Microsoft vs. Wikipedia (and Other PR Blog Jots)

Microsoft Irks Wikipedia

Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog

Microsoft caused a stir in the blogosphere this week by offering cash to a blogger in exchange for updates to the Microsoft section on the popular community encyclopedia Wikipedia.  Wikipedia bars anyone with a potential conflict of interest (including PR firms) from updating their articles, and balked at Microsoft’s efforts to correct what they claim were inaccuracies in an article about open source document standards.  “[Microsoft spokesperson Catherine] Brooker said Microsoft had gotten nowhere in trying to flag the purported mistakes to Wikipedia's volunteer editors, so it sought an independent expert who could determine whether changes were necessary and enter them on Wikipedia. Brooker said Microsoft believed that having an independent source would be key in getting the changes to stick—that is, to not have them just overruled by other Wikipedia writers.”

Boyd Still Thinks the Press Release is Dead

/Message

In the ongoing debate over the social media press release vs. the blog, Stowe Boyd responds to Kyle Flaherty's post from yesterday, which insists that a traditional (or social media) press release is still needed even if a company decides to begin communicating through a blog.  Boyd claims that public relations professionals are simply reluctant to move on to something new, and that the press release is indeed dead. “If companies want to converse with people about their plans, announced products, whatever -- the stuff now packaged as press releases -- they will have to adopt a conversational manner, which includes dropping most of the crap associated with press releases. So, no, you really don't need the old "press release": you need something else, altogether.”

New Research Demonstrates ROI for Blogging

Micro Persuasion

Steve Rubel examines new research from Forrester which studies the return on investment a given company may see from setting up a blog. Forrester spoke to several Fortune 500 companies with blogs to determine the benefits and applied a crisis management level of thinking to assess the risks and determine how much value companies see from joining the blogosphere. “When measuring impact they advise using metrics that everyone is familiar with and then to associate each with a dollar value that quantifies the benefit. One idea that they outline, which I like a lot, is to estimate how much the company would have to pay to achieve a similar outcome. So, for example, they suggest benchmarking a blog against services like Buzz Agent.”