Archive for the year 2009
Client News: Photo Finder for Facebook launches in alpha
Some great client news today. Face.com, headquartered in Tel Aviv Israel and New York, NY recently started working with us. They have created amazing facial recognition technology; it works amazingly well. The first deployment of that technology is an app for Facebook called Photo Finder.
At 8AM PST today, they announced the launch of Photo Finder in closed, invite-only alpha. They chose to skip using a press release this time, and insteady announce themselves to the world via a blog post by Gil Hirsch, CEO and co-founder of Face.com. You can see that blog announcement here.
A number of blogs and news outlets covered the launch today, see the list below. We will update the list as coverage comes in.
New From Stage Two: Legacy Locker Unveiled
We have some “client news” this morning, though today is a special case. Legacy Locker is announcing themselves to the world, but they are not a standard client. This company was incubated right here at Stage Two by Jeremy Toeman and Adam Burg, principals of Stage Two Consulting. An external team has been put in place to build and manage the site, and we’re excited to see that work fall under the scrutinizing lens of the media and blogosphere.
Briefly, Legacy Locker is a service designed to help deal with the problem of what happens to all your online accounts after you die. Jeremy has a post on LIVEdigitally sharing some thoughts on back story behind the idea. The press release went live this morning, and coverage already looks to be pretty strong. We’ll update the list of people covering the launch throughout the day.
Yet another test
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Client News: 12seconds now allows remote recording from Tweetdeck (and others)
12seconds has been growing. They’re growing in terms of their number of users, their number of visitors and viewers, and now in terms of the ways in which you can record a twelve second video. This morning 12seconds announced that Tweetdeck will now allow 12seconds users to record their video updates directly from the Tweetdeck application. In addition, they’ve created an API to let other 3rd party sites and services add recording to their applications.
As is the norm for 12seconds, we elected not to issue a press release or use a wire service. Instead they’ve written a blog post with the details of the announcement. A number of folks have covered the story – we will update the list throughout the day:
Client News: Sellit and CafePress Are In Business
This morning at 7AM PST a press release went out on the wire through PR Web. We issued the release on the behalf of our client, Sellit.com. The focus of the release was the announcement of their partnership with CafePress, a user-generated commerce site based here in San Mateo, CA.
Sellit has developed a distribution platform for ecommerce marketplaces. In English, that means ecommerce websites like CafePress can partner with Sellit to let their merchants distribute their stores all over the web using flash widgets. Merchants place their widget (called a ShopBOT) on social networks like MySpace or Facebook, on blogs, and on other sites across the web that accept html code. Sellit users an also opt-in to the Sellit Ad Network; for as little as $10 / month their ShopBOT will appear as an interactive advertisement on thousands of sites across the web.
What got us excited about the product and excited to work with the Sellit team is the idea of shaking up the traditional ecommerce model. For many years ecommerce has been about destination websites. If I wanted to buy a book then I went to Amazon to look for one. Sellit is changing the destination model into a distributed model, where stores and shopping experiences can really take place anywhere on the web. This is cool stuff.
A number of of media outlets have covered the story. Below is a running list – we will update throughout the day:
Are Bloggers Underutilizing PR People?
I’ve read more blog posts and tweets about how “all” PR is bad, full of spammers and people likely to go out and club the occasional baby seal. I wish I could say this was super-far from the truth, but from the stories I hear, along with the pitches I get for LIVEdigitally, it seems like a lot of these complaints are justifiable. But, just as much as generalizations are over-used against PR people, I’ve noticed an equally, if not more, disturbing trend from bloggers and social media users in general. It seems like there’s a trend toward less due diligence than in years past, in fact there’s often no fact-checking or other research done prior to a blog post or a tweet.
As much as PR people are here to pass news along to content creators, another reason for the existence of the trade is to support the news making/breaking process. PR people are here to answer questions, support fact checking processes, provide access to executives for interviews, etc. And just as guilty as they may be for deluging underinterested bloggers in uninteresting news, they are not being used as a good resource for many a blogger.
Our firm prides itself on its relationships and reputation (amongst other things). We are well-known not to spam, and take a lot of effort to try to self-select which media outlets would be interested in our clients. But even with that degree of credibility, I still feel there is a missing element to modern news-making. Here are the three most disturbing observations I have:
- An utter lack of inbound requests from bloggers to companies/PR firms for anything other than review units. No asking for comments, interviews etc. Recently one of our clients had a really great wave of blog posts get written, without a single one of those bloggers contacting us to check details of the story or get an extra quote from the CEO.
