The Fakeness of Reality

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Consider this – just over one hundred years ago, the Industrial Revolution brought about technological advances that were considered major advancements. Yet, the technological advances of those times would make even the most restrained modernist today scream for progress.

Reflect to ten years ago – the mainstream internet and mobile phone markets were just beginning to take off. The world was on the cusp of using instantaneous communications to its advantage … well, as instant as your dial-up speed allowed you to be.

Think of now. Instantaneous communication is not expected – it is a given. Can you imagine a world where you can’t just log onto your laptop and hook up to a hotspot to look at your friend’s holiday pictures on one of their many social networking profiles? A world where you have to schedule in a face-to-face visit to ooh and aah over the actual prints? Or how about a world where you have to wait for the postman to deliver your party invite instead of being able to RSVP at the click of a button in your Facebook Events?

The internet has had the fastest penetration rate of any form of communication and has changed social interactions and how we communicate with one another, even more so since the launch of MySpace in 2003 and Facebook in 2004. Distance has become irrelevant. The internet’s promise of now has become our accepted reality; yet we once dismissed this as a ‘virtual reality’ as it didn’t take place in the flesh. But, in today’s world, the offline and online bounce back and forth between one another faster than a ball served by one of the Williams’ sisters at Wimbledon.

The great thing about the internet is, yes, you can use it to communicate about your hobbies with complete strangers across the other side of the world, but likewise, you can use it to contact your friend who lives down the street to arrange lunch. Its range and diversity is incredible, but what about the more sinister side of the ease of the internet?

Take Facebook. Facebook is described as “a social utility that enables people to understand the world around them, facilitating the spread of relevant information through social networks, allowing people to share information online the same way they do in the real world through the creation of individual profiles”. Sounds lovely in theory that Facebook is enhancing society offline, but in practice? The reality is somewhat more dubious because of the uncertainty about the value of the information we are presented with – it is often unreliable and unverifiable – even though as a communication tool, Facebook does work.

The trouble I found with my research into Facebook is that people ‘play up’ their profile information, so how can it be a reality? It’s all about self-promotion because you know other people can view your little piece of cyberspace, and worst still, they can, and will, use it to judge you. As one person said to me:

My Facebook profile is simply a virtual portrayal of a person called X, nothing else. I don’t believe an internet profile can express who I am.

It’s all a big act – the razzle dazzle of the digital age – but if your identity constructs your very source of meaning and experience, what does that say about us all when we’re carefully selecting and editing our identity online? What’s the downside to all this wonderful technological advancement?

Take a look at people’s profiles if you’re on Facebook – a good look – notice anything? Typically, there are no admissions of dodgy characteristics lurking around. Take these rather tame examples from the ‘About Me’ section:

I’m X and I’m ace. So there.

You can’t beat me, I’m a rockstar! 

And isn’t that a nice photo? Used Photoshop by any chance? Let’s have a look at some photo albums. Ah, yes. There’s a trip to the Maldives. Notice how no one seems to create albums entitled ‘Sunday trip to B&Q’? The biggest problem with Facebook is that you have to take it all with a pinch of salt, at face value – what you see is what you get – at least online anyway. It’s like the Hollywood of the digital world – all airbrushed images and carefully constructed releases – but real life isn’t like that. We are not advertisements of a version of ourselves, as much as we pretend and would like to be.

I could go on and on about the fakeness of our new reality, but I won’t. Being online is brilliant because effectively you have the whole world (wide web) available at your fingertips; you’re no longer restricted by time or spatial constraints; and it has allowed us all access to an audience – a chance to use our voice, whether we want to blog, share images or music – but on the downside … just like the dot-com bubble burst, what happens when the social networking bubble bursts and we have to face up to the reality of who we really are?

Claire joins Wolfstar for work experience

Hi. My name is Claire Field, and today is my first day of work experience at Wolfstar. I graduated last year with a MA (Hons) from the University of St Andrews, where I read International Relations – Social Anthropology, but also took additional modules in Economics, English and Italian in my pre-Hons years because of how the Scottish system works – and no, I can’t speak Italian – non mi piace l’italiano (I don’t like the Italian language) is the extent of my recollections. I’m also highly skilled in butchering other languages – they’re not my strong point!

Despite attending university in Scotland, I’m actually a Yorkshire girl hailing from the liquorice-famous town of Pontefract, about 10 miles from Leeds; pre-uni I made the most of the Leeds nightlife and shops, but also its creative offerings. I was lucky enough to snag the last place on the Galaxy Radio Academy from thousands of applicants, and spent four months learning all about commercial radio broadcasting, even gaining a NCFE diploma from it.

