Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet will start to charge for more of its online content. Martin Jönsson points out that even the top news story on Aftonbladet.se today is locked for non-subscribers. This is especially noteworthy since the same story is also covered in Metro this morning - for free.

Footnote: The article is now available at Aftonbladet.se here.

Tags: pay per view, media, aftonbladet, metro. Ping.

"Don't tell my mother I work in an advertising agency - she thinks I play piano in a whorehouse", is a well-known quote. Maybe the same could be said about the PR profession.

Last week I noticed a public relations term that I haven't encountered before - Black PR, meaning the practice of paying journalists for coverage. Apparently this is a common practice in for example Russia and other nearby countries. PR Week recently wrote that the Ukrainian Association of Public Relations (UAPR) for the first time ever had made a resolution condemning a black PR campaign. The campaign in question was allegedly arranged by telecommunications company Altimo and designed to "smear Norwegian rival Telenor and the country of Norway".

"Telenor has submitted planning documents from Altimo to the UAPR, which it claims show various journalists were paid off - $4,000 for a story, in one instance - and that Altimo had a clear and deliberate strategy to destroy the reputation of its rival. Altimo, owned by Russian company Alfa, has insisted the documents are false and, in turn, accused Telenor of waging a smear campaign against its company."

The opposite of "black PR", according to one comment in the article, is "Western-style communications". But not all Western countries seem to be as "clean" as we wish to think. At least not if we should believe Toni Muzi Falconi, a Senior Counsel at an Italian management consultancy. He recently participated in the PR Formos 2007 (pdf) conference in Vilnius, Lithuania to discuss ethical and "black" PR practices and published his speech on his blog. It lists a number of cases from Italy that could be described as black PR.

After the conference he blogged about some of the other findings.

An April 07 study of the business community in Lithuania about the role of black pr revealed that:
- 35% believe that all public relations agencies indulge in those practices and specifically 50% say that those practices are mostly used to gain direct advantages for their clients, while 47% say that they are used to smear their clients competitors.
- A good 33% of the sample say that they have been themselves victims of black pr and the same number believe that in Lithuania the practice is more widespread than elsewhere.
- Some optimism in the 32% who say the phenomena in decreasing while 28% insist that it is instead increasing.
- Finally 47% believe black pr is not a crime, 40% indicate that it is less serious than bribing a public official while 10% say it is the same.

Inga Latkovska, from Latvia, was quoted saying "that in her country it was easy to bribe the media".

Yaryna Klyuchkovska, from Ukraine, estimated that "some 50% of the pr spent goes in those practices, without even considering political pr where it certainly much higher".

Thorsten Lutzler of the DPRG, the German public relations association, said that black PR is also conducted in Western Europe and "that 54% of the German public believes that pr is propaganda". He also stated that the DPRG had a new policy to go out in public and denounce every bad practice.

Tags: pr, black pr, public relations, pr, ukraina, litauen. Ping.

Nine times out of ten when I go online for quick news I prefer Aftonbladet.se before Expressen.se. I find Aftonbladet easier to navigate and that they give away more information for free. Today I can give you a good example of how Expressen at times are way behind "Sweden's leading news portal".

Last night, one of the most exciting football games this season was played at Old Trafford. The first Champions League semi final between Manchester United and AC Milan, and what a party it was. The game had everything and for a Man U fan like me, the finish was excellent when Wayne Rooney turned a possible defeat around to secure a 3-2 win for the Red Devils. Since the game ended late last night, media coverage in the morning papers were scarce. Aftonbladet on the other hand has the story online on its frontpage and at least four articles (here, here, here and here), plus additional facts and photos.

When I check Expressen.se, it is even hard to find the coverage. I click on the "Football" section of the site, and believe it or not - I have to scroll down 16 pages before I find anything about the game. The only article found online is a short piece, two paragraphs with a quote from the studio at TV6.

Next time I need a quick sports update, I will choose Aftonbladet.se again.

Tags: champions league, manchester united, wayne rooney, expressen, aftonbladet, fotboll, sport, champions league. Ping.

Media Culpa's PR Flop of the Day Award goes to FILA, the international wrestling federation, for naming Swedish female wrestler and bronze medalist Sofia Mattsson the most good-looking wrestler during the Europan Championship 2007 in Sofia (!), Bulgaria. We thought they were just wrestlers, not participants in beauty pageants. Kudos to Sofia and Patrik Jansson, the Swedish national team manager, who refused to accept the "Miss Europe" award.

