TechCrunch

PR Needs to Tell More Stories and Pitch Less

On January 5, 2010, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

: Image via Wikipedia

There’s a brewing problem. Reporters are strapped an under increasing pressure to compete with bloggers. This results in reporters writing re-tweetable headlines which are sometimes misleading or stories being written with unchecked facts and inaccuracies. The solution, of course, is good journalism. But until the market sorts out the news business there’s a void that needs to be filled.

In the tech space that’s almost completely being filled by bloggers. Some bloggers are stepping up to fill that gap but most aren’t and don’t want to be burdened with the title: “journalists.”

Remember the whole TechCrunch and Last.fm blog-storm? It was really fascinating to watch. Paul Carr then of the Guardian has a great story on the whole thing and why he thinks TechCrunch got duped. (Funny that he then went to write for TechCrunch.)

The big tech blogs like TechCrunch regularly race to market with sketchy information with an inflammatory headline knowing that Mashable, NextWeb, ReadWriteWeb, GigaOm, etc will all run follow on posts with even less facts. This results in the 1st article racing up Techmeme, Tweetmeme, trending topics, Digg etc and massive link juice and traffic.
We’ve even started to see traditional media take similar “Digg bait” approaches and as their revenue and staff get even thinner you will see more of it.

The point of Carr’s article is that even if bloggers and media lead with a story they believe is true it has never been easier to dupe them.

When you read TechCrunch (especially Arrington’s) posts about Last.fm or Google buying Twitter or Apple’s iSlate rumors or any other exclusive/leaked story you usually find a line similar to “a source close to the deal said…” That could imply the guy in the office across the hall who saw Google execs on the elevator on their way up. Which happens to be in the direction of Twitter or some other company, therefore Twitter’s being bought by Google. Said informant thinks, “I’ll tell Arrington and be famous, kind of. Or at least maybe Arrington will like me and get me tickets to TechCrunch 50″.

Companies need good journalism as much as democracy does. The problem is that neither blogs or traditional media will provide this at the level companies need (at least not in the short term). The solution is that companies need to tell their own story and not rely on journalists to do it for you. Invite the media to come along but don’t wait for them to catch up.

The idea isn’t so far fetched.

Neil Benson, editorial director of the U.K. Trinity Mirror regionals is calling for newspapers to become PR agencies: “The best of PR agencies are often run by ex-editorial people. People who worked in regional press know what it takes to hit the spot in terms of press releases and they know how to package it. So why don’t regional publishers think about launching an arm’s length PR agency?”

He went on to explain that newspapers could offer SEO, microsites, and video productions services to advertisers. Essentially, certain advertisers could team up with journalists to create sites dedicated to one topic and go beyond the advertorial as we know it

This is one area where PR agencies need to evolve and offer real reporting (they have the skills), but companies can even go so far as to hire their own internal journalists.

Now the purists who read this will be quick to point out the conflict of interest and ethical issues with this approach. I would argue that they are no more compromised that journalists who can’t run a story because a company will pull their advertising.

Companies need to tell their story. Journalists don’t have the time to tell some of the best stories inside companies, both because of access and time. Corporate press sites need to evolve into news sites. (This is something we’ve been working with our clients on see here for a client example.)

I’m not talking about traditional journalism. These new journalists need to be separate from Marketing and PR. These new journalists will be able to do the deep reporting you don’t get from a press release or a marketing campaign. And while you won’t stop the inaccurate stories that flame up out of control, it will give you a way to respond with better reporting.

I would also argue a company that knows it has journalists walking around it’s halls would be less likely to do things that would get them in trouble. While these journalists won’t be writing the scandalous behind the scenes whistle-blowing articles, they need to be free enough to go off message and call a spade a spade.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Will 2010 be the Death of Free and Open?

On November 30, 2009, In New, By Tac Anderson

: Image via Wikipedia

Arrington, I’m really sorry, this seriously sucks.

Mike Arrington can’t get a break. His Last startup, before TechCrunch became his full-time gig, Edgio, DeadPooled 2 years ago and now the CrunchPad joins it’s much older sibling in that same grave almost exactly 2 years later.

This is disconcerting to me for a few reasons:

I know how hard it is to lose a startup. It sucks more than anything I’ve gone through.
I really believed Arrington was on to something and was excited to see a content company join the hardware fray.

But what really, really concerns me is what this could be an indicator of.

Open Collaboration

Arrington’s approach with the CrunchPad mirrors very closely the model laid out in the book Collaborative Entrepreneurship. From Amazon:

Collaborative Entrepreneurship: How Communities of Networked Firms Use Continuous Innovation to Create Economic Wealth: Today, the ability of firms to innovate is restricted by barriers both inside the firm and within their existing markets—barriers that produce limited knowledge utilization and incremental innovations. “Collaborative Entrepreneurship” describes how these barriers can be overcome so that shared knowledge can drive continuous, sustained innovation across a network of firms and markets.

