The official Gmail blog announced yet another new feature on Tuesday – “canned responses.” This feature is meant to save users the time they would normally spend sending out the same response to a common question by creating a canned response that they can send over and over again.
Google then takes it one step further by allowing users to develop automated responses for the filters, which are based on a combination of keywords and senders, they’ve already set up in their Gmail. For the especially busy (or lazy), opening an email will no longer be a prerequisite to responding to it.
At first blush, this all sounds like a great idea, but when you really get down to it, I’m not sure this new feature is all that useful. I honestly can’t think of a single question that I get emailed about repeatedly and would need to develop a canned response for. (Seriously, given that Gmail is not an enterprise email service, what kinds of questions can people really be asking each other on a regular basis? What are you doing this weekend? How’s your mom? What’s the weather like in Wasilla today?)
Moreover, with the proliferation of spam over the last several years, I think most of us are pretty careful about who we give our email addresses out to these days. For me personally, if you have my email address, I probably want and/or need to receive communications from you and wouldn’t benefit from the ability to send you an automated response without actually looking at your message. It seems to me that if someone were receiving emails that didn’t even require opening on a regular basis they should probably just send them to their spam folder, rather than taking the time to write up a canned response.
Indeed the only real benefit I can see to this feature is that it would allow users to send something akin to Outlook’s out of office message in the event that they were on vacation or knew ahead of time that they wouldn’t have access to email for a few days.
Harry McCracken, founder of Technologizer visited the Racepoint San Francisco office to discuss his new blog news site and share his personal experience on making the leap from 14 years as editor-in-chief of PC World to the blogosphere in “Confessions of a Journalist/Entrepreneur.”
McCracken says despite the fact that he left the secure world of an established print publication to launch a new site with no readers, no resources, no brand and no paycheck, he feels “privileged to be able to reach readers directly” with his blog and is convinced that if he writes something interesting, his commentary will get read. In fact, a key learning for McCracken is that the better the content, the higher quality of reader comments he receives on the site. “Technologizer is a collaboration between me, the contributing editors and the community,” says McCracken when contrasting the differences from his days of working in a primarily one-way communications channel in traditional print.
What does Technologizer cover?
At Technologizer, I’m trying to expose readers to the wider world of technology. Ninety percent of my content is focused on consumer technology, and to a degree small business. It’s nearly impossible to draw a fine line between consumer and small business these days as many consumer products and technology is also being actively used by small business. Web is critical and I also cover mobile. I think the mobile space is changing rapidly and it’s almost like what we witnessed in ’93 with promise of enhanced PCs – there’s more to come and it’s pretty exciting.
How do you decide what to focus on and what is your criteria for deciding what to cover?
Obviously a lot of what I cover is news driven but the major difference from my print days is that I will tend to do shorter, multiple posts on a news item vs. one long, in-depth article. I love consumer technology and get excited about new things, which is important in that I cannot cover everything, so I have to focus on what’s new and different. And, of course, the most exciting news is news you don’t know about yet, so you have to be ready to jump quickly on breaking news.
How do you find the balance between what you want to write about and what kind of content drives traffic?
That’s an important question because the key is finding the intersection. If I’m excited about the news, it will most likely be compelling to others and if the content I’m writing is interesting, then others will hopefully find it of interest as well. You can’t fake excitement on the Web and the long-term success for any site is being sincere.
What’s the most under-hyped technology right now?
Well, if I knew that I would already have been writing a lot about it right now! But I do think that graphic processors are now more powerful than CPUs and it’s interesting to think that CPUs have now become subservient to the GPU.
What do you think about the future of technology journalism?
Almost everybody (print media) have an online presence and are now aggregating the best content from the Web to print. So, Web first. But I don’t see magazine subscriptions going to zero. There’s a lot of talk that journalists will be replaced by the community but I don’t believe that’s true if you continue to provide value and good content. In print it used to be that a publication strived for story perfection, with the Web, timeliness takes priority so you have to give up a little on getting it perfect.
What’s the one piece of advice you would give to others starting a blog?
Don’t think of yourself as writing for your own audience – write for the world or nobody will read your site. Write for the Web.
Following Microsoft’s recent spending spree on advertisements, Apple released a new batch of ads that poke fun at Microsoft – and all the cash they spent on their campaign.
Apple put out a series of eight advertisements which focus on a variety of topics, including the computer of choice for college students, vista, and Microsoft’s spending habits.
This set of ads is just the latest in the back-and-forth between Apple and Microsoft. While Microsoft’s ads attracted a LOT of attention (due to their off-subject topics and the appearance of Jerry Seinfeld), Apple’s have been much more too the point, and illustrate the key issues that many consumers have with their PCs.