This sparked off my interest in radio; I was delighted in my second year at St Andrews when student radio station STAR was set up. I immediately signed up, and began presenting my own twice-weekly show – ‘The Schnitzel with Noodles Show’ – which was fabulous because I got to pollute the airwaves with my ramblings and eclectic music taste! I was also on the committee, holding the position of Head of Community Relations, where I set up work experience for local pupils and promoted the station as a community, not a university, project.

I’m happier when I get to be creative and I’m pleased to be given the opportunity to work with Wolfstar to learn more about the PR world – social media especially – as my dissertation explored the issues arising from the use of social media within modern society, using Facebook as my ethnographic site. I find the rise of the Network Society absolutely fascinating, and have always had an interest in the fast-pace and sheer magnitude of the Internet. I’ve even dabbled in website creation myself – my first site was the now defunct Claire’s Cabin, which had episode guides of popular TV shows of the late ‘90’s – this spun-off a second site dedicated to the Harry Potter books.

Wherever I end up in my career, I know my forthcoming time at Wolfstar is going to be both a fabulous, and beneficial, experience!

File sharing public relations - download now for free!

I’ve recently been talking to a good friend of mine who works in the music industry. A conversation that crops up more than any other is that of file-sharing. A term most people believe to be synonymous with ‘free-music’. At the somewhat naive age of sixteen, I myself downloaded Napster onto my parents computer, pulled off a few tracks before I accidentally added a nasty virus to their play-list. I forget the name of it, but needless to say, the PC was out of action for a long time!Based on this experience I swore never to indulge in ‘file-sharing’ again.

My friends main point was this; "if you see a car that you like the look of do you think you can just take it?" An ideal thieving opportunity presents itself - the key’s in the ignition, the door’s open, nobody around… Granted, this situation physically doesn’t compare to a few clicks on a mouse, but surely it becomes a question of morals…

When a CD cost £15-£20, 15 years ago, you did feel that it was a tad expensive, but it was a luxury good, so you paid it. You bought music when you could afford it, and it was special. Now the music industry is saturated. As a result you can by a whole album for next to nothing, be it on download or in the shops - this is one product that’s price hasn’t increased with inflation…. shhh… don’t tell Gordon B!

I’m aware there are several more debates to be had here, but I’m trying to drill down… So, how does this all relate back into public relations?

Well after having the afore mentioned conversation, I then brought the topic up with a couple of mates, who also work in public relations. At first they disagreed wholeheartedly… they believed artists to be "well paid", and "what was the problem?" … "It’s like lending a CD to your mate for a week." The obvious problem I had with this was that allowing several thousand people to share your files is a hell of a lot different to lending a CD. Then I found an analogy that had them both questioning their long-standing views:

How many times had they researched a brief at work, put together a high quality presentation and/or worked on a detailed proposal document? The answer was obviously lots! They immediately knew where this was going. I asked how many times, despite failing to win the new business, they’d seen their ideas, their concepts and sometimes even their very own time-plan and strategy, used and abused by an in-house team or competing agency post-pitch…

It makes me feel nauseous. If you want to hire an outside agency to do some work for you - then honour the process. If you decide to make your sourcing process competitive, fine, by all means do so, but don’t sit through a bunch of presentations and then rip off all their ideas. Word of mouth is a powerful thing, and before long you’ll earn yourself a reputation, and bad rep’s tend to stick….

Plus I’m a big believer in karma - and - what goes around comes around… try and do something on the cheap, and at some point or another it will go wrong… such is the way of the world.

Myspace starts a trend by being the first to bring down its walls

This morning it’s being reported by BBC News that MySpace is set to allow users to make their information available to other websites. That includes items such as photos, video, public profile information, friends’ lists and text.

It will soon let its members share the information with Yahoo, Twitter, eBay and Photobucket. Traditionally social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Bebo have locked users into their own site and made sure the content was properly guarded to ensure people kept coming back which to a certain extent has worked.

Interestingly, MySpace’s Chris DeWolfe has confirmed he is happy to work with Facebook - which would be a huge leap forward. MySpace has stressed that users will have control over what information they share and who they share it with. 

Many of us now have social network profiles with lots of our contacts and connections hidden within them and I have spoken to quite a few people who think sharing these would be a great idea. I believe this is going to be an ongoing trend with the others quickly following suit because quite frankly they will have to or they will be quickly ditched for newer sites and tools.

Consumers will ultimately decide which tools help them go about their daily duties and if these tools can be used across several platforms similar to Twitter then more people will obviously start to use them, just to save time.

If these social networks genuinely want to survive they must bring down their guarding walls. One thing is for sure, if this information is secure this will be great news for all of us.

