By Ben
Since eBay has become the world’s online auction site, there have been some pretty crazy things auctioned off online. In the past, people have auctioned off bellybutton lint, human teeth, and a slightly used body-bag. Even Manny Ramirez has gotten into the action and auctioned off his grill, which later turned out not to be his.
Well, Australian resident Ian Usher added to this list of weird auction items this week when he decided to make his life open for bidding. After his five-year marriage ended, he held a week-long auction for everything in his life, which included all of his belongings, three-bedroom home, his friends, motorcycle, a jetski, and a trial-run at his job.
Usher must have been disappointed in the result, as collective eBay bidders deemed that his life was only worth $380,286. The buyer is reported to have a 100 percent feedback rating.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen being auction off online?
July 2nd, 2008
By Kyle
By this point, there have been countless features on the Bear Stearns’ collapse.
Roddy Boyd’s feature “The last days of Bear Stearns,” for Fortune in early April was the first piece to chronologically take us through the timeline of the collapse.
Kate Kelly authored an epic three day series on “The Fall of Bear Stearns,” that ran on the front page Wall Street Journal May 27 – 29.
However, none of these stories portrayed the potential hand that CNBC had in the fall of Bear quite like Bryan Burrough’s piece for August’s Vanity Fair entitled “Bringing Down Bear Sterns,” which is now on newsstands.
Perhaps Burrough, the author of the heralded book Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, needed a new angle. Or perhaps, he’s actually intrigued by the behind closed door dealings between news outlets and PR executives. Either way, his story is the first to spotlight Bear’s P.R. man, Russell Sherman and CNBC reporters in the final days of the Bear Stearns’ collapse. The result is a fascinating read and if you’re a media junky like me; you can’t put it down. Anyone with experience in working with the different producers at CNBC can understand the situation that Bear’s was faced with and the cautionary tale that Burrough’s tells highlights the high stakes of crisis management communications. (more…)
July 1st, 2008
By Philip.
Social Web Analytics (SWA) is the application of search, indexing, semantic analysis and business intelligence technologies to the task of identifying, tracking, listening to and participating in the distributed conversations about a particular brand, product or issue, with emphasis on quantifying the trend in each conversation’s sentiment and influence.
The advent of SWA is a pivotal moment in the development of the marketing communications industry
It’s just over ten weeks since I posted about my intention to write an ebook on social Web analytics, and now it’s done. The ebook is hosted at www.socialwebanalytics.com, or you can simply click here to download it.
I do hope the ebook stimulates discussion and debate about this vital and nascent field, and look forward to the ongoing “distributed conversation”. Love to know what you think.
Thanks to Larry Weber, David Meerman Scott, Brian Solis and the Social Web Analytics vendors for their support and contributions.
July 1st, 2008
By Ben
When it comes to the Internet, you can never be too careful about what you say.
For those who believe that the content on their Facebook, MySpace profiles and personal blogs will not get them in hot water, they’re in for a shocking realization. The Internet is a public domain, and anything put on the Web can be found, and can be used against you.
London resident James Brennan discovered this the hard way, when he was fired from his job in London. His crime? Writing “F— the Partnership” as his Facebook status. (The Partnership refers to the John Lewis Partnership, the chain of stores where he worked.)
Brennan thought his comments would remain private, but some of his co-workers saw his page and showed it to his boss. Brennan was fired on the spot.
Unhappy with his boss and colleagues, Brennan commented on the situation:
“At the end of the day what I wrote was private. You would never get sacked for saying something like that in the pub. I was sacked from Waitrose for something I said on Facebook in my own time. The bosses only saw it because one of my colleagues grassed me up. They printed out a copy of the Facebook page to use as evidence against me. It is an infringement of my privacy.”
Do you think Brennan should have been fired from his job?
June 30th, 2008
By Kyle
While technology start-ups still point to the general weakness of financial markets as the reasoning behind not going public; new findings by the National Venture Capital Association may indicate a larger trend in where VC’s are allocating their investors’ dollars.
As Matt Richtel of the New York Times reported on Saturday:
“In the second quarter of this year not a single company backed by venture capitalists has gone public. It is the first time that has happened since 1978, according to a venture capital industry group.”
