Morgan McLintic on PR

I see dead people

Lots of them. In this new mag I just learned about - Obit. A magazine choc full of well, obits. It's actually very good. For instance, I just learned this about Colma, south of San Francisco.

People come to Colma mainly to be buried. On San Francisco’s south flank, sharing a fog bank, Colma has 17 cemeteries to San Francisco’s none. Long ago San Francisco booted out the cemeteries and moved most of the graves to this little necropolis.

Colma calls itself a necropolis (“city of the dead” in Greek) despite its 1,500 live residents. It is commonly listed as the country’s only necropolis, incorporated in 1924 to protect the cemeteries that now occupy 73 percent of Colma’s 2.2 square miles.

The necropolis business started with the California Gold Rush in 1849. As people rushed in, so did disease and death, and San Francisco’s 26 cemeteries were mostly filled in the late 1880s. Soon state law forbade backyard burials, or internment anywhere except in an established cemetery. By 1900, land already was too valuable for low-revenue uses like graves, so the noose tightened on San Francisco cemeteries and burials were banned...

You can also go shopping in Colma. I think the necropolis might be more interesting...

Wired editor blocks PR people, outs them

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired vents about 'PR spam' in a recent post. It's a common theme and I guess we all reach a point where enough is enough. In fact, who can't sympathize with this sentiment, regardless of your profession?

So fair warning: I only want two kinds of email: those from people I know, and those from people who have taken the time to find out what I'm interested in and composed a note meant to appeal to that (I love those emails; indeed, that's why my email address is public).

I only want those kind of emails too. He then publishes a list of offending email addresses. PR pros probably scanned down the list and like me were relieved not to find themselves or their agency on it. But we knew our firms could have been - or why the relief? Why even look?

The fact is that PR and media do have a symbiotic relationship. And all relationships wax and wane. Email is a useful tool and sometimes people are lazy, short on time or even just learning. So mistakes are made. And there's a list of people who perhaps made them this month.

Their reward will be to get some spam and some more headhunting pitches. And Chris Anderson gets to vent some steam. Perhaps that system works. Or perhaps the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Personally I think these things reach a balance - you reap what you sow. Some PR consultants send broad based emails because it works for them (or else they wouldn't right?). Occasionally they get flamed. Some reporters are more sensitive to unsolicited mail (or calls even) than others and so get fewer pitches. Occasionally they miss the big stories. The majority fall in the middle - working hard to build relationships, accommodating others' working styles and understanding their pressures.

Blackberry's Facebook app

As if Crackberry isn't addictive enough...

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Facebook

If you can't beat 'em

Technorati Tags: MSM, NYT, TechCrunch

San Francisco Chronicle on the move?

I heard on the radio this morning that Hearst is thinking of selling The Chron's offices on Mission and Fifth. The area has seen a lot of development recently (mainly with the Bloomingdale's opening) so real estate prices are rising, despite the crunch. Must be tempting to move to a cheaper location but it's a shame to see newspapers move out of town a la Fleet Street in London.

Channel hopping

We got a glimpse of how television could be last night. Detective series, CSI: NY broadcast an edition where the criminal was tracked in 3D virtual world, Second Life. About 30% of the program was shot in machinima by The Electric Sheep Company (another client). But the crime hasn't been solved. It continues in Second Life where viewers can now become crime scene investigators themselves. The characters we saw in the program are identical to the ones in the virtual world - down to the pixel, since they were used to shoot the program. It's a great way of extending the CSI experience.

What amazed me though was the level of interaction while the program aired. Of course, we were in-world, trying out Electric Sheep's new OnRez Viewer (which is very slick - love the back button), chatting and IMing with each other. At the same time, the email was flying and AIM popping. There was also a discussion in real time on Twitter and several friends' Facebook statuses declaring they were glued too.

Television isn't normally a communal experience. Too many channels and TIVO mean there's rarely a synchronized time we all watch the same thing (in fact usually only sports). More importantly, there's no channel to interact through. Last night's CSI reversed that in many ways. There were too many channels of communication, but only one thing to watch.

Fans of The Office (US edition) will be pleased to see Second Life appears in that tonight too.

Technorati Tags: CSI: NY, machinima, OnRez, Second Life, The Electric Sheep Company

TechCrunch UK is back

After a hiatus since Jan, TechCrunch UK relaunches with Mike Butcher at the helm. Good to see a focal point for emerging Internet companies in the UK (and newly added Ireland!), and personally a great way for me to keep in touch with the scene over there. Good stuff and good luck.

Technorati Tags: TechCrunch

Tom Foremski celebrates three years as a 'journalist blogger'

Silicon Valley Watcher editor, Tom Foremski, has clocked up three years as a professional 'journalist blogger'. He left the Financial Times in May 2004, starting SVW later that summer. He was the first mainstream journalist, writing for an established and respected daily, to jump the fence into full-time blogging. And three years later he's still going strong.

Not only did he foresee the changes in the MSM, but also predicted some of the changes to the PR industry. For instance, it was under Tom's instigation that the whole social media press release initiative was born.

Congratulations Tom - and thanks.

Technorati Tags: MSM, PR, blogging, Silicon Valley Watcher, Tom Foremski

BBC Online adds social bookmarking to news

The BBC Online has added social bookmarking links to its News and Sports stories. Readers can bookmark articles via del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, Facebook and StumbleUpon. Given the BBC's reach and ability to cover news in depth, i expect we'll start to see more Beeb news filtering into social media news sites, provided it can break news fast enough.

Technorati Tags: BBC Online, social media

Save Business2.0

The NYT is reporting its imminent demise, with the September issue potentially being the last. But fear not, because as Megan McCarthy at ValleyWag points out, Facebook could come to the rescue! Yes, do your bit by joining the 'I read Business2.0 - and I want to keep reading!' group. Set up by editor Josh Quittner Colin Carmichael, it currently has 84 members.

And BTW are there really 29,359 people who want to remove the 'is' from the Facebook status message? Good - make that 29,360.

UPDATE - Josh Quittner did not set up the group. In fact it was created by Colin Carmichael who subsequently promoted him to Officer, as Colin states below. Apols Colin.

Technorati Tags: Business2.0, Facebook, ValleyWag