Check out the ad above (which I enjoyed most), or click here to see the other seven advertisements.
As marketing departments across big and small companies plan for 2009 budgets, we’ve gotten several requests from clients asking us to help them justify public relations costs to board members and C-level executives.
It’s an easy task.
The core answer is that PR drives business value – at a lower cost than any other marketing function.
For example, we work for a consumer technology company and recently ran an aggressive issues-response campaign that resulted in our client appearing in the New York Times, FOX-TV, Wall Street Journal, and dozens of other trade and online publications.
The results? An increase in Web traffic by 1,000 percent and a sales spike during the media blitz of 6X. This one week of results paid for their monthly retainer to Racepoint for the year – ten times over. Needless, to say, the client was delighted.
In a financial downturn, PR and marketing become even more crucial. Here’s Media Executive Erik Sorensonwriting for CNBC:
“Less marketing equals lower revenues, which means more cutbacks. Cut your marketing spend again and you risk even lower revenues. Now you’re forced to cut more costs–-and probably people–but you’re doing it from a lower base, ever closer to the brink.”
Good PR helps spreads those important marketing messages to the masses and to targeted constituent groups (customers, prospects, and even employees). Smart companies will understand that competitors often cut back on marketing and PR during financial downturns and that gives these smart companies a better chance of dominating the market – and defining the trends and issues, and the problems and solutions.
When you’re competitors aren’t talking – you should be.
Todd Defren at Shift PR recently listedfive reasons why a PR firm provides value in times of economic uncertainty.It’s a very good list.Here are four more reasons:
PR Can Create Markets.In this day and age where Joe the Plumber can go from obscurity to an overnight sensation – the power of publicity should be evident.This power doesn’t only work for individuals – but for ideas, products and companies.Good ideas can spread like epidemics when properly messaged and seeded.In recent technology news, look at what One Laptop Per Child did for affordable laptops, what EqualLogic did for iSCSI storage solutions (both Racepoint clients), and what VMWare did for virtualization.All of these campaigns were spearheaded with aggressive communication plans.
PR Can Help Open New Markets:Marketing in another country can be a daunting and expensive proposition.Tapping into your PR agency’s foreign and domestic operations and strategic partnerships is an excellent and cost-effect way to soften a market for a company’s products and services.It’s an effective way to test marketing messages and massage marketing strategies before investing in more costly marketing programs such as advertising or trade shows.It also provides instant legitimacy in a new market and provides salespeople with impartial and independent collateral.
PR Agencies Give Access to a Strategic Network: PR agencies have large networks of clients and partners that can often be a goldmine of potential partners and customers for a client.Racepoint often sets up business meetings between clients, introduces clients to our venture capital partners, and provides access to our family of next-generation marketing companies (from Digital Influence Group to Ringleader Digital).PR firms can be a valuable resource beyond the day-to-day communications work they perform.
PR Agencies Add Depth: A PR agency can become a de facto extension to a marketing and communication department.Companies get a dedicated staff (of between 4-10 people depending on budget) that specialize in the company’s market.But companies can also tap into the expertise that exists through the PR agency – able to get advice and perspective from senior executives with different areas of specialty (from media training to digital marketing) from the entire PR firm.
Did anyone even watch Saturday Night Live the last few years? I don’t think I saw one skit besides the YouTube videos of Ashlee Simpson’s lip-sinking disaster.
Now it might be hard pressed to find a more popular show. SNL is currently scoring their highest ratings in over two years, and there is no question that the election and Tina Fey are behind this boost.
In fact, SNL is so popular that the show will be launching a new video site. This site will contain all of the videos from the show, along with some sketches that didn’t make it on the air (some because they probably weren’t funny, others likely for separate reasons).
Regardless of what videos are available, as long as their opening political skits and Tina Fey are on the site it should take off, because right now SNL’s skits are enjoying a larger audience online then during their original broadcast, MediaPost reports:
Online and DVR audiences for the three Tina Fey skits on “Saturday Night Live” spoofing Sarah Palin were twice the size of the original television audience…Among all the people who saw at least one of the three SNL sketches, 33% watched it on television during the original broadcast and a staggering 67% watched after the original broadcast either online or on a DVR.
Now CNN has confirmed that Governor Sarah Palin will be appearing on this week’s episode of SNL (will we be able to tell them apart?), which should produce yet another huge viral video for NBC.
