This weeks Sunday movie ritual was Dennis Quaid's new movie Vantage Point. I am not going to lie, but I have been looking forward to this movie ever since the first time I saw the trailer. However what started off as a strong film really got repetitive and boring to myself. I wont lie but the first half of the film was pretty brilliant with the multiple angles and sequences. It was cinematographers night mare cause the Mise en Scene is imperative for each sequence. Never the less the action scenes and the twist were very good but I was expecting a lot more. So for this weeks film I give it 3 stars out of 5. What did you guys think?
How does a person or a company rank their Public Relation success over the Internet? This evaluation is extremely hard because the definition of success differs from person to person. Darren Rowse explains in his blog that as a blog creator you are not going to be found immediately. In order to succeed Rowse suggests that being a consistent writer with a frequent blog is key in not only creating, but keeping your fan base. He also suggests to use any Internet advertising, like adsense for example, in order to make your name known. In addition, he explains that a creative URL can go a long way because it will help search engine users stumble upon your blog. Domain names and titles such as abcCommunication.com and xyzTechnology.com will be generated in searches more often than joesmith.com.
With this in mind, the case study I have put together is about my roommate’s 30 year old brother, Richard Stern aka Lazydork. During the day Richard is a Miami-Dade County prosecutor in Florida. This young professional has two jobs. He is a lawyer by day and an Internet sensation by night. Richard created his blog/movie website as a way to communicate his passion for movies and goes by the alias Lazydork. The original purpose of the site was to review movies, but he later added movie-drinking games. Nevertheless, he knew that the small success he was having could skyrocket if he could find another channel through which to communicate.
With the growth of youtube.com he saw an opportunity of a new social network in which he could reach an audience with the use of videos. He stated in an interview on CNN that if young teenagers were getting half a million hits for their videos, then why couldn’t he and his girlfriend do the same? What began as movie reviews flourished into funny shorts, including rap videos which are parodies based on random topics, other youtubers, and even celebrities. Here is an example of one of his famous videos:
Richard has entertained over 1.5 million people over the Internet. His success can be monitored from a various array of sources including his main homepage and his youtube videos. On several occasions his videos have been featured as the film of the day on youtube and/or referred to by many bloggers for awards. One example is from http://theutubeblog.com/ which featured this video as their video of the week:
Unfortunately, internet success has a negative side too. According to Scoutblogging there are many ways to prepare oneself. You can either ignore the comments or you can address them. Richard does have many fans, but he also has a following of people who hate him and supply negative feedback. Even so, he studies both the positive and the negative comments and strikes back to his critiques with either strands of internet conversation and/or video responses. Negative comments in my opinion do help in terms of constructive criticism because you find areas you need to improve upon, but what do you think?
In the end Richard is a perfect example of a young professional who had a communication objective of getting popularity on the Internet. He has done so by utilizing his Internet connections and developing a growing fan club while doing so. His success is documented in several written publications and media outlets such as CNN, FoxNews, the NYtimes, The Miami Herald, Wikipedia, and blogs. He is classified as a youtube star. You can go to his webpage and participate in his online radio broadcast and find out what he is up to next. Do you know anyone who has had success like Richard?
What is funny is that I have been debiting in my mind how to write this blog about the battle for High Definition DVD players for about a week. As I walk out of the shower this morning I stumbled upon this story. Toshiba, today finally dropped out of the battle. They claimed that the final blow occurred when Warner Brothers joined BluRay last week. They were behind in the campaign and BluRay had way to many supporters.
Here is there current list of supporters of BluRay:
Sony
Matsushita (Panasonic)
Warner Bros
Wal-Mart
Walt Disney
20th Century Fox
Blockbuster
Netflix
According to internet sources Toshiba will only continue to sell HD-players until the end of March this year and continue to play the technical support role.
This battle reminds me of the VHS Vs. Betamax wars. What happened from that is that VHS became more popular and more affordable and I only believe it is a matter of that time as well for BluRay. What do you guys think?
For more information about BluRay click here Currently Toshiba has not made any remarks on their website as of 2/19/08
Wow…Isn’t this idea nuts? If you click here you can look at some insane statistics about how much revenue is invested in it and the number of users. As of Feb 13, 2008 there are over 12 million users. This is a new untapped industry that has not really been fully acknowledged by the world. The main reason is because it has not been completely mainstreamed to everyone in the world.
Many corporations and companies are investing in this technology. One example is how IBM has their own island for meetings and has people all across the world meet in a virtual boardroom. IBM states that this is a cheaper and more productive way of conducting business. In these meetings they can conduct PowerPoint slides and hold conversations. Just from watching the video the sky is the limit. Just from hearing how universities like Harvard and hotel chains are starting to invest and market themselves.
The revenue of second life is outstanding due to the currency exchange. Rates fluctuate based on supply and demand, but over the last few years they have remained fairly stable at approximately 250 Linden Dollars (L$) to the US Dollar. Second life is a big marketing target for advertisement, but who to say it is not for Public Relations? Political campaigns and music concerts are commonly broadcasted in town halls and on the radio simultaneously. The Machinima world even has its own newspaper of events that are happening in the world. Katie Benner, a Fortune reporter, has stated that second life has excelled in the corporate world by conducting interviews and hiring people from this online form of communication.
