I remember a time not that long ago when if you wanted something written about you in the media, a campaign had to be organized. Usually you would hire a PR firm, put together a press kit and a roadshow, arrange appointments with who you felt were the influential writers in your domain and organize a big push to meet them all. A lot of work AND money.
Today, it's a little imagination, some video editing software, and in this case Google Earth and YouTube. In a campaign against forest giant West Fraser Timber, ForestEthics has produced a video that features a fly-over of logging in B.C. and Alberta forests created from satellite images downloaded from Google. The logged-over areas are juxtaposed with images of caribou, wolves and grizzly bears. The video details what the eco-group claims is clearcut logging in endangered mountain caribou habitat.
Whether you agree or not with the politics, you have to admire the creativity of the ForestEthics group. This slick video was quickly picked up by the media and is sure to create some very high level awareness of the issues the are promoting.
Here is how they did it. PR has clearly changed!
"YouTube is frequented from everyone to teenagers after school to reporters to customers who can now all see for themselves what West Fraser's logging practices look like," ForestEthics campaigner Tzeporah Berman said Monday. "Our staff made this video sitting at their desks in Vancouver. We were able to do a fly-over of West Fraser's logging operations using Google. We have never been able to do this so quickly before."
Berman, a veteran eco-campaigner, said that the new technology can have the kind of impact within minutes that it used to take months to achieve.
"It would take us months to gather the footage. I can remember flying to meet customers in Europe with a videotape in hand that I would then put into their machines to show them. What we are doing today is fast, it's immediate, it's fool-proof and it has a huge reach."
Blogs of all political stripes spent most of yesterday detailing reports of voting machine malfunctions and ballot shortages, effectively becoming an online national clearinghouse of the polling problems that still face the election system.
And in a new twist this year, many bloggers buttressed their accounts of electoral shenanigans with links to videos posted on the video Web site YouTube
That's an environment custom-made for inserting relevant ads wherever you want to IN the content.
Try out Q-Ads and get accustomed to it. We think that the ease of use and pacing ads close to content is going to become one of the ways many publishers will address "small targets, loosely joined".
Blogs are where the content provided by mainstream media circulates; more and more that is the case. Become a Q-Ads user and help us get more profile, more ad impressions and a wider range and depth of ad inventory, for your use.
NEW ORLEANS — Online journalists warned a meeting of newspaper editors Thursday that their industry's survival depends on how well they can engage and excite the masses of readers on the Web.
While delving into the digital age may seem daunting, "it's not nearly as frightening as what will happen to journalism if we don't embrace it," Jim Brady, executive editor of washingtonpost.com, said during the Associated Press Managing Editors annual conference.
The Internet provides opportunities for storytelling and interacting with readers that traditional newspapers do not, Brady and panelists at the conference said. From video and photo galleries to podcasts and blogs, the Web is opening new doors to entice in readers and otherwise build community.
"People are desperate for community," Jon Fortt, senior editor of Business2.0 magazine, said during a panel discussion on attracting young readers. That included jargon such as "widgets," which are blocks of information, and mentioned the value social networking sites can offer for finding story ideas and sources.
"They're looking to share ideas," Fortt said.
Some journalists view the rise of the Web culture as a threat to newspapers - and they should, Fortt said in an interview.
"It's a threat to our previous mode of packaging," said the 29-year-old Fortt, adding that he reads more news now than ever and gets most of it from the Web.
Just noticed whilst browsing .... dragged and dropped it, fixed a link, chose a few categories, added some tags and hit "Publish Post".
Google Testing Ad Supported Premium Video Google is running a test offering about 2,000 premium videos available for free streaming viewing, inserting a persistent banner-type ad at the top of the screen and showing an additional post-roll video ad once the premium content has finished streaming.
The test is expected to last about a week, according to Peter Chane, group business product manager, Google Video.
Technorati and the Associated Press this morning initiated a service to connect bloggers to more than 440 AP member newspapers nationwide.
The Associated Press is the world's largest and oldest news service organization serving media outlets worldwide; it's a fundamental backbone to the mainstream media. Several months ago we and The Associated Press began to talk about about how citizen-generated media could enhance the AP in their mission to be "the essential global news network."
Increasingly, what the blogosphere says about a news story becomes part of a more complete story, lending diverse perspectives and often expert commentary. The AP believed it was increasingly important to deliver the living blogosphere as a compliment to their their core professional news product.
