Norton comes out

Staying anonymous in the blogosphere seems to be a harder task than what some might have expected. The blogger who writes under the nom de plume “Alicio Hernandez” got outed (or did he?) a few weeks back after months and months of speculation. Today, the second pseudonymous blogger, “Norton Tierra” of Stockholm Spectator has decided to uncloak himself after what has probably been an immense pressure. One can only recommend anyone that intends to become an integral part of the blogosphere and still remain anonymous to take into consideration what would happen if their true identity was exposed, and if that risk is worth taking. That said, even though I prefer to know who I am debating with, seems like a more fair game, I don’t approve of people trying to expose anonymous bloggers.

Google launch free video hosting

Via Poynter Online I notice that Google have launched a beta version of a service where users can upload videos of any size and Google will host it for free. Google Video Upload Program allows you to charge whatever you want for users to download your videos.

Poynter writes:
“Another angle to consider is the effect this will have on news. If someone captures an incredible event with a camcorder, how many would be inclined to give it to a local news channel for free when they have a free micropayment system to sell it to a worldwide audience?”

Could mean a lot for the development of citizen journalism.

Planning has started for Global PR Blog Week 2.0

I participated in Global PR Blog Week 1.0 last year and now it’s time for the sequel.

WHAT
The Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is an online conference on how new media technologies are changing the practice of Public Relations and corporate communications. We’re talking weblogs and participatory journalism, wikis, podcasting, and RSS – but the list of topics is open.

WHEN
Sometime between May and October 2005, most likely the week starting June 13.

WHERE
On the Web. The conference planning is hosted by the NewPR Wiki, and the conference will take place at www.globalprblogweek.com.

WHO
People interested in the subject of the conference. You don’t have to be a blogger in order to participate.

1. You can be an organizer. We need a small, result-oriented, consensus-driven 🙂 group of people that will take care of all the aspects of the conference: hosting, web design, press release writing, editing, communicating with participants, etc. All organizers are volunteers, and they will receive credit for their contribution.

2. You can be a participant, if you are interested in posting an original, consistent article, or an audio interview/debate (podcast) on the conference’s weblog.

The number of people blogging on PR-related issues has grown since July 2004, from about 30 to more than 180. We’ll have to find a way to:

* have great quality content
* accommodate as many participants as possible
* encourage new voices to join the conversation
* organize the content in a way that makes sense for readers.

Strongly encouraged:

* original content. No republishing or refactoring of old articles.
* fresh content. Not yet another “blogging is good for business” type of article.
* research. Quantitative research, case studies, best practices.
* collaboration. Articles written by two or more authors.
* group discussions. Podcasts featuring more than one interviewee. Round tables. Debates.
* non-commercial, non-partisan approach. Don’t pimp your company, services, or expertize; put everything in a larger context.

HOW
There are many decisions to be made: what topics should be excluded, if the numbers of postings/participant should be limited, how to select postings/authors, who will make the selection and on what criteria, and so on.

1) If you want to participate in the decision making process, subscribe to the discussion list available at http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/prblogweek2/ (send an e-mail to prblogweek2-subscribe@yahoogroups.com – your subscription will be approved in the next 12 hours).

Please note that, for transparency purposes, this is a PUBLIC list, so all messages and archives are public. No other data (like e-mail addresses) are public.

2) If you DON’T want to participate in the decision process, but you WANT to participate to the event, then please send an e-mail to Constantin Basturea (cbasturea at gmail.com) or Elizabeth Albrycht (ealb at ampcomm.com) with the title of the article/ posting/ podcast you want to contribute, and we’ll add it to a special page on the NewPR Wiki. Later, you might have to send a half-page summary of your contribution.

The weblog’s content will be licensed under a Creative Commons license (its type will be determined later).

GET UPDATES
If you want to get updates about the event, you can:

* watch this page on the NewPR Wiki:
http://www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki.php/PRBlogWeek2/HomePage
* subscribe to the RSS feed of the discussion groups:
http://rss.groups.yahoo.com/group/prblogweek2/rss
* read the messages on the discussion list:
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/prblogweek2/
* subscribe to Global PR Blog Week’s RSS feed:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/globalprblogweek

SPREAD THE WORD
Feel free to post this announcement on your weblog, or to e-mail it to someone who might be interested in participating.