Second Life alone is an underestimated Public Relation tool. It is a great place to start advertising products and other feature items or locations for clients. They even have their own daily newspaper. One way many users communicate is through the http://blog.secondlife.com/. This is how they can freely express ideas and events that are occurring in their virtual world. Second Life is only five years old and is full of potential to continually expanding. It would be an advantage to become a master and learn how to succeed in it.
For those who have been following my blog you should be aware of this monumental proposal that Microsoft was offering Yahoo. Yahoo denied the deal stating that the offer was extremely undervalued. The trade talks have been greatly affecting both corporations’ stock prices and now Microsoft has to debate if they want to make a higher bid. This now opens the opportunity for other organizations to seek Yahoo and possibly help cornerstone or monopolize the search engine industry. What do you think?
The gatekeeper is the biggest challenge of any PR professional as I have learned over my tenure as a student and as a young professional. Media relation specialist Bill Arnovich (1) says: “When pitching the media, it’s important that you know something about who you are calling. If it’s a magazine read, not simply page through, a couple different issues and if it’s a radio show, listen to it.” At SMU we have had the fortunate experience of taking classes where we represented clients and were in charge of developing a media kit to help raise awareness about their organization. This experience taught me that pitching a story is like jumping into a black whole. The possibility that your story is ever picked up is almost like pining a tail on a donkey.
How do you get passed the gatekeeper?
I learned from Jeff Crilley (2) and his book Free Publicity that there are several ways to improve your chances. Jeff is an Emmy Award winning reporter who explains how to reach success. He says the only chance you have is doing your homework like Bill said. You need to research people who cover the subject of your stories. Once you find them you have to be sharp about when to pitch because of the small window of opportunity. Vicki Giammona (3), a producer for the 11 a.m. news on ABC 7, explores this idea when she explains about pitching. The “two rules not to break” are contacting someone too late and contacting the wrong person. Jeff and Vikki both explain that by doing this you bypass the gatekeeper and will be one step ahead of everyone else. Some of the key tips Jeff gives for success once you have gotten pass the gatekeeper are:Always be available: You never know when you will get another chance to meet the reporter.
Always be appropriate: don’t pitch false stories
Never violate a reporter’s trust: you do this and you’re blackballed
Thank you notes: They go a long way because it starts a personal relationship
Patience: Keep making reports because once you have success the reporters will continually come to you. But do not forget how to maintain a strong relationship and do not burn bridges.
Deirdre Breakenridge has an article at http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=25077 that gives specific details of how to build internet relationships. Bill, Jeff, Vikki, and David clearly explain that you will get the relationships and ink you want for both print and broadcast media if you follow the basic tools they provided.
My suggestion for young professionals is to start making a list of contacts that you know will provide you support when you apply for jobs. Once joining an industry you should make a contact list of people to contact and not to contact and rely on your coworkers who have had experiences with certain media outlets to continue growing your contacts.
I was watching some old Saturday Night Live highlights the other day on comedy central and I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw this one. I miss the old SNL days especially the first season with Chevy Chase and the later versions with Will Farrell. I think the series of celebrity jeopardy were hysterical because it made fun of the classic game show of whit and knowledge and replaced it with good humor and silly questions that we all know the answers to. This is a tribute to their humor which made us laugh and cry and I hope everyone enjoys this trip down memory lane.
For those who do not know, Microsoft is trying to make a shrewd business decision and invest ~43 Billion in the purchase of Yahoo search engine. This alarms companies like Google because they are worried about a possible monopolization of internet searching. Yahoo is also afraid that if they turn down the offer that Google may take it. So, it's conflict resolution day. It's either Lose/Lose, Win/Lose, Win/Win, Compromise, or Win/Win/Win. Which do you think will happen? Personally, I like Microsoft's move because of the constant obstacles that the company faces. I think Apple has been making such a tremendous move that Bill Gates has to be creative and figure ways to compete with Steve Jobs. I personally think that if Microsoft buys Yahoo, more creative sites similar to it will either become popular or create a better race in the internet industry. It is history in the making, lets see what happens!
Well sports fans your polls are in and the votes have the underdog giants winning this weekends superbowl. First of all thank you to my sports fans who have participated in my Super Bowl poll. Shockingly, the vegas sport books only gave Eli Manning and the Giants a 12 point spread versus the perfect Tom Brady and New England Patriots. I have a feeling more people were more excited about this day then going to church with tailgating that will probably start the day before. I enjoyed the game and the commericals that ranged at $2.7 million dollars for a 30 second spot. I myself was one of the very few New York Giants. As a Dolfins fan the undefeated 1972 season is pretty much all we have left and I want Eli to get the credit he deserved. It was by far the best game I have ever watched for the Super Bowl. Way to overcome the media hype and show to never count out the underdog. Thank you New York for Keeping the Miami Dolphins spot in history in the record books alone.