Today, as a first step, Technorati is now connecting bloggers to the more than 440 AP member web sites in the U.S. that take the AP's Hosted Custom News product, taken by local papers such as the Buffalo News or the Sun Journal. The new service will bring blogger commentary about AP news stories to communities large and small throughout the USA, giving bloggers a voice in trusted local papers throughout the nation. For many news readers, this will be their first exposure to the blogosphere with national, international, business and sports news presented along side links to blogger commentary and perspective.
One of the great things about working for Qumana is getting to work from home. After the Lycos deal was announced the local paper was interested in talking to be about blogging, the Lycos deal, and most of all how I've been able to do this from the Island. Here is the full-text of the article ... with the picture scanned in :) .
Attack of the Blog: Islander on home page of Internet craze Salt Spring-based Tris Hussey rides tech-sector success wave
By SEAN MCINTYRE Driftwood Reporter When 36-year-old software designer Tris Hussey first encountered the world of blogging back in 2004, he predicted the new medium would mark a sea change rivaled only by Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the 15th century.
Today he’s turned what started out as a passion for technology and a love of communication into a modern-day tech-sector success story. And he’s done it all from a basement suite on Salt Spring Island’s north end.
“When I first got involved, I thought there was too much information,” he said during a recent interview. “Today, the amount of information out there is explosive.”
For the uninitiated, Hussey added, the sheer volume of data on just about any topic under the sun can trigger information overload. Knowing how and where to draw the line is an integral part of the learning process.
“It’s important to read outside your bubble, but you have to pick and choose who you’re going to read,” he said.
For millions of computer users around the world, the blogging boom is the best thing since, well, real living communities. Not only do blogs provide a space where people with varied interests can meet up, discuss and exchange information with each other, but anybody with access to a computer, an Internet connection and something to say can get involved.
“Blogs give individuals the ability to publish on their own, contribute to other discussions and find a place for their opinion,” Hussey said.
Blogs differ from more traditional home pages in that users can easily upload text, pictures, audio clips and even video to the Internet with only minimal computer knowledge. With help from free blog editing software like Blogger and WordPress, anybody can get in on the game and today’s blogs are published from all corners of the world in virtually every language.
The specific definition of a blog, or web log, is difficult to pin down since the medium is undergoing constant change. Wherever they’re headed, Husssey said, blogs have certainly come a long way from their origins as a collection of personal online diaries kept by small groups of computing enthusiasts.
Among the estimated 75,000 blogs started up on the Internet each day are an eclectic blend of opinions, interests and views on every topic imaginable. From relatively trivial matters such as where and how to drink your coffee, to the recent Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting from the heart of hurricane-battered New Orleans, blogs are here to stay. Even family blogs are popping up frequently as an alternative to the more conventional family album or scrapbook.
Hoping to capitalize on the blogging rush, Hussey, along with a handful of partners across North America, developed Qumana, a piece of software geared to help bloggers blog more efficiently. Meeting with the company’s other partners via the Internet has not only allowed Qumana assemble a workforce from across North America, but allowed Hussey to work in an ideal environment, his home.
“Working out of my home lets me be flexible and spread things out throughout the day,” he said. “The commute to the office is also a lot shorter when you only have to walk across the room.” After signing a major partnership last month with Lycos U.S., one of Google’s main rivals, Hussey said Qumana’s next goal rests on helping bloggers make a little money. The online advertising industry is growing between 20 and 30 per cent a year and connecting bloggers with advertisers is already a lucrative business.
“While the vast majority of bloggers won’t get rich, advertising revenue may help them pay for their Internet connection or feed their latté addiction while doing something they enjoy,” Hussey said.
Here in Canada we're in the midst of a federal election. The Parliament was dissolved a bit ago and the campaign is starting to get going (sort of a semi-start since the Holiday Season is going to come in the middle of the campaign towards the late-January election).
After the success of blogs in the American Presidential election, one might think Canadian Federal parties would wise up to this. Think again. They are totally missing the boat.
There should be great, witty, partisan blogs on each of the official party websites and links to un-official (but supportive) blogs too. How about a nice OPML file of all the blogs supporting a particular party? That would be cool.
Politics is like business in many, many ways. Blogs work for this so well. Personal opinion, passion, wit, clever writing. This yells "Blog me!".
Mathew Ingram of the Globe and Mail has a review of the main party websites. Only one kinda has a blog, but all are really missing the boat. Here's the intro to the article ...
A few years ago, a political party might have been able to get away with a fairly static presence on the Internet -- a boring website with some stale speeches, candidate bios, and so on -- but not any more.
