Do you always need to give credit for blog posts? Two things in the last couple of days have made wonder about blogging ettiquette. And today Allan Jenkins at Desirable Roasted Coffee blogs on the same theme. Yesterday I wrote about Gary Stein of Jupiter Media and how he was predicting that blogs and traditional websites would become one. That's exactly what I had talked about during my presentation at the University of Sunderland Making the News conference. That's why I wrote about it. A bit later I was reading my feeds and came across a post by Steve Rubel that referenced the same Gary Stein article. So I updated my previous post with a link to Steve's Micropersuasion blog saying he had disagreed with both of us. The trackback that I sent hasn't yet appeared on Steve's blog - perhaps it's stuck in Steve's moderation queue? Allan's concern was with a new blog by Robert J Ricci, a Weber Shandwick employee. Robert blogged about Google Analytics being illegal in Europe. But the problem was that Fredrik Wackå has said the same thing the day before and Robert hadn't referenced him. I actually posted on the same topic and did reference Fredrik, but it was on the Let's talk business blog, which I help to run for my client Softalk. You see I'm not so sure it is so big a faux pas anymore. As the number of blogs grows and grows you are not going to be reading every single one. Even if you use tools to monitor keywords and themes you're not always going to know what other people have written. I don't sit down and read all my feeds before I blog. As a result I'll admit I've written some posts that are mighty similar to ones that other people have already written. And not given them credit, but to any third party looking at the content and the timing of the posts it would appear my inspiration was actually plagiarism. I guess the lesson is that we've all got to learn both the new rules of the blogging game (as they actually emerge) and to be more tolerant and supportive of those that are still learning.

22.11.05 19:15 Permalink / 6 Comments / comment

Blogs and web sites will become one At Friday's University of Sunderland conference one of the themes that I talked about was that over the next few years blogs would morph back into the mainstream web. I said that I think traditional web sites will acquire blog type features and blogs will start to acquire features more commonly seen on traditional websites. It appears that Gary Stein of Jupiter Research has been thinking along similar lines. He writes that he thinks the definition of blog is about to change as blogs become more mainstream and gain wider acceptance. UPDATE: Just seen Steve Rubel's take on this. He thinks we're wrong and says "I don't know about that one, Gary. I think there will be a static Web and a dynamic one and links between the two. I don't think that blogs will be assimilated into the core the way that RSS will be." In my opinion it has already started to happen. Just look at how newspapers such as the Daily Mail have started to include reader comments on its web news stories. That's a traditional web site becoming dynamic social media infuenced by blogs.

21.11.05 13:49 Permalink / 4 Comments / comment

Making the News at the University of Sunderland Philip Young, Tom Murphy, Stuart Bruce, Neville Hobson, Stephen Davies and Elizabeth Albrycht. Yesterday I was one of the speakers at the Making the News conference at the University of Sunderland. If you attended (or even if you didn't and are interested) and want a copy of my PowerPoint presentation then you can download it here (PDF about 6 Mb). I've also created a list of the RSS feeds of the blogs that I talked about. You can download it here. You need to save it on to your computer and then import it into a feed reader program. There are lots to choose from but the two I would recommend are FeedDemon (free for 30 days then $30 to register) or Feedreader (free). If you use a Mac I'm told that NetNewsWire is also good. Once you've installed your chosen program then go to File Import and you will be able to import my OPML file that you've just saved. I'll follow up shortly with a second post with links to the blog publishing tools that I talked about yesterday.

19.11.05 14:48 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment

Fascinating public sector blog case study Josh Hallett has written a fascinating account of the METROBlog Orlando. A public sector organisation created the blog as part of a public consultation exercise but you can't read the blog now as they pulled the plug. It appears to have been a case of a group of people who had very limited understanding of public relations who made a bad decision based on ignorance. It's a problem I come up against in both my professional PR consulting role and as a poitician. It's not a new one and it comes from the same school as the one where everyone thinks they are experts at writing and communicating just because they do it every day. UPDATED: Please make to take the time to read Josh's original post and the comments below. I just want to make it clear that I am critiscising the Metro commissioners and not the public affairs team who deserve enormous praise for their excellent initiative.

16.11.05 11:57 Permalink / 6 Comments / comment

Blogging bull**** This post by Jeremy Zawodny about SixApart's public relations consultancy allegedly 'spamming bloggers' made me smile. Jeremy goes into great deal about 'horror of horrors' receiving an email from a PR company! The original post might be dumb but there are some very perceptive comments. The first comment quite rightly asks "Is this really that big of a deal?". Anil Dash of SixApart chimes in a bit later with an excellent post which puts the whole thing into context. And finally comment by Barbara Krause of Krause Taylor Associates, the PR company responsible proves that she is right and Jeremy is wrong. Barbara clearly does get blogs. And more importantly she gets communications far better than Jeremy does. Mena Trott of SixApart also comes out fighting with some very sensible comments. She is spot on by saying she is "sick and tired of the mob mentality that blogging sometimes brings out" But it is Mena's final remark that really struck a note with me. "I have to constantly defend blogging... and posts like yours make it harder to do so." One of my channels in FeedDemon is called "So-called A-list Bloggers". It is dedicated to what I term the blogging mafia. Those such as Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel who might know a hell of a lot about blogging but constantly pretend that qualifies them to make sweeping statements about blogging spelling the end of PR, marketing or advertising. If you want to listen to some real experts on professional communications and how blogging fits into it then try reading these blogs: NevOn by Neville Hobson PR Opinions by Tom Murphy A Shel of my former self by Shel Holtz POP! PR Jots by Jeremy Pepper PR Studies by Richard Bailey Mediations by Philip Young Hyku Blog by Josh Hallett Public relations from an Irish perspective by Piaras Kelly Marketing Technology by Niall Cook I don't claim that this list is comprehensive. Simply that when I see one of these people's posts in my feeds then I look forward to the possibility of learning something worthwhile. p.s. Apologies. I had difficulty with this post as 20six kept timing out on me and I accidentally saved it before I had finished. UPDATED: I said the list wasn't comprehensive and the comments prove it. I forgot to include Phil Gomes of Edelman and an honourable mention for Stephen Davies the PR Blogger. Stephen might still be a PR student but his blog is already a must read. I missed it on my original list because he is in a different channel in FeedDemon. He is in the North of England business blogs channel instead of the PR one.

16.11.05 09:44 Permalink / 6 Comments / comment

Stonyfield Farm blogging success story One of the earliest and biggest business blogs for consumers is the Stonyfield Farm 'Cow'munities byre of blogs. Andrew Lark points to this story about Stonyfield's success. They get it's all about participation. Although it's worth noting that Stonyfield Farm (owned by French company Danone) no longer has the dairy blog field to itself. The new bull in the field is Danish dairy giant Arla Foods. Arla currently has three blogs - all in Danish at the moment. Arla's UK headquarters are on a new business park about five minutes from our office.

12.11.05 07:19 Permalink / 1 Comment / comment

Another new UK business blog Cheap Flights News is yet another new UK business blog. Don't have time to look at it properly at the moment. It was announced in this news release on Response Source Wire.

9.11.05 15:50 Permalink / 3 Comments / comment

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