- A tendency to publish/tweet first, wait for corrections and more content later. There’s been a lot of posts written with a goal to be “first” (or near-first) on a topic, without getting into details. I’ve seen tweets and posts happen that make wild assumptions or accusations, and only see fixes or retractions much later. There is unquestionably a stronger emphasis on breaking any news than there is an emphasis on reporting accurate stories.
- A likelihood to use other bloggers as “sources” without any fact-checking. This one pretty much goes without saying. It is as if an article on TechCrunch or Engadget is simply “factual” just because it’s there (incidentally, I picked those blogs solely due to their size, not because they have done anything wrong and I am not calling them out for any wrongdoings).
I find these trends upsetting in many ways because of the relationships we have. When a rumor (true or not) begins spreading across tech blogs, we would expect to get numerous inbound requests for information. We are accessible via IM, email, phone, and Twitter, and virtually anyone we pitch has all of our contact information. Yet we hear virtually nothing, and are more likely to hear inquiries from those who don’t know us.
So what’s going wrong? I asked a few of my blogger friends their opinions, here’s some of what I heard (note the context here was me sending them the above statements, so this doesn’t necessarily reflect how they blog as individuals!):
Joshua Topolsky (Editor-in-Chief, Engadget): The news flow being what it is, it can be hard to wait on a quote from a CEO, and more often than not, the quotes they want to give us are generally as safe as possible. Companies often deflect or deny even when there’s a real story at play, so it’s a tight spot to be in, we’re breaking news in new ways, and companies are combating having their secrets spilled, surprises ruined, or plans misunderstood. Overall though, I see a lot of writers making the mistake of shooting first (with their eyes closed), not bothering to ask questions later, and never owning up to anything.
Marshall Kirkpatrick (Lead Blogger, ReadWriteWeb): Right now there’s little incentive in terms of page views to do any but the most high quality research. Cursory, matter of course, due diligence doesn’t get a whole lot of reward. I’ve done it in the past and try to now when I can, but readers rarely seem to care. Well earned scoops do get rewarded, but few bloggers have the chops or work priorities to focus on scoring those.
Louis Gray (independent blogger): If a story is “interesting”, but not a game changer, I tend to typically just ask for a login so I can check it out and do screenshots. On longer-lead stories, I do trade e-mails with the developer, but not if I expect they are “blasting” the announcement to a ton of folks, because then the effort seems wasted. I also tend to send the URL of the post to the contact after it’s up to ask them to make sure it is “right”.
Dave Zatz (independent blogger): Unfortunately, I think for many bloggers being first is important for traffic which directly corresponds to ad revenue. And of course controversy sells. Most of my PR people I have a relationship with at this point, so it’s very different. In fact, I’m visiting a company in Virginia tomorrow to be briefed by the CEO. No freebie hardware, just an overview for me and I’ll shoot some pics.
Robert Scoble (aka The Scobleizer): It seems like a majority of the time when I ask a PR person for something I want, I get answered “no”, and it sours me on working with PR people. Also, I think there’s not much homework being done, just a lot of repurposing press releases. I think it’s not just a blogger thing, by the way, I think it’s a journalism thing in general these days. There’s exceptions to these rules, and they really stand out from the crowd. Lastly, there’s too much pressure on being first, yet there’s no pressure on being right.
It’s probably not too hard for me to go out on a limb and say the incentive system in place for modern journalism is, in a word, screwed. Bloggers are pushed by numerous market forces to be first, under any circumstances – a fact that was equally lamented by the bloggers with whom I spoke. And with the high growth rate of Twitter as the next big place to break news, it doesn’t seem like a problem that’s about to get better or go away. Which is sad, but probably just the state of things for now.
That said, I sure do hope to see more people playing at the same level. It’s easy to call out PR firms, since so many do employ inappropriate, outdated media buying techniques. But it’s easy to call out bloggers and twitterers too. There are a lot of glass houses out there, and rapid-fire typists with pervasive Internet access are throwing more and more stones, inadvertently or not.
How-to: Manage your Booth at CES 2009
I wrote a post last year on prepping booth staffs for CES, thought I’d give it another pass for 2009… Note, there’s a lot of cutting and pasting.