Tags: fila, wrestling, public relations, pr, brottning. Ping.

Pew Internet & American Life Project today published a new report (pdf) called "Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks: How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace". The report talks about what kind of information teens share on social networks and what they keep hidden from strangers (and/or parents).

"Many teens post their first name and photos on their profiles, they rarely post information on public profiles they believe would help strangers actually locate them such as their full name, home phone number or cell phone number."

Of those whose profile can be accessed by anyone online, nearly half (46%) say they give at least some false information. Other interesting findings about the teens with online profils are:

- 82% of profile creators have included their first name in their profiles
- 79% have included photos of themselves.
- 61% have included the name of their city or town.
- 49% have included the name of their school.
- 29% have included their email address.
- 29% have included their last names.
- 2% have included their cell phone numbers.
- 6% of online teens and 11% of profile-owning teens post their first and last names on publicly-accessible profiles;
- 3% of online teens and 5% of profile-owning teens disclose their full names, photos of themselves and the town where they live in publicly-viewable profiles.

As a result, 63% of teens with profiles believe that a motivated person could eventually identify them.

Tags: social networks, pew, sociala media, ungdomar. Ping.

We already new that the hyped-up service Twitter is not the place for deep thoughts. This week, A-list blogger Steve Rubel learned the hard way that a moment of reflection doesn't hurt before publishing your views to the world. Here's what he wrote on Twitter a few days ago:

"PC Mag is another. I have a free sub but it goes in the trash,"

Not the best comment when you are a Senior Vice President of a PR agency that continuously pitches stories to the same publication. Jim Louderback, Editor in Chief of PC Magazine, wasn't amused and he comments over at Strumpette.

Then one could argue that threatening to boycott Edelman PR all together is a huge overreaction, but Louderback indeed has some very good points.

"...I get a chance to remind everyone out there in PR that, even if you don't read that copy of PC Magazine, please don't toss it "in the trash". Pass it along to someone who really wants it - or at the very least, be kind to the earth and drop it in the recycle bin instead."

Rubel apologizes.

Tags: twitter, public relations, PR, twitter. Ping.

Microsoft today communicates a report from European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) about how social networks, blogs and video sites are the driving forces behind the next generation of internet usage. How is this promoted? Through an old fashioned press release. It is of course possible that this story is also communicated through other channels, but no blogs are linking to this press release yet (search via Technorati and Knuff). Stories like this one should of course be given to bloggers like me (and not via a press release please). Instead, I have to settle for press releases with headlines like these:

DHL sees advantages with a differentiated kilometre tax for heavy vehicles
DHL ser fördelar med en differentierad kilometerskatt för tunga fordon

Healthy fast food ready for break through
Nyttig fast food står inför genombrott

Unity for freedom
Enighet för frihet

World leader in HR in new co-operation with Jönköpings Södra
Världsetta inom HR i nytt samarbete med Jönköpings Södra

Star Wars robot in your own living room
Star Wars-robot i ditt eget vardagsrum

Kläppen attracts sun worshipers and people celebrating Easter
Kläppen lockar soldyrkare och påskfirare

I can go on and on with mindnumbingly boring press releases about topics that have absolutely nothing to do with what I am blogging about. It is quite obvious that Swedish PR professionals have a lot to learn about blogger relations. Contact me if you want a crash course :)

Tags: blog relations, public relations, PR, bloggar. Ping.

One of the reasons why it is so interesting to study blogs and the effect they have on mainstream media and businesses is that an entirely new group of people suddenly becomes influential. Many of these new opinion leaders are anonymous or at least only known to a select number of friends or relatives (50% of all Swedish bloggers were anonymous in 2006 - source: BlogSweden 2).

One of the most controversial Swedish bloggers two years ago blogged under the pseudonym of "Alicio" (not a favourite). Today, the most linked to blog in Sweden is Beta Alfa (a favourite), publisher unknown. Blog related services like Knuff, Nyligen, Intressant and others have become hugely successful and influential, and many are run by previously unknown entrepreneurs, in these cases by the unknown Johan Larsson.

Andreas Ekström today writes an article in Journalisten where he wonders who Johan Larsson is. With all that power and influence maybe we are all entitled to know more about this mystery man? And I agree that I am very curious myself about the person behind these terrific services. But on the other hand I have the deepest respect for the fact that he wants to keep his private life private.

