As one of the 74 percent of Americans who reads "a printed or online newspaper" at least once a week, I couldn't help but notice the full-page ad that broke in the "Money and Investing" section of Friday's Wall Street Journal, and again today.It was a "house-ad" from Dow Jones that amazingly targets...the PR professional. Yes, the lowly PR professional.Frankly, I had very mixed feelings about this ad that touted Dow Jones' alleged "new" approach to media targeting. From its news release: "F... Read Full Story

I finally had a chance to attend one of O'Reilly Media's Web 2.0 Expos (as opposed to "the more exclusive" Web 2.0 Summit) this morning at New York's Javits Center -->.I choose to audit the panel called "Real-Time Marketing: Operationalizing the Use of Social Media," which featured SM luminaries Jennifer Zeszut (Scout Labs) who moderated, Peter Kim (Dachis Group), James M. Smith (Disney Online), Randy Ksar (Motorola), Aaron Dignan (Undercurrent), Valeria Maltoni (SunGard Availability Services... Read Full Story

Must be the season for PR conferences. Yesterday I attended PRWeek's Next Conference at New York's Waldorf Astoria and was glad to see yet another great turn-out.This followed our PCNY media event this week, which sold out, the PRSA Int'l Conference, which drew thousands, and the Council of PR Firms' Critical Issues Forum that also played to a full house. Could it be that the economic tides have finally turned as Council president Kathy Cripps suggested yesterday?After arriving, I took my ... Read Full Story

I just returned from the annual PRSA confab in San Diego where thousands gathered to hear what's what in the PR biz.I would have liked to have lingered another day (SD is such a fab city), but today PCNY held its own confab in NY where 160 PR pros heard producers for GMA, Nightline, The Takeaway, Dr. Oz and Beet.TV share what's what in the broadcast biz.Back to sunny San Diego. PRSA's powers-that-be had the acuity to invite the namesake of the world's top-ranked blog to address the SRO PR cr... Read Full Story

Dumb Michelle Bachmann had all her PR theatrics on display this week in DC. Her goal: to rally the right wing lunatic fringe to propagate anti-healthcare reform headlines, and in so doing, keep the cash flowing so she can hold on to her job. Ms. Bachmann is now ranked 8th among insurance industry beneficiaries.She certainly pulled out all the props, including a copy of the healthcare bill wrapped in some kind of twine, a group Pledge of Allegiance (to which the Congressman who led it forgo... Read Full Story

We were gathered at our bi-monthly Boys' Lunch at Michael's last month when one of "the boys," a very senior media-minded communications executive, looked at me incredulously when I said I actually read Bernoff's Groundswell, Jarvis's What Would Google Do, and Godin's Tribes, among others.He definitely thought I was either drunk on the Kool-Aid or in need of a new life.Just as the number of new media confabs have proliferated in recent years so have the number of published works heralding in ... Read Full Story

What a weekend! No, I'm not referring to the Yankees two-out 9th inning rally that suddenly subdued those Hoagie-eating Philly fans. I'm talking about @ev, @biz and @jack's decision to open up Twitter Lists to more than the chosen few. It literally unleashed the curatorial curiosity in all of us.I can't recall another more buzzed-about (and time-consuming) software application release, but then again I happen to follow Tweeps who get all a-twitter over such things. Isn't the quick uptake ... Read Full Story

The Council of PR Firms executive director Kathy Cripps had a twinkle in her eye as she looked out across the expanse of The Yale Club’s Grand Ballroom in New York City yesterday morning. In spite of these recessionary times, the Council’s annual Critical Issues Forum drew a full house and a fair share of industry luminaries, many of whom are featured in this video.All the big and mid-sized agencies were there, except perhaps for one, to hear the all-star panel featuring General Electric CMO... Read Full Story

Ad Age's Mike Bush today visits with a number of PR pros who wax poetic on how their clients bypass the media filter to reach customers directly.We've covered this for a few years now, but it hasn't gone so far as to dismiss the value of media relations for advancing a client's communications objective.Bush writes: "...as the body count of magazines and daily newspapers continues to rise and the once-robust news and feature holes of surviving publications shrink along with reporting staffs,... Read Full Story

With Michael Jackson mania poised to start all anew, it's curious to watch how Mr. Jackson, once k.a. "Wacko Jacko," may emerge as a whole new fellow.Here's a tweet from the west coast editor for The Daily Beast: KateAurthur Kudos to the Michael Jackson fans mad about the movie whitewashing the "grim truth" for the name of their website: this-is-not-it.comApparently, there's so much "the crowd" will take when it comes to spinning the truth. But who's to blame: Ken Sunshine, the Jackson fam... Read Full Story