According to Nancy Pfund, a VC at DBL Investors in San Francisco, the economic slump is playing the biggest role in drying up public offerings:
“Wall Street is being very selective in taking companies public, and blessing only those with particularly high revenue and growth projections. And venture capitalists are wary because they worry that their returns will be limited in a depressed market.”
Today’s Wall Street Journal story by Lynn Cowan echoes the decline in IPO’s and illustrates that industry experts don’t expect the rest of the summer to be any different:
“The Outlook for the rest of the summer is similarly grim. Major stock indexes around the world fell this month, and bankers believe worries about rising energy prices and inflation, as well as banks needing capital, will continue to spook investors, who tend to avoid new stocks during times of uncertainty.”
While the broad overlook for the IPO market may be grim there are signs that investments in “green” start-ups are growing. In fact the money now being allocated towards “GreenTech” or “CleanTech” companies may be one of the key contributing factors in drying up the current IPO market - as Richtel notes in his piece and Katie Fehrenbacher expands upon for her piece on earth2tech:
“The pipeline for public offerings has dried up in part because of the considerable shift in the industry’s interest in the last three years into “green” technologies, which was taking time to bear fruit.”
In the Cambridge and Boston area “GreenTech” start-ups including Mascoma, GreatPoint Energy and GreenFuel have seen investments from (patient) investors including General Catalyst Partners, Polaris Ventures, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
June 30th, 2008
By Ginger
Wedding budget a little tight? Get corporate sponsorship on eBay!
Kelly Gray and her fiancé Karl Gau were set to be married in April of 2009, but the budget was tight and the couple hoped to have a bit more money to put toward the wedding. The solution to their money woes: creating the “Be My Bridesmaid” eBay auction.
The highest bidder wins a spot in the wedding party, a dress/tuxedo, shoes, and a “plus one” invitation to the reception. The auction created instant buzz, gaining the attention of media people waiting to see how far bidding would go.
When bidding closed on June 25, a member called “drpeppersnapple” had bid $5,700. To Kelly and Karl’s amazement, they had caught the attention of the people at The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group – who later raised their offer to $10,000. (Note: They will also be providing drinks for the wedding… Snapple iced teas all around! Wooo!)
The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group put out a press release yesterday saying “Weddings are about families, and we have a large one … more than 50 different brands from Dr. Pepper to Rose’s Mojitos,” said Greg Artkop, spokesperson for Dr. Pepper Snapple Group. “In fact, you can find us behind the bar at most weddings, so we’re looking forward to being up at the altar for once.”
Snapple has had super-creative advertising campaigns in the past… but this one takes the [wedding] cake. Cheap publicity or not, Snapple sure knows how to leverage online buzz to its advantage.
Race you to the alter, Coke and Pepsi!
June 27th, 2008
By Ben
I’m relatively new to Twitter (follow me), and have had my fair share of frustrations with it so far. I think it’s generally pretty slow and doesn’t have a good way for new members to integrate into the network, but it does provide a great way for people to connect, who otherwise never would.
But when Twitter is working, users can now connect with politicians to share their thoughts and concerns with their representatives. While Barack Obama is on Twitter, I’ve only seen him (or someone else on his staff) update where he is or what he’s doing. However, Texas Congressman John Culberson has become an active on Twitter, engaging in back-and-forth conversation with his followers, and is actually following 732 people. This type of interaction is great, and is an example of how Twitter can help connect people.
Will more politicians turn to social networks like Twitter to help engage the public? The YouTube debates that were held last year seemed to be a big step forward in acknowledging what the elections really are about, and hats off Congressman Culberson for going a step further when he really didn’t have to.
Please Note: This post has nothing to do with supporting or not supporting Congressman Culberson. It’s simply a pat on the back for engaging citizens and listening to what they have to say.
June 27th, 2008
By Kyle
13 Months after Rupert’s takeover of the Wall Street Journal, John Koblin of the New York Observer gives us a “laundry list” of departures.
