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Now out as of 5.00pm PT - get it here. Just downloading it now. Apart from the speed and anti-phishing advances, I think the spell checker will be particularly useful. I could never get the Spellbound extension to work correctly and it seemed to then break after Firefox 1.5 was released. Good news for bloggers, communicators and others who use web apps.
Technorati Tags: Firefox
Good luck to Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz and the rest of the founding team of New Marketing consultancy virtual firm, crayon, which launched today. It's the first real world company to have its headquarters in virtual world, Second Life. crayon aims to provide a mix of marketing, advertising, and PR counsel in a new format. The details are a little enigmatic at present - 'What we are is whatever you want or need us to be,' says Neville, but all will no doubt be made clear at the formal unveiling on Thursday. The web site goes live then here, and there will be an SL island too. Good luck guys!
Technorati Tags: crayon, Second Life
This week has seen the largest independent PR firm, Edelman, raked over the coals for producing a fake blog on behalf of client, Wal-Mart. Subsequently two further fake blogs have come to light generated by Edelman employees and funded by Wal-Mart. The furore even elicited an apology from Richard Edelman on his blog, in which he answers many of the firm's critics and accounts for the delayed response from the firm.
Edelman has made a big play in the social media space, and so its lapse of judgment has understandably been ill-received among the PR blogging community. What's interesting is that there has been no comment (at least that I have seen) from Wal-Mart. This work was approved and executed on behalf of Wal-Mart. We may never know whose idea it was, perhaps it was the retail giant's concept? Edelman may well have counseled against the ploy. It's a tricky situation if the client insists on an approach which you disagree with. Particularly with a client of this size. Would you resign and suffer the job losses, or note your stance for the record and execute against the client's demands? Let's face it, Wal-Mart gets what it wants, and it's unlikely that Edelman forced an approach on the company which is dubious even to the untrained eye. To my mind, the reverse however, is more plausible. Edelman may have advised Wal-Mart not to press that red button, but then bowed to its considerable will. We'll never know who was driving the initiative.
What we do know is that Edelman has done a good job in drawing fire away from its client. 'This is 100% our responsibility and our error; not the client's,' states Richard Edelman. Having come this far, he has little choice but to gamely take one for his client. And respect for that.
If it was indeed Edelman's fault, then I hope Wal-Mart gives it another chance for taking the rap. Sure they blew it, three times in fact, but they fessed up and their reputation took a ding which will no doubt cost them. If it was Wal-Mart's idea and Edelman took the heat, then this account at least is safe.
My team just won the PR campaign for Linden Lab, creator of Second Life. It was announced last week while I was in the hospital for Jake's delivery. Thrilled by this too since it's such an exciting, game-changing company and we really get on well the team at SL.
Second Life topped the 1m resident mark today, following announcements from Sun and Reuters recently. SL is so newsworthy since it touches a range of disciplines from entertainment, to education, to marketing, to non-profits, to the media itself in a very immediate and intimate way. CNET, Wired and Reuters all have SL presences, not to mention the thriving in-world media.
PRWEEK has a feature by Celeste Altus coming out at the end of this month about SL's impact on PR. We had a hilarious photo shoot with the SL team on Monday, which I'm told will be on the front page. Ahem. I'm not very photogenic, so my apologies in advance.
Meantime, if you have clients which are planning to launch in SL, to host events there, or which might be interested in collaboration with SL, please don't hesitate to get in touch and we'll aim to help. Similarly, on a personal level, if you know an SL resident with an interesting story to share (musician, fashion designer, architect, support group, sports enthusiast, business owner for instance), we're getting numerous requests from press across the US, Europe and Asia, so drop us a line.
Technorati Tags: LEWIS, PRWEEK, Linden Lab, Second Life
I'm delighted to announce the birth of my first child, Jake McLintic, born at 12.49am on Tuesday October 10, 2006 weighing 8lbs 9oz. He and my wife, Lucy, are both doing well and we're pleased to be back home. Not sure I'll ever get used to the 2.00am feeds, but he's a joy. One of the most amazing days of my life, I still can't wipe the proud grin off my face.
Thanks to everyone for their best wishes, congratulations and offers of help!
Technorati Tags: McLintic