Admittedly, if one single person sits on a database that allows him to analyze the behaviour and opinions of a large group of people, there needs to be some kind of control mechanism so that this power is not used in an unethical way. But that doesn't mean that we have the right to know private information about this person. Remember that the ethical rules for the press state that media should respect the privacy of the individual and not publish information that isn't evidently in the public interest. And I don't think that personal information about Johan Larsson is.

Respektera den personliga integriteten
7. Överväg noga publicitet som kan kränka privatlivets helgd. Avstå från sådan publicitet om inte ett uppenbart allmänintresse kräver offentlig belysning.

Footnote: Johan responds.

Tags: privacy, journalism, johan larsson, media. Ping.

OK, so I have been away on vacation for a week, but this is just ridiculous.



Tags: vacation, information, post, semester. Ping.

You are currently reading one of the top 100 marketing blogs in the world, at least if you should believe Todd And's list The Power 150 - Top Marketing Blogs. He is running an ambitious project which lists top blogs based on a number of factors like Google PageRank, Technorati links, Bloglines subscribers and Todd's own opinion. Media Culpa is currently at number 71 in the list. Thanks Todd.

Adland is at number 25. Congrats Åsk.

Tags: marketing blogs, adland, bloggar, topplistor, media culpa. Ping.

Kristine Lowe has some interesting comments about what happened when CNN decided to report about the death threats to blogger Kathy Sierra:

"Imagine your're putting together a documentary, or just a news story for the screen, and all the people you feature in your story blog the entire transcript, or their key quotes, for fear your editing should misrepresent their positions. That's exactly what happened when CNN put together their story, Dark side of the Net, on the recent firestorm in the wake of death threats against A-list blogger Kathy Sierra (Creating Passionate Users)."

Read more here.

Tags: kathy sierra, death threats, bloggar, hot, medier. Ping.

Dagens Nyheter (DN Kultur) introduces five new blogs and I was going to write a sulphurous piece about Jonas Thente's warped attitude towards blogs. Thente writes that the blog is "a great way of escaping things like checking facts and stylistics". Yeah, blame the pencil for poor stories. But then I decided not to. This all seems too much of a plan. Insult the blogosphere and have everybody talking about your blog. No, let's ignore it if the blog doesn't get any better than this.

Stationsvakt comments too.

UPDATE: Jonas: "I was only kidding".

Tags: media, blogs, bloggar, thente, dn. Ping.

A new Danish blog survey, BlogTjek 07, shows that the typical blog reader in Denmark is a 34 year-old woman, living in Copenhagen. She reads about 2-5 blogs and prefer personal blogs.

- 63 percent of the readers are women, 37 percent are men.
- 50 percent of the male blog readers have a blog of their own, while only 40 percent of the female readers blog.

More than 3,500 blog readers participated in the survey. Full report here (pdf).

For reference see BlogSweden 2 (in English), a Swedish blog readers survey.

Tags: blogtjek, denmark, bloggar, danmark. Ping.

PodCamp Europe is coming to Stockholm 12-13 June. It might be the first unconference, i.e. a conference that is arranged and driven by the participants, to be held in Sweden (?). PodCamp Europe is "a gathering of podcasters, bloggers, and new media professionals & amateurs for two days to share, explore, challenge, and grow our abilities in new media. Learn about audio and video podcasting, blogging, photography, Second Life, Twitter, and all kinds of other new and social media tools."

Even though I have some other plans for June, I will definitely try to attend this event.

Tags: podcamp, podcasting, unconference, podcasting, stockholm. Ping.

I had to look at the date of this article in IHT, but it unfortunately didn't say April 1st. Turns out that the Canadian governement is proposing to change the law to grant the organizing committee of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games the rights to common words like "winter", "gold", "silver", "medals", "sponsor", "games", "21st" and "2010". The article says that journalists are exempted from the law, but will bloggers get the green light too? Probably not, if the IOC has the same anti-blog attitude as in the past.

[Via Dennis.]

Tags: ioc, olympics, vancouver 2010, os, kanada. Ping.

Last Thursday I attended an annual event arranged by The Swedish Public Relations Association (SPRA). Below are some notes from the day, only in Swedish unfortunately (I'm lazy today).



Förra torsdagen spenderade jag alltså på hotell Rival på Söder i Stockholm där Sveriges Informationsförening anordnade Informationens Dag 2007 på temat "det tysta samhället/det öppna samhället". Hans-Gunnar Axberger, professor i medierätt, målade inledningsvis en bild av hur medierna inte längre bör anses vara den tredje statsmakten. Han menade att det istället är det öppna samhället, eller yttrandefriheten, som är den tredje statsmakten. Medierna själva har fått eller tagit på sig ett uppdrag och med detta uppdrag blev medierna "ett" med tredje statsmakten. Nu, menar Axberger, frånträder medierna sitt uppdrag mot medborgarna i och med att det blivit allt mindre lönsamt att producera den typ av journalistik som gransakar makten för medborgarnas räkning.

