Media Week

Michael White, who writes the Guardian's Politics blog has a section in the paper's journalism pamphlet on blogging.

 Giving advice on how to write a blog, he says: 'Brevity is best, it always is. Beware the conceit (into which I fall) that the infinity of the blogosphere gives you the right to prattle on....

 He adds, 'Among the hooligans there are clever, decent people who simply want to tell you things you didn't know.'

www.itsopen.co.uk

The Guardian has published a supplement today on changing advertising and it looks at social networks. It is well worth a read.

Jennifer Whitehead in her excellent piece about Social Networks makes the key point: 'So the message is clear -brands wanting to engage rather than alienate their audiences need to bear in mind the communal origins of the internet rather than ride roughshod over them'. Hear, Hear. Of course there is room for traditional advertising but social networks were not designed for ads. Adveristing in this context has to be useful and entertaining.

 Cadbury Creme Egg were on the right track when they sponsored Bebo's drama Kate Modern and one of the characters worked for a PR agency with Cadbury as a client.

 www.itsopen.co.uk

Interesting piece in the FT today (Digital Business section) by Dan Ilett.  Dan explores how blogging is becoming a legal minefield with lawyers trying to plan the beststrategies for dealing with bloggers. Some blogs have a policy of publishing any legal letters they receive from aggreived clients so tough actions could backfire. Nonetheless people - especially employees - have to be careful about what they say in the blogosphere. Romantics who see the blogosphere as the home of free speech might get a shock when they realise that the same libel laws that apply to journalists also apply and could be applied to them. However enforcing compliance with orders could be really difficult especially as blogs link to each other so quickly and are so densely networked.

http://www.ft.com/digitalbusiness/september172008

There has been a lot written lately about crowd sourcing. How companies can use social media tools to get the best ideas from their staff, share knowledge, collaborate better and foster team working. Where crowd sourcing is also interesting is in the area of sharing pricing information. Take a look at GasBuddy.com, which is a web site that compiles petrol prices in the US and Canada. Volunteers text or go online and enter prices at fuel stations in their area. The volunteer site creates a price map which can be accessed online or through a mobile phone.

This just shows how internet technologies and mobiles are going to shift more power towards consumers and away from sellers as people start to work together to compare prices on goods and services. Armed with this information, we could eventually see shifts in consumer retail shopping trends and behaviour.

www.itsopen.co.uk

Traditional PR types and communications professionals that were formerly journalists are finding it difficult knowing how to handle bloggers. Someone I know who has recently left a large corporate media communications team explained to me that if you are speaking with traditional journalists you know who they are and there are some assumed rules governing the relationship which you can rely on. With bloggers - people you don't know - communications professionals can feel completely in the dark. I recommend going onto blogs specialist search engines like Technorati and searching blogs in your sector and reading them at first. Immerse yourself in the blogosphere as a spectator. Then you and your team need to draw up guidelines - probably with independent help - for how you are going to engage with bloggers. But that is just the start. Once you start posting comments, you need to be in a position to handle replies.

Peter Kim's blog (see below) has an interesting list of companies who are using social media marketing including blogs where they have overcome their stage nerves and have begun to immerse themselves in this new fascinating communications world.

http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/09/ive-been-thinki.html

 www.itsopen.co.uk

The power of the web in US politics is becoming increasingly clear.....take a look at this interesting BBC video about how the US presidential nominees are hoping that they can use social media technologies to sway the voters

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/world_news_america/7575878.stm

A lot of US commentators are starting to pick up on the fact that Barack Obama is skilfully using social media technologies in order to mobilise voters.  The link below comes from Don Tapscott, author of Wikinomics, which is a fascinating book. He points out how Obama's team are pulling in younger voters by using social media in ways which other candidates have failed to do. If it works for politics then obviously it can work for businesses too.  

http://www.wikinomics.com/blog/index.php/2008/06/05/more-on-obama-and-wikinomics/