Barack Obama and John McCain took the annual stop in New York City last night at the 63rd annual Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner. The charity event, which raises money for needy children and is named after the former governor of New York, has become a regular stop for presidential nominees on their road to the White House. This year’s headliners were asked to roast themselves and each other, just one night after their heated final Presidential debate. McCain may have actually garnered harder laughs last night but both candidates were very funny. Obama even took a jab at Rupert Murdoch:
“But I know Senator McCain agrees that the rumors out there are getting a bit crazy. I mean Rupert the other day and Fox News accused me of fathering two African-American children in wedlock. By the way John, is Fox News included in the Media? I’m always hearing about this love.”
It does make you appreciate America’s political system when two bitter rivals can take a break from a heated campaign to share light-hearted barbs, that will of course make their way onto YouTube the next morning.
That breeze you just felt may have been caused by the collective sigh of relief in Silicon Valley and on Wall Street. Google announced strong Q3 earnings today, despite the tumultuous economy, lifting spirits in the Valley and within the Web 2.0 community – while also lifting its stock as the market closed.
I mentioned in April, when Google announced its Q1 earnings, how it has become the barometer, not only for Internet-based companies, but the economy in general. Today, the stakes were raised even higher as advertisers and those companies that depend on ad revenue (just about every Internet company) looked to use Google’s earnings report as a litmus test for the online advertising industry. Google delivered on the litmus test and gave some positive indicators for the online advertising industry in general (As long as you can provide measurable results for advertisers).
Google’s profits rose 26 percent from $1.07 billion, or $3.38 per share, at the same time last year. In addition, the Mountain View giant noted that it would have made $4.92 per share, surpassing street estimates of $4.75.
Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt took little time getting to the ROI that Google is providing for marketers in the downturn. In fact, in the release that Google issued shortly before their conference call at 4:30 p.m. ET today, Schmidt’s opening statement coupled this messaging with the overall growth for the quarter:
“We had a good third quarter with strong traffic and revenue growth across all of our major geographies thanks to the underlying strength of our core search and ads business. The measurability and ROI of search-based advertising remain key assets for Google.”
He echoed this written statement by opening up the call with this observation on how Google can thrive, despite shrinking marketing and consumer budgets, which Google Economist Hal Varian has dubbed the “Wal-Mart Effect” :
“We believe that these results reflect the fact that as marketing budgets are squeezed, targeted, measurable leads are becoming more valuable to advertisers. As consumer’s budgets are squeezed, people use the Web for comparison shopping to hunt for bargains online and in stores.”
Google also used the results to illustrate that they aren’t a one-trick pony when it comes to online advertising (As some have hit on their reliance on search / text ad revenue). Earlier in the day, Google quietly named former DoubleClick CEO David Rosenblatt President for Global Display Advertising (a new position). Miguel Helft of the New York Times surmised on the Bits Blog that this may indicate a bigger push into the display market.
Schmidt added on the conference call that Google will look to help the display market ”by improving targeting, which will improve ROI for advertisers.” He also hit on what they’ve done in monetizing YouTube over the last quarter through its ad networks, by noting 90% of the content on YouTube is now ad supported.
Finally, Sergei Brin added this nugget on the display advertising opportunity later in the call:
“On the display question, there are many opportunities. Let’s not forget, with AdWords and predecessors to AdWords, it took many years to catch up and show the power for advertisers in search-based advertising. I think it could take awhile to mature with this new (display) model. It’s about showing the right ad to the right user, at the right time. You may not want the return to be a click but generating awareness. You want to reach the right people. It is an area that is ripe for innovation and we can create great tools for display. Not just banner ads, but AdSense for games and videos. It’s a big opportunity.”
If you’re a PR professional, who represents a Tech client, you already know about TechCrunch. What you may not know, is how to get their editors’ attention when it comes to your client. Enter Sam Whitmore.
Sam Whitmore, the creator of Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey frequently conducts interviews with reporters and editors, getting to the bottom of what they do, how they prefer to do it, and “what I wish I’d known sooner” advice they have for others in the industry.
Today’s interview was with Erick Schonfeld (pictured) as he celebrates his one year anniversary as an editor for TechCrunch. Prior to his current gig, Schonfeld wrote for Business 2.0, eCompany and Fortune.
Schonfeld was candid with Whitmore today in his advice to PR professionals, saying the best way to get his attention is with data, not trend pieces:
“I have things that I’m thinking about. And Michael’s always thinking about – you know he’s done a lot of great pieces recently about the music business, and really thinking deeply about that. Did those come from PR people? No. Did those things get placed? No.”
