15 Minutes of (YouTube) Fame (and Other PR Blog Jots)
Bitemarks
Many bloggers are chattering today about a Wall Street Journal piece from Michael Totty focusing on YouTube's "online stars." The article offered practical advice for achieving “fame” on the popular video-sharing site, including encouraging consistency and noting that the more attractive you are physically, the better you’re likely to do. In a post in praise of the article, Kristin Maverick wonders why more stars aren’t discovered online. She muses that cattle call auditions for anything from music acts to major motion pictures could be moved entirely onto a site like YouTube. “While yes it caused a big stir, they could have canceled all of the time and money used to create one of those casting calls and just take videos submitted online. The "online celebrity" world is still at the beginning with its early stars of Lonelygirl15 and Ask a Ninja being used as great landmarks for online hopefuls, but I see great possibility for the future.”
BL Ochman
While praising the advances Dell has made in recent years to its customer outreach, BL Ochman notes that the official Dell blog is actually hard to find from the company’s main site. She finds that Dell isn’t alone on this front, as the blogs from other major companies (Hewlett Packard, General Motors, and IBM among them). So what gives? BL thinks it may be a sign that even the most progressive companies on the social media front are still somewhat wary of the medium. “I think a lot of companies are still not sure they trust this "new" medium not to inflict a stock-crashing blog storm on them. So their toes are in the water, but they're still behaving like those old folks at the beach who don't want to get their suits wet.”
Strategic Public Relations
While most posts from PR bloggers recently have bemoaned the existence of the PR Store (an “Office Max”-like store where companies lacking the budget for PR and marketing departments and retainers can purchase standardized release and media kit templates, marketing and sales materials, promotional items, and various other trappings of the PR trade), Kevin Dugan wonders if they should all be looking at it from another angle. He points out that the existence and success of the PR store should only urge PR firms to strive harder to differentiate their work from one-stop-shopping, and that it proves that even the smallest of companies see value in public relations. “If you take issue with PRstore, your best work is the best response. The client wins, you win, and the delta between you and PR on a Stick become wide enough that you can gaze at it comfortably—through a telescope.”
I saw one of those PR bloggers bemoaning The PR Store here: http://www.unboundedition.com/content/view/514/50/
Don't know how I feel about his assessment, but it's a pretty funny read. Especially Pen Island. lol
Posted by: chuck | May 16, 2007 at 03:31 PM