- Ignore the anti-hype. I’ve read a half-dozen stories already on how this year’s CES will, in a word, suck. Ignore that. While I’m sure attendance will be down, that doesn’t mean you should go into the event expecting a terrible show. Have a good time, and if you get extra breathing room between demos, well, enjoy!
- Wear comfy shoes. If you aren’t tired of standing after 10 hours a day, you’re doing something wrong. That said, do yourself a favor and wear running shoes with good support. No high heels, and no Italian loafers – they may look good, but you’ll be in serious pain by the end of the first day. Suits + Nikes are an a-okay match at CES.
- Bring supplies. Bottled water is a must for anyone on demo duty. Purel should be at your booth as well. I also recommend: a roll of paper towels, a box of tissues, some juice and/or caffeinated sodas, granola/energy bars, and bagels. Carbo-loading is a good thing.
- Know your audience. Look for name tags before you get into an in-depth discussion (if someone’s got theirs flipped around, just politely ask them who they are, it might feel awkward, but it’s important). I watched a junior booth staffer spend 20 minutes with a fairly recognizable, high profile individual, without knowing who he was. This is a colossal mistake, as it’s vitally important to get the right people talking to the right visitors. Which brings me to…
- Funnel your traffic. You should have a game plan for “who talks to who”. If it’s a member of the press, someone from marketing should get them. If it’s a senior exec from a big tech firm, someone from your BD/exec management team. Different audiences get different discussions, and it’s as much a favor to them as it is to you to get them talking to the right folks.
- Emphasize the team spirit. I don’t care what your title is, if someone who is on a 4 hour shift needs a soda or a hot dog or a piece of chewing gum, help them out. When I was at Sling Media, the first year we did a booth I distinctly remember one moment where the VP of Engineering did a coffee run for everyone. That’s the right spirit.
- Don’t mistreat competition. With the power of blogs and live video streaming today, it’s silly to assume your entire demo WON’T end up online somewhere. And if that occurs, your competition WILL see it. So if they walk up to you, camera in hand, just do your normal demo and spiel. You certainly don’t have to give up company secrets, but you really should treat them like any other demo. Personally, I take it a step further and make the effort to actually meet the person in question, commiserate on the show, etc.
- Ignore nobody. When doing demos I make a huge effort to make sure everyone around me is getting my attention. Even if the demo you are doing is to some uber-important industry exec, that doesn’t mean you completely ignore the rest. You can certainly say “hey everyone, I have a schedule demo to do right now, but I’ll be done in 15 minutes if you want to come back then” or something similar. Also, even if the person looks like a kook (which they probably are), you still have a job to do. Complain/joke about them later. Don’t forget…
- Expect to be on the record. Just because someone’s not wearing a blogger/media badge doesn’t mean they necessarily aren’t one. Assume you might even be streaming live online, and you’ll probably do a great job more often than not.
- Adapt your script. Thursday the show is full of important media and decision-makers, Friday less so. By Saturday it’ll be a small handful of the media, and by Sunday it’s pretty much the Las Vegas taxi driveres. Your pitch should change over time, and be appropriate for your audience.
- Engage in discussions. Odds are pretty good you won’t have a line of a hundred people waiting to talk with you. So take some time with the people around you, ask what they think. More importantly: pay attention! If three people in a row say the same thing or ask the same question, that should be something you note for your script. If ten people in a row don’t understand your product, you have a bad pitch, and should fix it on the spot!
- Give no schwag. Last year I said give “good” schwag, but let’s all just try to pitch in and kill this silly, wasteful tradition.
- Be neighborly. This should go without saying, but the more you are friendly to and help out your neighbors, the more they’ll look out for you. Also, if you have media in your demo, vary it over the course of the show (after ‘08 I don’t think I can listen to Sting’s Fields of Gold ever again).
- Take and give business cards. This ritual will hopefully die off in the next few years, but in the meantime, play ball. I recommend (but cannot say I perfectly practice what I preach here) followup with 100% of the cards you received, even if its nothing but being polite.
- Be on time. If your entire role with the show was being flown in, 6 hours a day of demos, then going back to the office, then you have no clue as to how much work went into organizing it by your colleagues. Show up when and where you are supposed to, and be on time. Vegas is about as big a distraction as one can imagine, but that’s a terrible excuse for disrespecting other people’s hard work.
That’s it, see you in Vegas!
