sell stock.

CNET’s New.com is already nit-picking at Google’s blog for having discretely edited a post to tone down potentially controversial comments about outsourcing. It’s clear that this blog will remain under a magnifying glass for some time to come, at least through Google’s IPO.

Link

Steve Rubel

Steve Rubel is a PR pro, VP of client services at Cooper Katz. He called his blog to my attention after I noted the ANA’s blog earlier this week, one of his clients. I see he’s been blogging for only a month (as of this entry), and normally I’d be reluctant to include a blog in this directory that is so new, as so many blogs run out of steam after great ambitions at the beginning. But browsing his archive, I see he’s been on quite a tear since he launched himself into it, so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he’ll still be at it, with gusto, when we check back in on him in a few months and later.

Link

Clip-n-Seal is an innovative consumer product, a plastic rod and clamp device, in various sizes, that seals bags securely. The company behind it has embraced blogs whole-heartedly. Not only do they maintain their own blog, under the News section of the site, which is a mix of customer news, marketing initiatives, PR coverage and other miscellaneous customer information, but they also have embraced blogs as a marketing outlet. Notably, they were one of the first advertisers for Blogstakes, a sweepstake program that drafts other bloggers in its promotions, which, they attest, was very successful for them in raising their awareness around the Net and lifting their Google rank.

In a recent post, founder D.L. Byron describes what it’s like to get BoingBoinged (we can only imagine).

Link

A communications strategy firm:

CRA is a consulting firm devoted to bringing leading research in organizational and interpersonal communication to bear on real-world problems. We are not a PR, media relations, or media production firm–we are a team of consultants educated in Communication Science and devoted to advice that works, responsive service, and lasting client relationships. Our team of fifty–over forty of whom hold their Doctorates–provides applied solutions across three practices:

• Internal Communication Strategy
• Leadership Development
• Organizational Research

Link

Another great example of a small organization using a weblog to keep the site dynamic and useful.

Link

MediaMap, which services PR companies with information about trends in the media industry, recently started a blog.

Link

B.L. Ochman

B.L. Ochman, PR consultant and moderator of MarketingWonk’s I-PR discussion list, has taken to blogging like a fish to water. A mix of PR advice, blogosphere observations, miscellaneous humorous stuff and uncontrolled liberal political rantings. (Just kidding; we love you, B.L.)

Link