Portfolio:
oScott Paltrow, investigative writer at The Journal, now a contributing editor
oPeter Waldman, investigative writer, now a senior writer
oDan Golden, Pulitzer-winning reporter, now a senior editor
oHilary Stout, editor of Personal Journal, now a senior editor
oDoug Frantz, senior writer, agreed to join the L.A. Times but left for Portfolio
The New York Times:
o Tara Parker-Pope, health writer
o Brooks Barnes, reporter at The Journal, now a movie business reporter
o Ron Lieber, left The Journal for Dow-Jones-IAC joint venture, now a columnist
Financial Times:
o Henny Sender, senior special writer for Money & Investing, now an international financial correspondent
Orlando Sentinel:
o Robert Block, Homeland Security reporter, now space editor
IAC:
o Ed Felsenthal, deputy managing editor, now working with Tina Brown on her new project for Barry Diller (he originally left for Portfolio)
The Economist:
o Greg Ip, senior special writer and Federal Reserve reporter, now U.S. economics editor
Fortune:
o James Bandler, Pulitzer-winning reporter, will be U.S. economics editor
Forbes:
o Anita Raghavan, London-based reporter, now European bureau chief
o Rebecca Buckman, special writer at San Francisco bureau, now a staffer
BusinessWeek:
o Paul Barrett, editor (only at The Journal briefly)
Reuters:
o Robert MacMillan, reporter (also at The Journal briefly)
Bloomberg:
o Laurie Hays, deputy managing editor, now executive editor for company news
Prospective Jobs:
o Marcus Brauchli, former managing editor, top candidate for Washington Post executive editorship and currently a consultant for NewsCorp.
Academia:
o Bill Grueskin, former deputy managing editor, becoming a dean at Columbia’s journalism school
Public relations gigs:
o Sally Beatty, philanthropy reporter, joined Pfizer’s PR department
o Kathryn Kranhold, GE reporter, joined Sard Verbinnen & Co.
Investment jobs:
o Jonathan Clements, former personal finance columnist, now at Citigroup
o Laurie Cohen, former senior special writer, going to a hedge fund.
June 26th, 2008
By Kyle
The Associated Press has been in the news a lot over the last couple of weeks and unfortunately it wasn’t because it was breaking stories.
Its dispute and eventual resolution with the Drudge Retort over the use and re-purposing of AP content caught national attention. While media columnists and bloggers have blown the AP / Drudge Retort story out of proportion, there may be an interesting AP story for them to follow next month. At that time, the AP will begin to completely reorganize its business news desk.
The AP remains the largest and oldest news organization in the world, serving more then 1,700 U.S. daily, weekly, non-English and college newspapers. In a time of rampant newsroom cutbacks and journalist buyouts, the AP has managed to keep 243 bureaus open in 97 countries across the world. It employs more then 3,000 journalists worldwide.
As one of its first steps in reorganizing the business news desk, the AP named Brian Bergstein national technology editor last week. Brian was kind enough to take some time with me this week to discuss the reorganization the AP will go under next month along with his thoughts on his new role, the East coast versus West coast technology scenes and the need for widely understood principles on content in the blogophere.
RaceTalk: So congratulations on being named national technology editor at the Associated Press. What will your new role entail? Also, who will you report to and can you share who else makes up the rest of the technology unit at the AP?
BB: The entire business news desk of the AP, of which the tech desk is part, is being reorganized. Previously we had some nationally based business and tech reporters, including me, but many more reporters were part of local bureaus and organized their coverage regionally. Now that structure is being blown up, and all AP business writers will be part of the national business desk, as I was, and we will organize coverage around beats rather than region. So previously, for example, we had someone in Atlanta covering Delta Airlines (in addition to other Atlanta companies) and someone in Dallas covering American Airlines (in addition to other Texas companies), but now we have a national airlines team. Similarly, you probably encountered Mark Jewell, the Boston business writer, for some Boston tech or business stories. Now he is going to be writing full-time about personal finance, on a national basis. So think of our tech coverage unfolding that same way. We now will have nine technology reporters around the country, in New York, Washington, D.C., Seattle and San Francisco, reporting to me as their editor. Other AP reporters elsewhere can and will still contribute tech stories, but for these nine, it’s their full-time beat. We’ll organize it along certain beats in tech, such as chips, PCs, wireless, business software, and so on. In time it should be much easier for PR people to figure out whom to pitch on a certain story.
