Author: kullin

Swedes: “What is a blog?”

Web surveys on media web sites are just about as unscientific as you can get, but they can still serve as an indication. The Swedish arm of IT publishing house IDG has a web survey on its web site idg.se and asks readers about blogs.

“Do you use blogs at your company?”

69.5% What’s a blog?

6.2% We don’t know if we’re blogging or not.

11.2% We have looked at it but decided it’s not for us.

1.3% We are blogging, but are sceptical.

2.3% We are blogging and like it.

1.6% We have stopped blogging.

7.8% I have a private blog, but don’t know anything about corporate blogs.

Number of responses: 1059

I don’t want to read too much into the figures (if I would, then about 50 respondents either have a corporate blog or used to have, and I just don’t buy that. To my knowledge, there are just a few Swedish corporate blogs to date, like JKL blog and WPR.) But it is fascinating that such a high percentage answers “What is a blog?”. The readers of idg.se should be among the most tech savvy audiences out there.

RSS to be included in Apple’s browser Safari

If you ever doubted the importance of distributing information via RSS, take a look at what Dan Gillmor writes about Apple’s next operating system, OS X 10.4, aka “Tiger”, and the web browser Safari.

Jobs spent a fair amount of time talking about the native inclusion of RSS into an upcoming version of the Safari browers, and a “personal clipping” service. There’s a special search function just for RSS; I’m not clear on whether it’s searching via one of the main RSS search engines, whether Apple will write its own or whether it’s only searching your designated feeds.

Apple says: “Scan all the latest news, information and articles from thousands of your favorite major news organizations, community web sites and personal weblogs in one simple-to-read, searchable article list using Safari RSS.”

PR blogging in Iran

Trevor Cook posts about blogging in Iran, which reminds me that I had an email conversation a few weeks ago with Hossein Emami, who is a PR blogger in Iran.

Hossein, who is a real PR blog pioneer, has his own PR blog and he started and runs a corporate blog for his employer, the Export Development Bank of Iran.This was the first corporate blog in Iran. According to Hossein, one of the most important advantages of a corporate blog is the informal tone of voice, compared to more traditional ways of communication. His personal blog is called Ravabete Omoomi, which means “Public Relaions” in Farsi.

Hossein:

“Now there are 5 active bloggers in Iran who write about PR. I write about Media, electronic public relations, journalism, Information communication technology (ICT) etc.”

He says that there are two PR societies in Iran: http://www.prsir.org and http://www.pr-pa.org (link does not work at the moment) and that blogging is developing in Iran and Iranians are interested it very much. He points out that the vice president Mr. Abtahi has his own blog (mentioned on this blog earlier).

Hossein:

“There are many Iranian journalists who have blogs, such as Dr. Shokrkhah who is the chief editor of “Jam-e-Jam Online”. Jam-e-Jam is one of the newspapers in Iran with highest circulation. Altogether the journalists accept blogs, and use them as a good source of information.”

This is another illustrative example of how Swedish PR practitioners, journalists and politicians are lagging many other countries when it comes to blogging. Hopefully, the more articles are being written about blogging in Sweden, the more people will start their own blogs. The Swedish paper Axess has a long and interesting article about watchblogs and the influence of blogs on journalism. More of this, and blogging will take off soon. (Link to Axess via Erik Stattin)

Me and Doc Searls…

One of the really fun things about blogging is when your blog or a post gets picked up by an influential blogger or webpage. A few weeks ago, Dave Winer mentioned one of my posts on Scripting.com (#17 on Technorati Top 100). This week it happened again, Doc Searls, another Internet legend, linked to Media Culpa here. The Doc Searls Weblog is #22 on Technorati Top 100. It may seem insignificant, but it’s part of what makes blogging worth doing. Consider there are more than 3 million blogs out there, and you realize that your chances for attention are extremely small.

Newsweek about participatory journalism

MSNBC Newsweek writes about Korean Ohmynews.com and participatory journalism as the future of journalism. Ohmynews employs 25 trained reporters who cover the major news stories of the day, and 33,000 “citizen journalists” who posts stories on the site.

Newsweek writes that founder Oh Yeon Ho’s belief that ‘every citizen is a reporter’ has changed journalism in South Korea—and now he’s aiming for the world.

Oh Yeon Ho says about participatory journalism: “Technology itself cannot change society. Korean citizens were ready to participate. Only prepared people, who can use the merits of technology, can make a difference.”

Link via Donata.

Global PR Blog Week 1.0

I will represent Sweden in the Global PR Blog Week which is coming closer and closer. Yesterday an official press release was distributed to promote the event.

Weeklong Online Conference Featuring Some of the World’s Most Influential Public Relations, Marketing and Business Bloggers set for July 12-16, 2004

Live & Interactive Global PR Blog Week Event Opens at

http://www.thenewpr.com

NEW YORK, June 21 /PRNewswire/ —

WHO: Twenty-eight influential public relations, marketing and business bloggers from around the globe will participate in Global PR Blog Week 1.0.

WHAT: Spearheading Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is Australian Trevor Cook and Romanian Constantin Basturea, who, along with 26 other PR bloggers and marketing practitioners, will assemble remotely across the globe (including Australia, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, UK and the U.S.) to discuss many facets of blogging and communications.

The event is split into five topic sections including: PR in the Age of Participatory Journalism, Corporate Blogging, Making PR Work: Creativity & Strategy, Crisis Management and The State of the PR Profession.