Axberger tog sedan upp en passage ur Bertil Torekulls "bloggattack" i Dagens Nyheter, där Torekull skriver om utrikesminister Carl Bildts blogg: "Ska de också bedriva skyttegravskrig mot medier och enskilda via personliga tribuner förskjuts den maktbalans som i tryckfrihetsförordningen förlänar ett demokratiskt uppdrag till medierna att noga granska de styrande." Axberger pekade på att det faktiskt inte finns någon sådan maktbalans angiven i TF utan att TF uppmuntrar och skyddar den enskilda individens yttrandefrihet (det visar sig också på att ordet "envar" upprepas flitigt i första paragrafen): "Med tryckfrihet förstås varje svensk medborgares rätt att, utan några av myndighet eller annat allmänt organ i förväg lagda hinder, utgiva skrifter..."

Axberger tillägger att man naturligtvis kan kritisera och granska det Bildt bloggar om, men inte att han rundar medierna (så länge han är tillgänglig även för medierna direkt).

Därefter kom journalisten/författaren Yrsa Stenius med ett kort anförande som osade av frän mediekritik. "Medierna hotar sig själva inifrån" sa hon bland annat med hänvisning till att dagens medier mest har blivit en form av underhållningsindustri. Och även hon berörde bloggens betydelse för mediemarknaden och hävdade att, även om många börjar övervärdera bloggens betydelse, det var en revolution att kommunikation mellan målgrupper kan ske utan att man behöver gå via medierna. "Bloggen måste få finnas" och "bloggar ställer helt nya krav på journalister" var två andra citat från Stenius.

Bloggen var för övrigt påtagligt närvarande i de flesta diskutioner under dagen. I avsnittet "Näringslivets engagemang i samhället - en bristvara?" menade Marie Ehrling att näringslivet idag inte kommer ut i medierna med frågeställningar om vad direktörer gör. Det som belyses mest är vad de tjänar och huruvida det är för mycket eller inte (underförstått: svaret är nästan alltid 'ja'). Direktörer kanske borde börja blogga så att man får en inblick i hur det är att vara ledare i ett företag, fortsatte Marie Ehrling.

Avsnittet "Från DN debatt till bloggar - vem påverkar egentligen?" efter lunch med Sigge Eklund och Dagens Nyheters Nils Öhman såg jag fram emot men tyvärr lyckades inte dagens moderator Göran Rosenberg ställa några frågor som gick på djupet. Istället såg Rosenberg till att skaffa sig själv en 45-minuters lektion i vad en blogg är för något, vilket var synd då Öhman och Eklund representerade två inslag från den hårt angripna mediesvängen som faktiskt har koll på bloggvärlden och dess inverkan på mediekonsumtionen. Men jag fick iallafall tillfälle att byta några ord med Sigge efteråt.

Till sist delades två priser ut, Ljuspennan för bästa interninformation, och Stora Informationspriset. Tyvärr vann Ericsson båda priserna, vilket var dagens antiklimax. All heder åt Henry Sténson och hans trupper, men om Informationsföreningen ska lyckas engagera branschen i dylika tävlingar så bör man belöna innovativa organisationer som lyckas väl med sitt informationsarbete utan att ha en jättebudget till förfogande.

Ericssons vd Carl-Henric Svanberg avslöjade till slut per telefonlänk att han inte hade några planer på att börja blogga själv.

Uppdatering: Informationsföreningen har publicerat några egna noteringar från dagen, och avslutar med att berömma avsnittet om bloggar:

- Det var en jättebra dag, lärorik och belysande. Det som var mest lärorikt var passet om bloggar. Nu förstår jag hur stort och viktigt det är, sa Yvonne Kaplan, konsult i eget företag, efter dagen.

Tags: journalism, blogs, newspapers, journalistik, tidningar. Ping.

I recently wrote about the rapid growth of the social networking site Facebook, which had 30 billion page views monthly. Now Venture Beat writes that the site has jumped to 1.5 billion daily page views, or about 45 billion per month. Facebook is also far more popular among young women (age 17-25) than MySpace, according to stats from eMarketer.

Tags: facebook, social networking, myspace, sociala media. Ping.