The book is very theoretical but prophetic at the same time. I know that the scenarios they lay out in the book won’t come to fruition exactly the way they predict but I do believe they’ll come about in some form.

I loved the blog, hardware crossover Arrington was taking. Hardware is tough. Really, really tough. I always stayed away from business plans that required hardware. Too many hard costs, too many headaches. Arrington’s trials are proof of that.

Cross company collaboration is probably even harder. Even the poster child for open collaboration, Wikipedia seems to be cracking under the pressure:

Free vs IP

What about Cris Anderson and the promise we were given in his book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price? The real irony is that even Chris struggles to reinvent Wired and their business.

I’m also a big fan of Cory Doctorow and his new book Makers which may be more accurate than any non-fiction business book:

The decline and fall of America and the boundless optimism of open source/hacker culture
Brilliant geeks in a garage, are trash-hackers who find inspiration in the growing pile of technical junk
Cheap and easy 3D printing, a cure for obesity and crowd-sourced theme parks

Both Chris and Cory support open/mixed/free (whatever you want to call it) business models. The CrunchPad is the counterpoint to their argument. Greed is the reason we have lawyers and IP laws. It’s a sad reality we have been trying to fight since Gen X started taking corporate jobs.

Content Ownership and Advertising

2010 could be the year that Murdoch pulls his content from Google and hundreds of publishers could follow suit if he’s at all successful. I firmly believe that a publisher should be allowed to do whatever they want with their content but it does move counter to this free and open trend we’ve been living off of.

Hulu’s been great but they are slowly adding more and more ads to their programming, negating half the reason so many of us have flocked to it.

Apple (which made the opposite move Arrington was shooting for, from hardware to content) has recently filed patents for unskippable ads on their devices: Apple Files Patent for Un-skip-able Ads on iPhones, iPods

Even Google, the original purveyors of this free and open movement have been slowly adding more adds to their content to the point that some worry about the lines they may be crossing. Google Experiments With Paid Inclusion & Does “Promoted” Meet FTC Guidelines?

Where’s the Money?

Finally what really worries me is the lack of sustainable revenue from the big social media companies we rely on. Twitter is finally taking the easy fix with advertising and away from their promised premium and value add revenue models.

LinkedIn, Digg, Technorati and Facebook have gotten so huge and taken in so much VC money that the only reasonable exit strategy is an IPO. But none of them have the revenue to support that strategy yet. As this recession plods on and some begin to talk about a possible second dip, despite this “jobless recovery,” You have to wonder what will the big social networks do? How desperate to monetize will they be? Will they be able to deliver on the promise we all bought off on?

Or have the last 5 years been a departure from reality and the fact of the matter is that advertising is the only option and you should never openly collaborate and any collaboration joint venture should only be done with legions of lawyers at your side?

I believe in the open nature of the Internet. I have always believed that open is better than closed. I truly believe that open collaboration is the greatest approach to creating value and economic wealth. But for the first time I have doubts that it’s an unstoppable force.

Murdoch extends WSJ Paywall to iPhone (vator.tv)
Get the “Free: The Future of a Radical Price” Book for Free (bradblogging.com)
An Interview with Retweet.com about Ripping off Tweetmeme.com (newcommbiz.com)
Twitter and Distributed Influence (newcommbiz.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Cory Doctorow • CrunchPad • Digg • Facebook • Google • LinkedIn • Mike Arrington • TechCrunch • Technorati • Wikipedia

Twitter and Distributed Influence

On October 21, 2009, In Comm, By Tac Anderson

Last month I wrote about the dillema TechCrunch found themselves in after TwitterGate. The problem arose when Twitter removed TechCrunch from their Suggested User List (SUL). It now seems that Twitter has recently taken TechCrunch’s key rival, Mashable, off the list as well.

This gives us an interesting point of comparison. The first graph here shows Twitter follower count for both TechCrunch and Mashable through August. Total flat line for TechCrunch as Mashable continues to grow.

Then we see what an extra month brings. Notice anything interesting? Yes, TwitterCounter got a face lift but do you see something else? On the 3rd of October something happened to both accounts. There’s a noticeable bump as TechCrunch begins to gain followers. There’s also a very slight change in Mashable’s trajectory. It’s very small and not quite equal to TechCrunch’s new growth but I find this deliciously fascinating that it happened on the exact same day. My guess is that this is the day Mashable came off the SUL. That would explain the slowed decline but why TechCrunch’s rebound? It could be that when people no longer were recommended Mashable they began looking around for their tech geek news. This is pure speculation of course.

