Post 61:08 The other way user-generated content is killing quality journalism

August 29, 2008 in Web 2.0

This is NOT a rant about bloggers being sloppy journalists.
But I think user-generated content has a lot to do with the problems publishers like Fairfax are experiencing.
Here’s why.
In the good old days of journalism, publishers effectively operated three business. One was a journalism business, which kind of broke even from display ads. One was production/distribution [...]

Post 60:08 Speaking in a human voice

August 26, 2008 in Freelance life, P-aaaaargh!, Web 2.0, Worst practise, social networking

I’ve bene thinking a lot, lately, about how to put a human voice on PR so that it works better on me.
The thinking comes from a recent bout of PR from a major vendor that has decided everything they do is epoch-making. A .3 release is a revolution. A .4 release has become a remaking [...]

Post 59:08 Why the Olympics matter to Australia

August 24, 2008 in Places I've been, Politics, Ranting

With the Olympics over, Australia is experiencing a paroxysm of disappointment that we did not win as many medals as last time, a situation somehow considered a failure in light of two things:

The “fact” that Australia is “good at sport”
The amount of money we spend on sport

Many are arguing that if we could increase the [...]

Post 58:08 Conferences vs. partial attention

August 19, 2008 in Freelance life, Vendors I have met, Work

I spent two days last week at a conference. It was generally interesting but a massive commitment of time and funds (nearly $1000 for accommodation and travel, although as a journo that’s not so much of an issue: people pay for us to attend!).
So of course as a self-employed person, I had to keep working [...]

Post 57:08 An old favorite returns and more social media musing

August 11, 2008 in Freelance life, P-aaaaargh!, Web 2.0, Worst Pitch Ever?, Worst practise, social networking

Twice in the last week PRs have sent me material in emails with several others cc’ed or included in the To field.
In one case more than 100 email addresses were there to be harvested.
To me this is the most basic breach of email etiquette (and privacy!) imaginable and quite astounding in this day and age, [...]

Post 56:08 Can PR 2.0 and Web 2.0 co-exist?

August 4, 2008 in Globalism, P-aaaaargh!, Web 2.0, social networking

I’ve just seen a deck of slides that represents Web 1.0 as companies controlling the message to the community and Web 2.0 is all about the community controlling the message.
So here’s my question: can PR and Web 2.0 co-exist?
My belief is that PR is all about helping companies control their message, the better to protect [...]