The changes are reported to be rolled out on the site across the coming weeks.

Cross posted: Norton’s Notes

An unfriendly Facebook user gives the thumbs down to Facebook Chat

There I was, checking my friend requests and reading my private messages when all of a sudden I was bombarded with several instant messages from my ‘Facebook-friends’. I’m not sure I am a fan of the social networking sites new upgrade. Facebook have just launched a new instant messaging facility, where you can chat to your online friends. For a week or so now I have been quickly exiting Facebook as soon as one of my ‘foreign-friends’ (who I have never met but still, for some reason unbeknown to me, wanted to add me) starts talking to me. Luckily Beth has informed me that there is the option to set myself ‘offline’ if I am feeling un-friendly. Although my Facebook account has become more essential to me than my mobile phone, I can’t help but feel that my privacy is slowly slipping further and further away…

In hindsight though, I guess the new facility is another useful communication tool, which most people (me included) have for many years now, looked to MSN Messenger for. Personally I think the visuals of the Facebook Chat facility leave a lot to be desired and it’s really annoying that if you leave Facebook, your chat automatically ends. I still much prefer MSN’s version of instant messenger, but as so many young people nowadays spend hours a day on Facebook, perhaps MSN will see a decline in the usage?

Recently, the BBC’s technology program ‘Click’ found a potential flaw in Facebook’s security. After creating a malicious program, masquerading as a harmless application, they were able to steal personal data, without the users knowing. I am constantly receiving applications which is a huge down side to the site in my opinion. ‘How Barbie are you?” and “Which Hollyoaks  character are you?” are just two which have been sent to me today and which I have automatically deleted, as I always do. However, it is obvious that some people actually enjoy downloading these applications and it is now apparent that they need to take caution. These applications are run on third-party servers, not Facebook but maybe it’s time Facebook took back control and started to decrease them?

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook chat, social networks, msn, bbc, bbc click, facebook applications

Twitter = get out of jail free card

Avid Twitter fans are more than ten a penny today, with bloggers, journalists and social media enthusiasts using this must have web 2.0 application to communicate with and update others on their daily happenings. But little did we know, Twitter is not only useful for finding answers to burning questions or letting our followers know when we’re making the coffee or bored at work… It seems it is also pretty useful in a sticky situation, say for example getting arrested.

US student James Karl Buck, was covering an anti-government protest in Egypt when he and his translator were arrested. During the commotion, Buck used his mobile phone to update his Twitter status, telling all of his friends and followers in one word, many of which were also in Egypt, that he had been “Arrested”.

This smart move meant that all of his followers around the world instantly knew of his plight and could start the ball rolling in securing his freedom.

Buck also sent updates every couple of hours using his phone, which the Egyptian police had failed to confiscate. Buck was eventually freed but his interpreter’s whereabouts remains unknown. In essence, Twitter helped him find the right contacts to get him out of jail.

So if you ever find yourself in trouble, you know which social network to turn to…

I love Ajax

Since December 2006, I have been enjoying the tech world a lot more than I thought I ever would. What’s not to love? Social networking, speedy instant messaging, Vista, the Wii, RSS feeds, building blogs….

I’m now at a stage where my nearest and dearest believe I’m some sort of a new age geek. A cross breed of a digital marketer and blogger, meets wannabe chef and sports fan. I hold my hands up and whole heartedly agree. Why not embrace these new treats and enjoy the tools that are now available to us?

The thing that has continued to impress me over the past six months is Ajax.

Wikipedia: "Ajax (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), is a group of inter-related web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications."

Ultimately most people are impressed by functionality, but as my team mates remind me every day, I like things to look ‘pretty’. Until recently, I was an advertiser’s dream. The packaging was key, with usability coming close behind. For me, Ajax achieves both of these key elements to a very impressive degree.

I’m pretty sure that most people who use popular sites like Facebook aren’t aware they’re using an Ajax system, or for that matter, really care… and then there’s the new BBC site; allowing you to customise your own homepage with whatever BBC content you’re most interested in.

Basically, the way the world is moving, and the pace at which consumers are now living their lives means information must be informative, relevant and accessible. If it isn’t, then the information supplier looses credibility and inevitability users. And just to quickly revert back to my earlier point about how I like things to look good, or rather, slick… I really like the fact Ajax allows you to move content, style the design and customize a site to make it feel like your own. Personalisation is the key.

Here’s my top five sites that I would highly recommend having a proper look at:

1) BBC

2) Facebook

3) Netvibes

4) Google

5)  YouTube

Finally a useful Facebook application for bloggers and networkers

Yes you did read the title of this post right. Just when you thought Facebook applications were pretty pointless, a new one has been created which could actually prove to be pretty useful.

