Live many other “reviewers,” I recently wrapped-up reading an advanced copy of David Kirkpatrick’s “the facebook Effect” (Simon & Schuster) that is now on newsstands nationwide. The first thought that came to mind in wrapping up was, “that was detailed” followed by “it’s the de-facto Facebook biography from here on out.” It was truly a great read.
I had joked with David awhile ago that he better get better access to Facebook for his book than Steve Levy is getting with Google right now for his book and he undoubtedly delivered. Levy, it seems, would have to live with Larry and Sergey year round to match the access it appears Kirkpatrick got to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The former Fortune scribe, who is also launching his own conference / media company (more on that another day), has always gotten executives to open up and he clearly used that quality to bring some new Facebook stories to light throughout the book.
Others have covered the ins and outs of the book, which really gets at Facebook’s social and cultural significance, but I was most interested in the new rocks he turned over in looking at Facebook’s affect on the media. Here’s a few of the juicy nuggets. Go buy the book for more!
Shankman started HARO as a Facebook group in 2007 and the following grew so large he took the concept to the web in March 2008 at www.helpareporter.com.
HARO has been acquired by Vocus, Inc. one of HARO’s largest and most loyal advertisers. According the video below of Shankman and Vocus representative, Bill Wagner, nothing about the service will change. HARO will still be free. Shankman will still write up front notes about where is in the world and what he’s up to.
The only thing that will change is that HARO will now grow in new ways, with these additional resources. One example, Vocus plans to expand HARO to other countries.
HARO is a perfect case study of an entrepreneurial idea come to life. Shankman saw a need and created a service. The service grew in popularity and reach and became a direct competitor to long time paid service ProfNet (read RaceTalk’s post about how they could have merged, but didn’t). Now, HARO has been acquired (a major win for Shankman) providing the service with fresh momentum.
Shankman is also employing a critical PR necessity: transparency. As soon as the acquisition was final, Shankman took to the blog not only providing a written update, but a video message. HARO supporters heard the news directly from him, as it happened. This is key in building customer loyalty and trust, which is the cornerstone of a strong brand.
As long time subscribers to HARO, we look forward to being a part of what’s next for this growing service.
Today Google has added a new homepage feature – allowing users to chose or upload their own background images for the home page. Users were already able to pick their own themes for Gmail, iGoogle and other Google platforms, but now the main page will be customized as well.
Here is a look at how users will be greeted:
Here is one of Google’s background options:
And my customized home page with a background image of Bryce Canyon in Utah.