Now, people want "Web 2.0," and that means blogs, podcasts, video, RSS feeds and all kinds of interactive hoo-ha.
So, would I blog for a political party? Sure, not for free, but sure. Which one? Well that would be telling ;-).
Are blog networks the next hot thing? I'm a part of several blog networks/group blogs. It's reminiscent of the 70's "super group" phenomenon. Get a group of super stars together and see what shakes out. For Business Blog Consulting (BBC), it's working out pretty well. I've been on a few that didn't fair so well. You have to have a mix of keeners and those folks who can only post once and a while to make it work.
A group of bloggers including mainstream journalists from outlets such as CNBC, The Nation and The New York Times are banding together to strike a blow at established media and pick up some ad dollars in the process.
Pajamas Media, alluding to the belief that bloggers (pros especially) work in our jammies (I don't BTW ... I have to get dressed like everybody else in the morning). The founders are clearly hoping leverage what I was writing about this weekend for Bloggers for Hire (B4H, which I am a part of with fellow BBC-er Jim Turner) that bloggers can leverage their skills and the ease of publishing to blogs into more exposure, etc. PJ is clearly going for the all-star cast model. What will come out of it? We'll have to see, but I think the trend is a good one. Blog networks will give bloggers more destinations to publish their work and therefore the potential to make more money in the process.
Jeremy Wright told me this during a Skype IM conversation regarding PJ:
"It's always nice to see the big players finally waking up to the power of blog networks. Obviously everyone's keen to see what the incredibly creative people who are involved with PJ Media come up with but, until we see what they actually have up their sleeves it's a little hard to get too nervous.
Even in just the 1 short month b5media has been around, we've already seen 3 networks promise big launches, only to tone back their expectations (one launched with 50 and now only has 35, for example).
We look forward to the competition and new ideas PJ Media will bring. It's always nice to be challenged, after all."
The competition aspect, IMHO can only be good for the Blogosphere and bloggers. Think about it, if you're good (and I certainly don't claim to be), you could entertain offers from several networks and take the best offer. Or you can just publish to them all and reap the benefits, and chronic sleep deprivation.
Where does Qumana fit into all of this? Qumana, we think, is the tool that can help empower bloggers to be able to write for multiple networks. With the multi-blog capabilities you can write post, select another blog, post, and so on. That is exactly what I'm going to do with this post. This post is going to appear on BBC and Qumana. The BBC version will be shorter and point to the post on Qumana. The Qumana post will also have an ad in it, which is the second part of what Qumana adds to this equation, the ability for bloggers to monetize their content easily. Imagine how the networks would operate if each blogger got a portion of the overall site's revenue plus the revenue from an ad placed in their own post. Write a super popular post, reap the rewards.
Not bad, eh? So Qumana loves blogging networks. We'd like to encourage them to contact us to let us help them make their bloggers more productive (and prolific!). Ping me. You know where I am.
An interesting related item is from the PharmaBlogging Conference blog—Proof! Blogs Influence Medicine Purchases—which means that in addition to the known influencer of websites, blogs are taking this to the next level. People are searching and finding information ranges of topics (health being one of the top ones) and these are influencing a range of buying and lifestyle choices. I wonder when pharma companies are going to see the marketing potential of sponsoring blogs? Probably a while actually.
Regardless, blog search is hot. Technorati is taking it on the chin frequently, but you do have to give them props for getting the ball rolling. I expect that soon blogs are going to become so mainstream that they won't be differentiated from "regular" websites, well except that they kick butt on Google.
The race will continue both in terms of getting blog search down, the technical challenges are tremendous, and having blogs recognized for their informational and marketing value. And the race is only getting faster and hotter.
Journalists use blogs as tickler files when researching stories.
Journalists use blogs as sounding boards
Journalists use blogs as digests of the day's news.
Journalists don't "flog the blog" - they see blogs as useful websites.
Given that 51% of journalists are looking to blogs for info and scoops, these four tactics make sense to me. Aren't journalists such another breed of the info-gluttons that bloggers are? Granted they publish on dead trees and other places, but I use blogs in the same way. Hmm, does that make a journalist a blogger? Or a blogger a journalist? ;-).
When 36-year-old software designer Tris Hussey first encountered the world of blogging back in 2004, he predicted the new medium would mark a sea change rivaled only by Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in the 15th century.
Hoping to capitalize on the blogging rush, Hussey, along with a handful of partners across North America, developed 