Six Apart the creators of several blogging platforms including Typepad has created a new Facebook application which enables users to update their status and blogs all through the Facebook platform.

I have just tested it this morning and it seems pretty useful, you can update any of the following through Facebook:

1. Facebook Status
2. Twitter
3. Pownce
4. Vox
5. Wordpress
6. Moveable Type
7. Blogger
8. Tumblr 
9. Livejournal

Tech crunch says: "The idea is to allow Facebook users to very quickly share something they like on their blog, without leaving Facebook."

Tech Digest reports: "Blog It is one of the few applications that takes content created inside Facebook and makes it available for use outside Facebook," said David Recordon, Open Platforms Tech Lead at Six Apart. "Blog It users are able to update their personal blogs, business blogs, online journals, Facebook status, or Twitter or Pownce activity all from one central environment. This is a concrete step away from the silos and walled gardens of the past and toward the open web of the future."

I have posted this morning asking whether Facebook can keep its doors firmly closed to all the other social networks. This could be the first of many applications which finally let Facebook users share their information outside of the Facebook platform. Whether that’s a good or bad thing remains to be seen.

Cross posted on: Norton’s Notes

Blogger Relations - Ten Top Tips and an interesting case study

I wrote a post a while ago about how I was approached to cover an interesting internet news story on my blog.

The blogger relations approach from the PR practitioner was a little clumsy but I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and I felt the story was interesting - so I covered it on the blog. He actually thanked me for it afterwards and apologised for the way in which he approached me which I thought was a nice touch.

At Wolfstar we have been involved in quite a few blogger relations and outreach programmes and we have been targeted for them too. Some are great approaches with great products, some are poor approaches with poor products and some are simply a mix of the two.

A couple of examples of outreach programmes which have reached our radar recently include the launch of the Skype Phone, 02 Cocoon phone, 02 XDA and the launch of a new James Bond book.

I read a great post yesterday from a twitter friend Todd Defren at Shift Communications. I respect Todd hugely and yesterday’s post was so good I felt I should share it with others too.

Blogger Relations Advice

If you are considering using blogger relations for a communications campaign, the first and most important thing to do is good old fashioned research. Then follow this up with lots more reading. Unfortunately it’s not a quick process but if it’s done correctly it can be a very useful tool for communication for your clients or brand.

Here are my ten top tips on how to approach a blogger:

1. Research the blogosphere carefully using blog search engines such as Technorati, checking the blog’s ranking and authority to find the most popular
2. Actually read the blogger’s posts don’t just skim it - read several first to get a feel for their interests and personality. Check out the categories they cover which will also help - subscribe to their feed and check it daily
3. If the blog is irrelevant - don’t send information to the writer anyway as this could cause more harm than good
4. Make useful and constructive comments on posts which interest you - try and make the comments mean something
5. Never make blatant plugs for your own or a client’s company straight away - this can cause major irritation
6. Approach the blogger only after you think he may actually recognise your name. The approach should usually be personal but if it’s a team blog, address the team properly and say hello
7. Use simple public relations - make sure you relate to this specific public
8. Make sure your story is relevant before you send it
9. Try and send other pieces of information with it rather than just a plain news release - try sending useful demo videos, photos and research all in an easy to digest format
10. Apologise for the approach if it’s not relevant - these people aren’t journalists so take that into consideration

Blogger Relations Case Study - A good Example

Here is a good example of Blogger Relations from Todd Defren. I am sure Todd won’t mind if I cover his interesting case study, and he writes it like this:

"Our client, NEAT Receipts, makes a handy portable scanner. Most of our work on the account, as you might expect, had been focused on businesspeople and, specifically, road warriors. “Go to a business lunch, then scan the receipt on the front seat of your rental car before you leave the parking lot; build your expense report as-you-go.” We get tons of ink for this straightforward pitch.

But one reporter whom we’d been talking to happened to leave her post at a techie outlet to join Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Wonder of wonders, NEAT Receipts received a high-profile hit with Martha Stewart: which promptly caused the NEAT Receipts scanner to hit #1 on Amazon.com, swamping the company’s e-commerce system for a day.

Between the Martha Stewart coup and a few subsequent “lifestyle” hits, we quickly figured out that this sleek li’l scanner was a hit with stay-at-home mothers who needed an easy way to capture their kids’ drawings, their household receipts, family recipes, etc. Lo! A new market was born.

