Okay, so been sitting here thinking about Strumpette (no need to link), and the call I got from Brian Con nolly ... and just mulling it over to think over the whole thing. On one hand, the first post was amusing. It said stuff that most of us were thinking anyway, but someone put out there. In the end, did it matter? Of course not. It's a blog. Thinking it through, I began to wonder if this was just a bad April Fool's Joke gone badly awry. Launched a week early - it smelled immediately, just from the first email - to string along PR people, then expose us for something or other. But, then it blew up. It blew up badly, and I doubt Connolly (if it is him) understood the nature of blogs or the blogosphere. And, well, it also showed that the person(s) involved do not fully understand the scrutiny nature of the blogosphere. He did call me up after I posted a comment on Krempasky . One little l esson - unless the blogger is a friend, start most conversations with "this is NFB...

Probably one of the best magazine covers ever (and, well, magazines) ... and, no, I don't think they really killed the dog. But, to jump on the latest meme ... with fun viewpoints from David Parmet and Josh Hallett , and the man that started it, Scott Baradell . I, however, am free for dates ... but prolly not for links. I'm holding out for Strumpette , though. Well, she's on a short list. Okay, enough with the kitschy fun ... and back to posts on PR and issues there ...

I like Skype . I like the woman that initially launched the service via PR, and she did an amazing job. She understands mainstream media, I got her to work with bloggers and consumer generated media (or whatever you want to call it) after a lot of ignoring her requests ... but she's no longer with them, so I feel I can write this without any contradictory feelings... Skype is blowing it, particularly in the public relations department. Yahoo! recently beta launched Yahoo! Messenger with Voice ... and nothing really came out from Skype or its PR department or firm. While that might not be true in the mainstream press - and, well, I do read that as well - it was the blogs that first broke the Y! VoIP news, particularly Om Malik , and I read no messaging or statements from Skype. Instead, just radio silence. And, it was the blogs that made Skype .... Now, Skype is being sued using the RICO Act ... something usually reserved for Mafia, drug dealers and other undesirables. Andy Abramso...

You know, doing the PR blogger tour - or, well, just meeting other PR bloggers at a few past PR events - people ask me "why are you so hell bent on issues" or "what does it matter" when speaking about PR blogging, and the purity and honesty I demand from myself (at least try) and I demand of others. So, today I am going to write about blogging. And, PR bloggers. And, well, best practices and why I seem to get so hyper about best practices ... pretty much pointing to a test I took online (and the new cool fun little icon on the left hand, bottom side). Jeremy Pepper, Tom Biro Originally uploaded by philgomes . But, let's talk about PR. It was interesting, because the other day I was talking to another PR person about the PR blogosphere. Say that really fast. My point was that most of us have a respect for each other, and occasionally share best practices. Yes, it is a competition as we all work at competing agencies, but at the same time we do not go around loo...

Yes, the ladies love cool Jeremy - and, now, there's proof that NBC Universal loves the cool ladies as well as it bought iVillage for $600M . It's been talked about for a while - that someone would snap up iVillage (here's the whole iVillage history from PaidContent ). And, NBC seems to be an interesting choice to go after iVillage, but also makes sense to fit into its television networks ( Bravo and USA ), to work within the network to promote and crosspromote within the iVillage network, which includes blogs and the old skool (which still works wonders) message boards . While I am not in the demographic, the community does not have the feel of other communities recently snapped up, like MySpace , About.com and others. But, 14MM users (stat from Robert Ricci ) is no small network to mock. It's an interesting position for PR people - there are message boards to tread lightly in, the articles themselves on the site, the potential for cross-pitching with TV shows (wh...

But, they get what it means to be captains of industry - or, what it means to have a monumental rebirth as a new company. Yep, talking about the announced acquisition of BellSouth by at&t . Slightly reminiscent of Cronos eating his own children , at&t (really, SBC - which was one of the kids - but let's not sweat the details) is beginning to look like it is going to dominate the pipeline, the telco and be the possible backbone of Internet 2.0 (not to be confused with Web 2.0, but that really, really cool project that will double the speed of the 'Net). Yes, in some sense that is scary - but the funny thing to me is that it's a big "fuck you" to those bloggers that were all up in arms about the at&t billboards , and the whining that ensued. So what if "blog" or "podcast" do not come up on its Website? Is that really going to end the day, or does the backend technology that enables this stuff just as important as the stuff itself? At ...

Robert Scoble and Shel Israel , the authors of Naked Conversations , closed out the New Communications Forum speaking about, well, about blogging and how it's changing communications. Scoble and Israel are talking about how lists do not matter much, but what does matter is the viral aspect of blogs and social networks. If you like to fly kites, and want to blog about kites, blog about kites - it does not matter if you have five readers that enjoy your blog, they still are enjoying your blog. To be successful, you don't need 1000's of readers, but to just have passion ... and it will still be viral. Another interesting point that came up, though, was that marketing is moving from mass, to a mass micro-marketing. With all the research we have, companies know what the customer wants, but it is about delivering the products. It's about knowing what the customer wants geographically, and then able to provide the right product to the right places. The closing line was: What...

Sitting here today, as I came down on Caltrain (pretty fast ride) to do a podcast with Brian Oberkirch with other PR bloggers, and then sit and attend today. The other PR (and not PR) bloggers were: Josh Hallett , Shel Israel , David Parmet , Mike Manuel and sickly Phil Gomes . And, joining us toward the end was Evelyn Rodriguez . It was a good roundtable on the good and bad of PR and blogging, and where we all see the industry going. I gave the boombastic comments, naturally, but we were all in agreement that it's about social networks ... Which lead to Charlene Li 's keynote address was about social networks, and how the industry is changing for marketing and public relations to social networks. We don't control anything - not that marketing and PR really has controlled much - but that it's about giving up control. It's the new tools out there that are helping change things - it's email, instant messaging, RSS feeds (which can be more important than a blog...