TechCrunch vs Mashable

The bad thing about Compete is that it lags a month behind. We don’t have current traffic data but let’s look at what an extra month of Mashable on the SUL did. Here’s the last report.

As expected TechCrunch continued to loose traffic and mashable continued to grow. I find it interesting that both of their trajectories accelerated. I’m very, very curious to see what happens with next months data. Will TechCrunch begin to rebound? Will Mashable’s growth slow? Any bets? My theory is that we’ll see their site traffic begin to mirror their Twitter follower growth.

TechCrunch vs Mashable Web

I talked about the immense power this gave Twitter. Apparently like revenue, Twitter isn’t comfortable with that power. At the Web 2.0 Conference Ev revealed that the new feature, Twitter lists that are still in beta will replace the SUL.

This effectively distributes the power that Twitter holds and spreads it over it’s millions of users. While Twitter looses the direct influence it held, I’d argue that the accumulation of all those distributed lists is greater than the the one individual list.

This has always been Twitter’s strength. Taking the accumulated power it holds and distributing that freely across it’s network. They’ve done this with app developers, users – everything really.

STATS: Facebook and Twitter’s Growth Flattens (frontofficebox.com)
These are the Early Days of Social IT Investment (newcommbiz.com)
Twitter for News and Facebook for Tech? (newcommbiz.com)
Social Media [Insert Made Up Buzzwords Here] (newcommbiz.com)
The State of the 2009 Blogosphere? Turning it up to 11! (newcommbiz.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Influence • Mashable • TechCrunch • Twitter

Are there no new business models?

On June 15, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

So if you havenâ€™t heard Chris Anderson revealed the business model of the future of the Web. (via TechCrunch)

â€œEverything that becomes digital will become free. There will be a free version, either you will be competing with free or giving it away for free and selling something else. If it is not zero today, it will be zero tomorrow.â€

The best model is a mix of free and paid

You canâ€™t charge for an exclusive that will be repeated elsewhere,

Donâ€™t charge for the most popular content on your site,

Content behind a pay wall should appeal to niches, the narrower the niche the better

Um, yep thatâ€™s the one we kind of expected. In fact publishers have been using this model since before the Internet. I guess for some people this might still be a shift from driving mass eyeballs. I first thought the pure play ad model went out with the DotCom bust but then it was revived in the Web 2.0 hey day. Maybe it’ will finally die now.

It does make me wonder if there are any new business models out there. I guess everything is just a variation of whatâ€™s already come before it. How disappointing. I guess the real innovation comes from how you implement these models.

The New Economics of Social Business is about Enabling Unrealized Value (newcommbiz.com)
If Chris Anderson Can’t Reinvent the Publishing World, Who Can? (newcommbiz.com)
Could the Internet move back to an AOL model? (newcommbiz.com)
The Facts Behind Giving Things Away (killerblog.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Business model • Chris Anderson • TechCrunch • Web 2.0

Which Bloggers Generate the Most Buzz and Which Bloggers are the Most Paranoid?

On June 14, 2009, In Biz, By Tac Anderson

Image by Laughing Squid via Flickr

This last week I was doing some old school Web research for a few clients. It’s work that I normally don’t get to do but is important to know how to do and is good to do every now and then. Things like back link checking and finding influencers across various industries via social networks. Here are some random facts I learned this week that you may not normally think about.

Robert & Mike generate the most buzz

Robert Scoble and Mike Arrington generate more new blog posts than pretty much anyone else in the tech bloggosphere. OK, that may have been obvious but here’s how much of a difference there is. This isn’t a perfect science but it’ll give you the idea. This is for one client on the same story:

Robert – 1 post = 25 new posts
Mike 3 posts = 67 new posts
All of Mashable 4 posts = 15 new posts
All of ReadWriteWeb 7 posts = 25 new posts

Ars Technica is geekier than TechCrunch

OK, again not earth shattering news but here’s how that manifests:

TechCrunch generates links mostly from Twitter and WordPress blogs
Ars Technica generates links mostly from Laconi.ca and Drupal blogs

Bloggers are better self promoters

Yeah again earth shattering news, I know. Bloggers will almost always post a picture on their LinkedIn profile (you may be surprised how many people don’t). The notable exception to this is bloggers who work in IT Security. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in that industry that posts pictures of themselves anywhere (paranoid much?).

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Ars Technica • Blog • laconi.ca • Mashable • Mike Arrington • ReadWriteWeb • Robert Scoble • TechCrunch • Twitter • WordPress

What I’m doing to fight the social media echo chamber

On June 2, 2009, In New, By Tac Anderson

: Image via Wikipedia

I think the number one threat to social media is the echo chamber.