RaceTalk:Obviously, those of us PR folk working in the Cambridge and Boston area have come to turn to you with national technology stories with a local hook. You mentioned to me that you won’t have a technology reporter per se in the Boston area and that a lot of what you have been covering will fall on people who aren’t physically in the area. Before we start an uproar among the local technology folks here, can you further explain the plans for covering technology stories that have a Boston area hook?
BB:Just like I often wrote about companies that weren’t in Boston, now our tech reporters who are in other cities will find themselves writing more often about companies that are here. Since we’re not limited by geography, a cool Boston start-up might get a call from Jordan Robertson in San Francisco or Peter Svensson in New York. So I don’t expect we will ignore Boston-area tech, not by a long shot. Yes, we no longer have a full-time tech reporter based here, but that isn’t necessarily always going to be the case. And in the meantime, some stories will call for an AP tech reporter to travel here. Also, for really intriguing local happenings in tech, we can bring in a generalist from the local bureau who might be interested. And I’m still here, so it’s hard to imagine Boston tech news vanishing from the AP’s radar.
RaceTalk: Are you taking any pitches / embargoed announcements from PR folks in your new role?
BB: I’m OK taking pitches and can send them in the right direction until it’s clearer to the outside world what our new beats look like. But now, more than ever, I’d love to pass on the request to always pitch by e-mail, never phone, and never, ever, call just to check in and follow up on an e-mail. The sheer volume of pitches we get makes phone calls impossible to deal with.
RaceTalk:Do you think the Cambridge / Boston area gets the short end of the stick when people talk about hot beds for technology start-ups? Santa Monica, Austin and even Vancouver seem to be getting more attention then the Cambridge / Boston area as of late. With you in Boston, the Associated Press was one of the few national outlets that had a local writer in this area solely covering technology. There still seems to be that bias at the national level where technology writers dismiss everything outside of Silicon Valley - More specifically dismissing anything outside of Cupertino or Mountain View.
BB: I suppose I’m biased, since I’m here and know how important the Boston technology landscape is, but I disagree with your assessment. Undoubtedly Silicon Valley is the Hollywood of technology, and most things happening there get blown to a higher degree of hype. But all I know is that we write an awful lot about companies and ideas emerging from other places, including states not even considered tech hubs. We do that probably more than any other news organization. And to my mind, Boston is next after Silicon Valley when it comes to important U.S. technology centers. What’s especially interesting to me is that this happens largely because of the area’s intellectual capital rather than because of some ecosystem created by a very large company. I’ve heard the complaints from people here about how there won’t be another EMC-sized tech company in Massachusetts, because all the good local tech companies keep getting bought up by companies elsewhere, but to me that’s a good sign of innovation here, not an ominous harbinger.
RaceTalk: I know you spent two years as a technology correspondent in the Silicon Valley bureau of the AP before coming to Boston. How do you personally compare the two technology scenes? As well as, how do you compare your experience in dealing with companies / communications’ executives there versus here?
BB:I get asked this question a lot. I think people expect to hear that the West Coast/East Coast divide is so striking in tech, like how rappers kill each other over it. I think the Silicon Valley scene is more obsessively covered by its local media. And Boston’s overall vibe is more New England reserved. Someone once put it to me that VCs in the Valley are all out to hit home runs, while VCs here do great hitting doubles and triples. I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification, though there is more of a rip-roaring feel in the Valley. But the truth is, I’ve met plenty of start-up founders here and in the Valley, and there’s no difference in their talent or level of motivation.
RaceTalk: As you’ll have a further role in dictating the types of technology stories that the AP is following – what are some of the larger technology trends that you are most interested in? You’ve followed the One Laptop per Child project closely and it is a truly global technology story. Can we expect AP technology correspondents working together on more global tech stories?
BB: I’m mainly interested in stories that capture how technology is changing society, the law, business, ethics or, our concepts of ourselves. So trends we will follow include such topics as user-generated content, privacy, technology and the environment, outsourcing, computer security — all the big-picture stuff you might expect. As far as more global tech stories — sure, why not? We have the foreign bureaus to produce more stuff like that, unlike most news organizations these days. And a previous AP technology editor happens to be a bureau chief for us in South America — he did a thorough early look at OLPC in Peru.
RaceTalk: Be honest, are you going to miss following breaking news on a daily basis? I know many reporters I talk to, speak of that thrill as being akin to a drug.