SHIFT set its sights on mommybloggers. The problem was that everyone and their mother (pun intended) seemed to have discovered the breadth and power of this blogging niche. As a result, many of the mombloggers were being swamped with inane spam from lackluster PR folk. We needed to be especially careful and conscientious in our outreach.

After several weeks of research, we identified a niche-within-the-niche. Whereas most mommy blogs are, appropriately, about “being a mom,” there is a narrow slice of sites written by some seriously geeky, gadget-loving moms. Rather than hit-up all mombloggers widely, we narrowcasted our approach to a handful.

Stage One – “listening” – was a core component to the research. Our list of 10+ “gadget-lovin’ mommas” was whittled down to 3, once we realized that 7 out of our top-ten didn’t seem likely to appreciate our type of gadget or approach.

Stage Two incorporated respectful outreach, either via email or via the Comments section of the mombloggers’ sites. In the end, each of the three bloggers drafted nice reviews of the NEAT Receipts scanner.

But Stage Three was what differentiated this campaign from most other programs.

Most PR agencies would have been justifiably happy with these initial successes, marking it as a successful Blogger Relations effort. We decided to push the envelope.

We re-approached the three mommybloggers with a proposition: we’d give each of them 10 scanners to give away to their readers in a contest. To qualify, their readers would need to either:

a) leave a comment about “why I’d love to win a NEAT Receipts scanner” at the mombloggers’ sites, or,

b) write a post on a blog of their own, with a trackback to the mommyblogger’s post which had inspired their entry. (This was generally preferred, as it contributed to the mommybloggers’ own Technorati ranking and overall search engine rankings.)

Our humble scanner lit up the mommysphere. Due to this single contest running on 3 sites, we generated over 80 follow-on blog posts about NEAT Receipts, and almost 1,200 reader comments about “what I’d do with a NEAT Receipts scanner.”

This information was pure gold to our client, who had not only recently discovered a new market opportunity, but now also had access to hundreds of pages’ worth of free, user-generated market research which they could use to inspire future product development and messaging ideas.

From my perspective, this type of success – and the passion created for the NEAT Receipts brand – is even better than a Walt Mossberg hit!  (Not that we wouldn’t love it if Walt took a look, too!)" 

Thanks Todd for a great case study.

Cross Posted: on Norton’s Notes

Is Gordon Brown the first head of government to Twitter?

Yesterday, DowningStreet started to Twitter. The bio describes it as “The official twitter channel for the Prime Minister’s Office based at 10 Downing Street” and gives the web address of the official PM’s site at www.pm.gov.uk.

Of course it isn’t actually Gordon Brown sitting at the keyboard or tapping away on his mobile (in fact I seem to remember that when Gordon became PM he had to give up his personal mobile as all the PM’s calls need to be logged).

But that’s not what this should be about. The social media and social network purists will possibly criticise the move because the PM isn’t properly taking part in the community. But come on, get real people. He’s got a big enough job running the country.

If it is being done by someone close enough to Gordon in his office then that is good enough for me. However, at the moment you don’t get that impression. The eight posts to date are incredibly dull and uninformative - even for a political junkie like me.

If this is to work then it needs to give an insight into Gordon’s personality and what makes him tick. “The Prime Minister is greeting President Nicolas Sarkozy at the front door of 10 Downing Street” tells me absolutely nothing of interest.

What was Gordon thinking? What was he doing? That would make the Twitter channel work.

If it is to be a news channel then that’s fine as well. But at the moment it doesn’t do either very well. “No10 news: France and Britain pledge school places: The Prime Minister and French Preside… http://tinyurl.com/27sjzl” tells me nothing much.

That’s probably because it is created using Twitterfeed from the PM’s existing RSS feeds.

So far there are only 23 followers (it was single figures when I joined) and it is following nobody. It will be interesting to see if it does do any following. If it is a success and enough people start following then it would be unrealistic to expect real interaction and community. But, what you could do is monitor and mine the followers to glean insight into what they are talking about and therefore what matters to them. That would provide useful information as to what to Twitter about and also provides the potential for a quick, dirty and easy online focus group.

Edelman’s Marshall Manson also has a post, as does Simon Dickson who alerted me to the story with his Tweet (incidentally it’s hard to credit a Tweet and comment in 140 characters).

UPDATE: To be crystal clear, even though I’ve already said it above. I (245 followers) was NOT the first to Tweet or blog this story. That honour goes to Simon Dickson (39 followers) at 12:04 yesterday, mine was second at 13:18. It was just that mine got picked up by Marshall Manson (followers 150), which in turn was picked up by Steve Rubel (4627 followers). I think it’s down to the number of followers.

UPDATE 2: CNET is now covering it as well. Cross-posted from A PR Guy’s Musings.

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