Online social media is an amazing thing. One of the most powerful aspects of social media is that it’s a scale free network. This is the phenomena that create viral videos. People, companies or their agencies don’t create viral videos, scale free networks create viral videos. Scale free networks are why once you get to the top it’s infinitely easier to stay on top. This is why when Robert Scoble posts something on FriendFeed it gets dozens of likes and comments (seriously EVERY single thing).

The downside of this attribute is what we call the echo chamber. I don’t have to follow Seth Godin’s blog because so many people will share his most recent post on Twitter or in their Google Reader. I used to not (but I do now) follow TechCrunch because of the same reason. If you’re on FriendFeed you don’t have to follow Robert because someone else in your network will like it and it will show up in your feed.

The great thing about this activity is that it creates a certain layer of human filtering. This is why sites like Digg, Techmeme, Slashdot, Tweetmeme, RSSmeme and others are so useful.

The problem is that it leads to group think. We’re all reading the same blog posts, following the same people ipn Twitter, linking to the same things and drinking the same Kool-Aid. It’s dangerous. It’s this kind of group think that leads really smart people to miss really obvious things (mortgage crisis anyone?).

That is why I try not to share links from the obvious sources, unless I REALLY feel they are worth while. This is why I spend so much time looking for the really good long tail blogs. I try and share posts on Twitter and this blog that most people aren’t talking about. This is why I break up my twitter posts with things like what I’m listening to on Pandora. And while it may not seem like it this is also why I’ve started sharing less stuff on Twitter and trying to write more posts here on my blog. Beyond 140 I can add context. I can expand why I agree or disagree

Media Consumption: Scoble vs Rubel (newcommbiz.com)
What Makes for a Well Balanced Media Diet? (newcommbiz.com)
On Being a Human Filter (newcommbiz.com)
Talk With Me, Not At Me (regulargeek.com)
I Am Your Filter (regulargeek.com)
Forget The Statusphere. How About The Egosystem? (davefleet.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Digg • FriendFeed • Google Reader • Robert Scoble • Seth Godin • TechCrunch • TechMeme • Tweetmeme • Twitter

Proof that the Real Time Web is Killing Google?

On April 13, 2009, In New, By Tac Anderson

: Image by Dave Delaney via Flickr

The last 2 months have seen absolute INSANE growth in both Twitter and Facebook. While Twitter is the current diva, Facebook’s no ugly duckling itself. I (an many others) have wondered what it would take for the “Real Time Web” (ie Twitter search and persistant status updates) to put a dent in Google’s dominance.

Are we seeing the first signs of damage to Google’s dominance?

Today while commenting on Imran Khan’s adjusted (lower) predictions of Googles earnings anouncements TechCrunch noted that search was down in February:

Whatâ€™s got him spooked? Through February, comScore is showing declines in U.S. search activity (measured in query volume) and Khanâ€™s own checks with search-engine marketers leads him to believe that commercial-oriented searches took a hit during the quarter. That would be significant since so far search has remained the healthiest segment of the online advertising industry.

Yes there are many reasons that consumer search is down. One very likely reason is people search when they’re shopping and people aren’t shopping as much. But it’s also important to note that reports have shown that consumer online social networking activity has seen huge growth. Largely attributed to the assumption that the unemployed spend an increased ammount of time hanging out on Twitter and Facebook.

I don’t have to search as much.

So if people are spending more time online why are they doing less searching? The obvious answer to me is that I don’t have to search for as many things. The 2800+ people I follow on Twitter, the 820+ people I subscribe to on FriendFeed and my 481 “friends” on Facebook push a mountain of largely relevant content to me every day.

If I am going to buy something I am more likely to ask my huge network for recommendations rather than do a series of searches, read journalists reviews and comb through pages of near anonymous user ratings.

All of this social activity leads to fewer Google searches. When I do search for something via a search engine I’m usually looking for something I already know exists, so I’m even less likely to click on advertising than I was before. Now with FriendFeed’s amazing search functionality I usually go to it first before going to Google.

It seems very plausible to me and the fact that Google has been very aggressive adding near real time Twitter results to their search results could indicate that they do see this as a threat.

I’ll of course wait until other smarters, than me on this topic weigh in on this, which he will.

Twitter Tweaks Its Title Tags For Better Google Juice (techcrunch.com)
Google and Microsoft Battle for Twitter Advertising Deal (mashable.com)
Is the real-time web a threat to Google search? (scobleizer.com)
Tapping the Real Time Web (techwag.com)

Popularity: 1% [?]

Tagged with: Facebook • FriendFeed • Google • Real Time Web • Social media • TechCrunch • Twitter

New Comm Biz

Social Media and the Future of Business

PR Needs to Tell More Stories and Pitch Less