“I think that the best way to do that though is to wrap it around some interesting data, maybe. We love data. And we love sort of looking at industries and companies from different angles. And if a client of one of your PR agencies has some really interesting data that they’re willing to share, that’s an exclusive. You know? It’s just I don’t really want PR people sending me their big thoughts on trends they’ve been observing.”
If you don’t have data to share, fear not, TechCrunch also welcomes video elevator pitches – a 60 second (average length of an elevator ride) chance to give your best pitch about what your company does and why it matters. All aboard the YouTube train! Schonfeld encourages:
“If I was a PR person, I would think who, of my clients, really is great at pitching their company? And who can do it in 60 seconds? And get a camera and film them. Maybe do it two or three times. Pick the best one. You upload it to YouTube. And we have a whole upload process. You can do it straight from Elevator Pitches and post it on YouTube, and it gets played on Elevator Pitches. I am the contact for it. But you don’t really need to contact me. All you need to do is go to Elevatorpitches.com, and all of the instructions are right there. It’s all self-serve.”
The video elevator pitch is a great way to get your client traction in two places: YouTube (for the general public) and TechCrunch (for the niche tech market).
Lastly, if you don’t have data to share, or a camera friendly CEO for a video elevator pitch, just read the blog! Become a frequent reader of TechCrunch and begin to comment on the content. Schonfeld divulges:
“If you use your real name, and you comment intelligently on a lot of posts, I’ll definitely recognize those names. And I think that is a good way – that’s a great way to kind of introduce yourself. Because you, then, are engaging in a conversation. And if I see your name a lot, I’ll pay more attention to it, just because I know that you’re a regular reader.”
So there you have it, straight from the source! If you want to connect to TechCrunch, and have them feature your client:
1) Share compelling data
2) Send in a video elevator pitch
3) Read the blog and comment wisely
Over the past few months Racetalk has discussed the ways Senators John McCain and Barack Obama have used social media to get their messages out, – read here, here and here. Today, Reuters announced that Barack Obama is once again using a new medium to reach voters – this time through online video gaming.
While advertising in games has been popular for a few years now, Obama is the first Presidential candidate to buy ad space in video games. Obama is using the Internet ads to target specific voters – 18-34 year-old males who are hard to reach through traditional advertising because they spend less time watching TV and reading. The in-game banners and billboards will be used to help expand the reach of VoteforChange.com so that more people can register to vote, obtain absentee voter information or find an early voting location.
According to the article, Obama’s advertising will be featured in 18 popular online games through the Xbox Live service including “Guitar Hero 3“, “NBA Live 08” and “NFL Tour” and are targeted to 10 key battleground states where early voting is available. The ads will be targeted at gamers in particular geographical areas though the IP addresses registered with their Internet service provider when they log on to Xbox Live.
No word was mentioned on how much Obama spent on the ads, and it remains to be seen whether the ads will be effective, but it’s clear that Obama has his pulse on how to reach young voters, and that’s something that McCain still struggles with.
John McCain’s “invisible friend,” as Keith Olbermann of MSNBC dubbed him after the debate, was the run away winner last night. I’m talking, of course, about “Joe the Plumber” (AKA Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio plumber). John McCain and even Barack Obama mentioned “Joe” 21 times according to the rough estimate of political pundits after the debate. Reuters counted 13 times in the first few minutes of the debate alone. Even legendary NBC anchor Tom Brokaw broke precedent to declare Joe the winner last night:
I’m always reluctant, as you know, to declare a winner in all of these. Tonight I’m going to break with that precedent. And Joe, you’re the winner. Joe plumber.
He went on to add that he hopes Joe can can take his “15 minutes” and turn it into a business. Joe also impressed CBS and Katie Couric, who he joined for a live interview after the debate.
Of course Joe’s “15 minutes” weren’t confined to the television. People were buzzing about Joe across the Internet and within the Twittersphere. In fact, at one point last night, Joe the plumber was getting tweet’d more than Barack Obama (graph below). Joe may even be on Twitter himself, although I’m inclined to think it’s “Fake Joe the Plumber.” He was the 9th hottest search term in Google Trends this morning (image also below), and roughly counting he was in over 5,000 online stories.
Getting back to Brokaw’s point on Joe making the most of his fifteen minutes – he could probably start by making a deal to purchase joetheplumber.com. I’m sure Joe from Texas, would sell it for the right price. He should definitely start getting a percentage of the royalties from those “Joe the plumber” T-shirts, which Google is selling nicely for Cafe Press when you search for our friend Joe.
If you’re a PR professional, who represents a Tech client, you already know about 
