What did you do with your summer?

In a sign of things surely to come, a 29-year-old writer has just landed a sitcom deal with CBS to make a show out of his Twitter feed, ShitMyDadSays.
This is not April Fools, and this is not a joke. The Tweeter in question, Justin Halpern, had already signed a book deal with HarperCollins. He’s got [...]

Cosmetics Gravy Train Stops for Beauty Blogger, and She Blames PR

Here’s an interesting post from the other side of the PR/blogger divide: it’s a well written, well reasoned post by a beauty blogger about her experience dealing with PR for cosmetics and other personal care products.
After starting her blog in 2007, she says she was besieged with free product — full-size samples of everything she [...]

Are PR Embargoes Dead?

The embargo is one of my favorite PR tactics, but it looks like it will soon be another casualty of the Internet, if it isn’t already.
In the ooollllddd days, you could hand out embargoed news and assuming you had a good relationship with the media, the news would sit in the can until the agreed-upon [...]

The difference between the mainstream media and online media keeps getting smaller

Everyone knows that the mainstream media and the online media are two very different beasts, at least in their roots and points of view. But as we get further into the Internet revolution and the weakening of the business models of the mainstream media, the lines are really starting to blur.
I ran across an example [...]

In the end, it’s all corporate communications

One of the reasons I became disillusioned and left the mainstream media was that while it purports to be “independent” and “objective,” it’s really just corporate communications. That is, the media of today is largely owned by massive corporations who want to make money, and they do so by researching and reporting “news” and delivering [...]

Great insights into New York Times blogging

MyRagan.com has a great article  by Paul Boutin, a Times freelancer and VentureBeat.com writer, about the nuts and bolts of blogging for the New York Times. It’s free today but may go behind Ragan’s paid sub firewall soon so check it out while you can.
Inside peek: How The New York Times handles its blogs
Excerpt:

In many [...]

The “keyword trifecta” and other great web writing tips

Tips from today’s PR University web writing audio conference:

Your press releases should contain a “keyword trifecta”: Your keyword search term should be in your headline and your first paragraph, and the keyword in your first paragraph should link to your web site. HT: Sarah Skerik, PR Newswire
Be generous with your links — people often don’t [...]

Teens Don't Twitter, Do They?

Twitter is all the rage now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be the CB radio of the Internet era. CB radio was all the rage in the early 70s and for a year or two, it seemed like it would be with us forever. Besides truckers, how many people do [...]

Silicon Valley PR Gets the New York Times Treatment

I was out on holiday for most of last week and so missed the opportunity to offer some timely insights into the glorious coverage of Silicon Valley PR in the New York Times on Saturday, July 4 (an aside — why does our industry get coverage only on national holidays and other B-list days?).
Young Times [...]

When is a press release not a press release?

The term “press release” is a whopper of a misnomer. The public communication we call a “press release” hasn’t simply been a message to the media for a long time.
Now, though, the web makes the term virtually meaningless. So many different people and audiences other than the media can access our press releases in real [...]

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