Media Week

I was scanning a few of my favourite blogs the other day and picked up a story about The Economist sharing content freely with key bloggers.

I wish I could remember where I found this story as I would then link to the blog. It sounds a fascinating development if it's true. Giving away quality content for free is a smart move as it will help build an online community around your brand especially if the recipients are influential.

The content of course must be useful and interesting and of benefit to the target audience. Content designed by PR people simply to puff up the egos of their paymasters will go nowhere fast.

O2 has launched an interesting blogging campaign and have deliberately targetted the blogosphere first. They are already getting positive responses from bloggers (see www.prblogger.com)

You can visit the O2 blog (www.o2cocoonblog.co.uk) which I don't actually think is one of the best blogs devised. It is quite hard to navigate and I found it a bit slow. But where they have really scored is with the blogs outreach campaign. The agency researched who were the most influential bloggers in their space and approached then and sent them phones. They handled it really well. For the inside track on how this was done see: http://ameliatorode.typepad.com/life_moves_pretty_fast/2007/08/o2-cocoon-blogg.html

It's interesting to see that the blogs outreach was not handled by a traditional pr company. I think we might see more of this happening. Blogging and blogging communications is a specialist area, you need to have a good knowledge of the technology, the culture and communications to do well in this space.

It was brave of o2 to go down this route and launch in this way and I'm pretty confident it will work well for them. Companies that start early in this space in terms of reaching out to bloggers are probably going to get the most attention because it is such a new field. As time goes on, it will get harder as bloggers get smarter probably more cynical and selling them products and services will be a lot tougher especially to those who are well attuned to the world of spin.

What I like about the 02 approach though is that it underlines that brands have to start having conversations with their customers and traditional media relations are dead more or less.

I met a marketing director from a leading bank yesterday who was saying how clunky Second Life is and how difficult it is to use. Those views seem to spreading...

New Scientist has gone on the attack describing Second Life as fantastic and weird and saying that only a few people actually use it. Instead New Scientist suggests that real and virtual worlds will map. We could all soon be wearing digital glasses that provide a 'digital filter' over real life. You could get weather data, pollution levels and details on opening times at cinemas etc as you walk along and maybe avatars to keep you company. Even if Second Life is getting some flak, the futurists are confident that virtual worlds are here to stay.

Shiny Media (www.shinymedia.com) - the UK blog publishing company - has launched a US blog network.

I need to make it clear that I am a shareholder in Shiny Media (see my profile) but this development still merits a mention. A lot of Shiny's current blogs (CatWalk Queen, Shoewawa and The Bag Lady) have a US readership. However the new US specific ones will be written by Americans for Americans, says Shiny US's Editorial Director, Andrea Thatcher. The plan is for Shiny US to eventually become ten US focussed fashion blogs headquartered on the East Coast.

There is a lot of interest in blogging among organisations but still a lot of caution. Why not take some inspiration from Microsoft?

Microsoft has successfully introduced a blogging culture. Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft trusts his bloggers. 'We trust our people to represent our company. ....So in a sense you don't run any more risk letting someone express themselves on a blog than you do letting them go out and see an customer on their own. It just touches more people...I find that blogging is just a great way to have customer communications...'

It is hard to think of many CEOs in the UK who would openly speak up for blogs in that way. It will of course all change when the next generation take charge.

I went to see Lady Chatterley at the Duke Of York's cinema in Brighton at the weekend and noticed how they are committed to social media....The Duke of York's cinema has a myspace page and a facebook section for fans of the Duke Of York's. How about that for progressive social media marketing? Some major brands could learn from them. I think I will share this example at my company's next web 2.0 workshop/briefing!

Zoopa (www.zooppa.com) is offering a social media advertising service which could present a major challenge to traditional forms of online advertising.

Thanks to John for drawing my attention to the service after I wrote a piece about the gatekeepers of traditional advertising.

Zoopa intends to put the consumer at the very centre of creative effort and it works with international brands to offer users the chance to create their own online commercials for those brands and get paid for them. The contributions are then available online for voting.

The question is are the ads any good? Is the community representative enough? It's a great idea though and there is no reason why professionals shouldn't get involved as well. What do people think? Should big online ad agencies be trembling in their virtual boots?