BB: Well, I still have to follow — and edit — breaking news now that I’m the editor. There’s certainly a thrill in getting out a well-crafted story on deadline, but if it’s a drug it’s a pretty mild one. I get just as much of a thrill out of turning around a thorough, well-crafted feature.
RaceTalk: Is there one interview with a technology industry executive that you sat down with over the last couple years that stands out in your mind?
BB: There are so many, it would be hard to pick one. I don’t have any good examples of finding some mild-mannered tech icon turning out to be a chair-throwing tyrant. I also find tech researchers and developers more interesting than most executives. The people who work in the labs tend to have a beautifully optimistic yet realistic view of how their work fits into the world.
RaceTalk:I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least try to ask you one question on the Associated Press’ highly publicized dispute and resolution with the Drudge Retort. Even your colleague Seth Sutel covered the resolution. Given the abundance of highly trafficked technology blogs it would seem that your former and future content has a high likelihood of at least being cited on blogs and making its way through the blogosphere. Do you have a personal opinion on the matter and have you been getting a lot of flack from technology bloggers that you have relationships with? (I’m guessing you’ve crossed paths with a few over the last several years on the beat.)
BB:Well, I do have an opinion, but it’s just that. I don’t speak for the AP as an organization in any way. And since the business and editorial divisions are separate, I don’t have insight into how the AP went about this. I learned what I know on this the same as you did, from reading Seth Sutel, Saul Hansell in the Times and the main tech blogs. I certainly hope that before long these kinds of issues get worked out, and widely understood principles emerge on how content like ours moves through the online world. I have a lot of respect for many technology bloggers, who often circulate really intriguing ideas.
June 25th, 2008
By Kyle
We talk with many current and potential clients about the battle to get coverage on TechCrunch. With 2.8 million unique visitors and 7.5 million page views a month, you can’t ignore it. It has become the next-gen “New York Times” for the marketing and communications executives that we work with. Not because TechCrunch is liberal (up for debate) and not even because TechCrunch is the first thing they read each morning (in many cases it is). I compare it to the New York Times because the client conversations that used to revolve around “How do we get into the Times or even the Wall Street Journal?” Now revolve around “How do I get on TechCrunch?”
Working out of the East coast with a majority of east coast technology start-ups, it had been a difficult conversation. Let’s make it simple - Michael Arrington and TechCrunch have always had a Silicon Valley bias.
It got slightly easier with addition of Erick Schonfeld (someone that I had built a good relationship with at Business 2.0), who works out of New York, and brought a better national balance to the technology coverage on TechCrunch.
The second hurdle that a lot of our clients had to overcome was TechCrunch’s somewhat singular focus on consumer technology along with news coming out of Mountain View, Redmond and Cupertino. That hurdle got easier to clear on Monday with the launch of TechCrunchIT. The spin-off created by Michael Arrington will be run by Steve Gillmor and Nik Cubrilovic. Arrington described the editorial mission of the new site by making his enterprise technology / muffler analogy:
“If it’s not clear where the line is between TechCrunch and TechCrunchIT, perhaps my muffler analogy will help. A frequent debate on the Gillmor Gang is over the importance, or at least the interestingness, of end user/consumer products (think YouTube) v. the technologies that allow those products to exist (in YouTube’s case, Adobe Flash). I personally think the YouTube’s of the world are more interesting, and I refer to those products as “Ferarris.” All the technology that goes into making those Ferarris I refer to as “mufflers” (the enterprise guys hate that, which is why I keep doing it). Basically, TechCrunchIT is a blog about the mufflers. And Steve and Nik are going to do their best to keep you entertained while reporting every important development in the muffler market.”
No word on if Meineke has signed on as a third sponsor for TechCrunchIT. It is interesting that Arrington has finally decided to break up enterprise and consumer technology right as publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek are launching their own initiatives to cover enterprise technology closer.
I have an issue with the high-technology platforms (which actually makes consumer facing sites monetizable) being refered to as “Mufflers” but I certainly don’t resent that it’s finally getting additional / targeted focus from publications like the old New York Times and the new one (TechCrunch) – Albeit TechCrunchIT.
June 25th, 2008
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