Global PR Blog Week will be open to everybody — for asking questions, making comments and participating in the discussion through the event’s weblog.

WHEN: The event takes place during the entire week of July 12th – July 16th 2004.

WHERE: On the Internet. Information and a schedule are available on http://www.thenewpr.com. The actual event will take place on the Global PR Blog Week weblog that will be available at http://www.globalprblogweek.com starting June 28.

WHY: To teach businesses about the interactive communications value of blogging and to discuss a wide variety of topics related to the confluence of public relations and technology. The event will look also into the impact of participatory journalism and personal publishing on the PR practice.

“We want to showcase blogging to help our colleagues and clients understand the value of blogging as a fast, low cost and highly-effective publishing, marketing and content management tool,” said Cook, director of the Sydney-based public relations firm Jackson Wells Morris. “With top blogs reaching millions of people daily, and directly influencing journalists and decision-makers, thousands of whom also blog, it is time for blogging to be taken seriously in the marketing mix.”

BLOG DEFINITION AND IMPACT: A blog is an Internet publishing tool that allows users with no technical or programming skills to write about a topic and publish to the World Wide Web inexpensively, instantly, and easily. Most current estimates find 3 million blogs amongst an online community of 729.2 million global Internet users, according to Global Reach. Top blogs have readership in the millions, and many have begun to attract mainstream advertisers.

ITINERARY: The schedule for Global PR Blog Week 1.0 is as follows:

MONDAY 12 JULY — PR in the Age of Participatory Journalism

* Trevor Cook (Corporate Engagement http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/)

* Dan Forbush (ProfNet, Media Insider http://www.mediainsider.com) –

Blogs, Wikis and Expert Networks

* Ryan May (Minnesota Public Relations Blog http://www.mnpr.blogspot.com)

* Steve Rubel (Micro Persuasion http://steverubel.typepad.com)

interviewing Jay Rosen, Chair, New York University Department of

Journalism, author of the Pressthink weblog

TUESDAY 13 JULY — Corporate Blogging

* John Cass (PR Communications http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/)

* Trevor Cook (Corporate Engagement http://trevorcook.typepad.com/weblog/)

will interview Robert Scoble on corporate blogging

* Wayne Hurlbert (Blog Business World

http://www.blogbusinessworld.blogspot.com)

* Hans Kullin (Media Culpa http://www.kullin.net)

* John Mudd (Inside Real Estate Journal

http://insiderealestatejournal.blogspot.com) – How blogs can increase

your sales, help you influence the news and make you an overnight expert

in your field

* Todd Sattersten (A Penny For http://www.apennyfor.com)

* Trudy Schuett (WOLves http://wolves.typepad.com/wolves/) – How Business,

Governments and Non-profits can use blogs to communicate with the public

* Roland Tanglao (Streamline http://www.streamlinewebco.com/blog/)

* Jeremy Wright (Ensight http://www.ensight.org)

* Philip Young (Mediations http://publicsphere.typepad.com/mediations/) –

Ethics in PR

WEDNESDAY 14 JULY — Making PR Work: Creativity and Strategy

* Elizabeth Albrycht (CorporatePR

http://ringblog.typepad.com/corporatepr/) – Corporate PR – Pragmatic PR

strategies for community building

* Angelo Fernando (Hoi Polloi http://hoipolloi.typepad.com) – Impact of

blogs on PR and Marcomms

* Bernard Goldbach (Irish Eyes http://irish.typepad.com) – Promoting

client messages through blogs

* Alice Marshall (Technoflak http://technoflak.blogspot.com) – Media

relations issues – including pitching small businesses to editors

* Mike Manuel (Media Guerrilla

http://mmanuel.typepad.com/media_guerrilla/) – Micro media measurement

* B.L. Ochman (What’s Next Blog http://www.whatsnextblog.com) – Examples

of smart blog use in PR and marketing campaigns and sites that cry out

for blogs

* Anthony V Parcero, (eKetchum Digital Media Group

http://www.eketchum.com) – Developing interactive PR strategies

THURSDAY 15 JULY — Crisis Management

* John Cass (PR Communications http://pr.typepad.com/pr_communications/)

* Kevin Dugan (Strategic PR http://prblog.typepad.com) – On the Martha

Stewart case

* Jim Horton (Online PR http://online-pr.blogspot.com)

* Colin McKay (Canuckflack http://www.canuckflack.com)

* Steve Rubel (Micro Persuasion http://steverubel.typepad.com)

interviewing Dan Gillmor of the San Jose Mercury News and author of the

forthcoming book We the Media

FRIDAY 16 JULY — The State of the PR Profession

* Richard Bailey (PR Studies http://prstudies.typepad.com/weblog)

* Constantin Basturea (PR meets the WWW http://weblog.basturea.com)

* Robb Hecht (PR Machine http://prmachine.blogspot.com)

* Montag (World of Spin http://worldofspin.blogspot.com) – PR needs a

crisis communication plan

* B.L. Ochman (What’s Next Blog http://www.whatsnextblog.com) – The PR

Lessons of Bit*hing About Blogging

* Tom Murphy (PR Opinions http://www.natterjackpr.com)

Global PR Blog Week was announced and formulated on The New PR Wiki, a collaboration space for professionals interested in the practice of public relations, hosted at http://www.thenewpr.com. (Wiki is server software that allows users to freely create and edit Web page content using any Web browser.)