A two-part post: first, thanking everyone that voted for me (self promotion) for the AdLand Battle of the Ad Blogs, and, second, well, the perception that PR isn't ethical. Yes, I won in the PR category, and for everyone that voted for me thank you very much. I am pretty sure that includes my kids at Auburn , and big thanks to Scott Baradell and Mike Drierhost for their endorsements. The contest was close, all the PR blogs are great ... but an interesting comment came out during the tallying of the votes by Dabitch . PR people are pretty honest folk too. Who would have thunk it? ;) (I'm kidding amigos!) Aptly named POP! PR wins the popular vote, with BL Ochman Whats Next not too far behind. Applause! Now, I didn't blog about the contest, just added the graphic and then added a line in my signature. I asked some people, did a few emails - never went on the attack against others, because in the end I was doing it for the T-shirt ... and some glory. But, all in all it wa...

Parmet is now on my "revenge" list. Four Jobs I’ve Had * Camp dishwasher * Bookkeeper's assistant / Secretarial assistant * Campus Columnist * Florist gopher Four Movies I Can Watch Over and Over * Meatballs * Dr. Strangelove * Dazed & Confused * Chasing Amy Four TV Shows I Love to Watch * Arrested Development * Simpsons * NewsRadio * Ultraman Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation * Charlevoix, MI * Florence, Italy * Israel * London Four Favorite Dishes * In-N-Out Burger ... well, any great hamburger * Homemade Macaroni & Cheese * My Bubbi 's Challah French Toast * Truly Mediterranean's Shawerma Four Websites I Visit Daily * Gmail * TechCrunch * GigaOm * BlogDigger Four Places I’d Rather Be * In Bed Sleeping * With Certain Lost Loves / New Loves * A Good Hockey Game * Playing with Perry / Spending time with Spencer Four Bloggers I am Tagging * Erin * Robert * Ricci * Scott

Okay, I track blogs . I always have. It's not a big deal, it's part of PR and what I hope to convey to others in the industry and the agency life - that it's not just enough to be tracking the media, but you need to get your Pubsub / Technorati / Blogpulse on (yes, all three). But, part of the big problem - especially for PR people - is that it is not possible to track the conversations. And, let's be honest - that is a big part of what blogging is really about: the comments and trackbacks that add to the conversation. The best way to do this so far - and what I have had to do with certain posts that I think can be detrimental to clients, or lead to something more - is to go back again and again. From Robert Scoble comes news of coComment . After I read the post - damn, it only had 12 comments at the time - I signed up for the beta, and actually got one. It's pretty cool, and an interesting service. You download the bookmarklet and then add it to your Firefox to...

There's been a lot of talk about the 25 percent . It's supposed to be this great answer to all that ails PR and ways to fix it. It's great that there's all this talk about the 25 percent ... what about the 75 percent that is still screwed up? What do I mean? Well, let's take a look back at recent events: Tello versus Arrington ; Alaska Airlines versus Jeremy Hermanns ; Six Apart versus anyone that dares criticize them ; Everyone versus Kryptonite . There are tons of examples, but these popped into my head. Well, what's so important about these? Well, it shows that blogging is not that elusive 25 percent, but that we need to worry about the other 75 percent, such as "who is an official spokesperson" for a company. I like Six Apart , for the most part. They seem like a nice company, blah blah. But, after Anil came to my blog, I called them up for a simple question ... is he an official spokesperson? After a lot of avoiding the question - Apple PR peopl...

Happy wedding to the PR Power Girl , who has announced her engagement to her ex-employee's ex-husband (well, he wasn't so ex- when Lizzie took up with him). Well, whatever makes her happy. Hope it's a long and loving marriage.

Michael Arrington is being raked over the coals because he does not like Tello . Well, he does not like the marketing of the service thus far. And, well, that's his perogative ( he can do what he wants to do ). After a ton of comments, though, let's take a look at this. First, Jeff Pulver is on the board, and he has been blogging for quite a long, long time . If there is someone that understands the value of blogging, it is Jeff and I would hope that he would have shared that belief with the company. Does that mean the company needs to blog? No - that just goes back to "not every company needs to blog, but needs to be aware of blogs" argument that I like to have with PR bloggers that only get blogs. But, it might not be Tello acting with less than common sense, but its PR firm that might not know or understand the blogosphere. That is quite a possibility. Or, they might have just been under orders to concentrate on MSM moreso than blogs - and that is the right of ...

It's been an active new years for the Wire service. First, PR Newswire let go of approximately half of their sales staff - Dee Rambeau has a good explanation of the layoffs (as a partner) here - and then BusinessWire got bought by the Oracle of Omaha , Warren Buffett. Now, to add to the pain for the Wire services, Amy Gahran re-raises the issue of should the press release wither and die . But, she's taking it a step further by joining forces with Topaz Partners and finding the answers on whether or not you need Wire services for SEC guidelines. This all comes on the backend of me having the chance to interview the founder of Primezone , Tom Madden , and getting his views on the future of the Wire industry. And, who knew this, but Primezone is the third largest Wire service. Okay, the idea of this post started with two things: first, InternetWire's PR firm sent me a bad blog pitch touting the security of InternetWire - mainly at the expense of BusinessWire and an SEC i...