Conversationblog

Interesting report here from Reuters how Twitter was used to break a story hours before the mainstream media got hold of it.

Dave Winer, a well known blogger, asked his Twitter ecosystem (people who subscribe to his updates) if they knew something about a possible explosion in Falls Church, Virginia. Soon other people on Twitter told what they had seen or felt in and around that area.

It was 90 minutes later when official media reported what actually happened - thereby confirming what several people reported already through Twitter.

Of course it helped that Dave has such a huge following on Twitter (more than 9000 people) but this is again a case of social media being faster than traditional media.

I have used microblogging for conferences and regular updates myself and while at first I didn't really see a use for Twitter or Jaiku I now see more and more practical business cases popping up.

Here's a good overview on how journalists can and are using microblogging tools. For corporations I can think of applying the principles to internal communications, urgent situation updates, crisis communications and more.

What do you think ? Still the biggest waste of time ever...?

Both Blackline and Leads United have now the ability to perform detailed online buzz tracking and monitoring for their clients through a partnership with Attentio, a Brussels based market intelligence company.

We're now able to:

• Track brand & product mentions online.
• Discover positive or negative trends around a brand.
• Monitor the blogopshere and news sites for potential issues.
• Create industry intelligence reports.
• Draft online competitive analysis reports.

This is a very important add on to our existing services. Listening is the first step for any company who would like to start using social media for its business communications efforts, our dashboard will allow us to do exactly that.

The online monitoring dashboard from Attentio can be seen as the professional/top level extension to our RSS workshops and in house training sessions as well as an extension to Leads United traditional clipping service. I am looking forward to tailor this service to specific clients and to research my first trend report about social media in Europe...

Of course, if you're interested to discover this new service, please let me know.

Mainstream media have turned to the web some time ago but more and more news sites are incorporating social media features like RSS feeds, blogs etc... into their websites.

Already in 2006, the Bivings Group started to index this movement when it launched a call for "newspaper research" which I eagerly answered at the time and started to create my own index of Belgian news sites... which I never finished.

Today this topic is active again thanks to the efforts of Joanna Geary in the UK who, on her turn, was heard by the good people from L'Observatoire Des Medias who are now trying to index as much as media websites as possible in Europe.

This time I'll try to get my 20 something colleagues from Leads United to split up the Belgian online news ecosystem so that we can all add at least 1 site to the index... Should work and not take that much time I guess.

The launch of the new website of cafebabel.com today is showing the way...

Here's a short extract from their press release:

Cafebabel.com in figures:

• 300, 000 unique visitors per month (source: Google Analytics)
• 6 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish
• 350 journalists and 700 translators in 26 local editing teams in Europe
• 70 European blogs
• 4, 000 subscribers to the community
• 11 full time employees and 3 interns
• Created in 2001 by Erasmus students, cafebabel.com is an independent media edited by the Babel International association.

A possible future of online news sites...? What do you think ?

I am at the European Association of Communications Directors Summit in Brussels where I hosted a panel debate on social media and PR this morning.

Very interesting discussions here and a high level of communications executives from across Europe. I'll blog more about the conference but you can follow the live stream today and tomorrow if you can't be here.

I also have a small Twitter stream you can follow. If by any chance you are also Twittering this one, please use #EACD as a tag. Thanks.

I am currently testing out Scribefire, an add on for the Firefox browser which allows you to write a blogpost while surfing and without leaving your browser window.

This blogpost has been written from "within" the browser and while I have several tabs (webpages) open. Am curious how it will look but the features of Scribefire look great.

For instance, I can insert a Youtube clip right from the interface.



Euroblog 2008 - Day One (13.03.2008)

Or a Flickr Image:




Attentio Graphic.

I'll test it further but it sure looks good.... Helps to be able to blog a story while surfing the web.

What are you using to blog ?
Technorati Tags: scribefire, blogpost, tool, youtube, flickr, blogging, Firefox, add on

So who's getting all the attention from the world's leading media outlets ? What is really world news and what's not ?

A project run by 2 interns at the Online Journalism Blog have created these interactive maps below which allow us to see how each medium is covering the world. The maps below show how editor in chiefs saw the world in 2007. Countries swell or shrink according to the amount of media attention they receive.

Click on the media titles to see how each of them cover the news.

Some interesting findings;

• "Looking at the three British dailies, editors favour countries that are bigger and more populous, but also closer to home and better developed. They also give more room to the countries of origin of British immigrants, especially if they are white (look at the size of Australia and New-Zealand)."
• "Smaller issues are better covered by the blogosphere, which seems unbeatable at providing niche news."

Euroblog was already a week ago... time flies.

Here are a couple of lessons we've learned from live blogging the conference...

1. Always ensure the network is capable of supporting your live blogging efforts. In this case the Wifi connection was simply too bad and even with a cable the upload of images and podcast files was impossible. We used Coveritlive, a great platform especially created to cover conferences and events. Unfortunately we haven't been able to use all the nice features because of the connection issues.
2. Prepare in advance: create simple text files with backgrounders on the speakers, collect the URL's of blogs, resources that are related to the conference topic, save pictures of speakers for quick re-use etc...
3. Be prepared to manage feedback from an online audience; Coveritlive allows for people to comment on the live blogposts and although this is a great feature and worked well during Euroblog, I can imagine it can gets really crowded on bigger events when people start to give input. In the case of Euroblog I was glad with the really strong input from all across the globe (New Zealand) by Catherine Arrow.
4. Try to be with 2 conference bloggers and switch off form time to time... Especially during a 2/3 day conference you need time away from the screen to follow the conversations without having to "real time summarize" them... Although Pieter was there to help, day 2 was very tiring for me and being inside all day doesn't help...
5. Prepare an alternative location to collect presentations, pictures etc... from the event apart from the central blog where you live blog. PHilip Young set up a wiki from where he links all the content and hosts the presentations from the conference.

Want to see what you've missed ? Here are the links:

• Live blogged content from day 1
• Live blogged content from days 2&3
• The Euroblog Wiki
• The Flickr Photo Group

We had very good feedback from the organizers and it was really a pleasure for us at Blackline to support Euroblog with our tools and skills of the trade.

Looking forward to the next conference... I heard whispers of Sicily...

Those of you who followed my training sessions on RSS learned already that your online content can travel in different formats via different media (mobile phone, email, SMS etc…).

Today I managed to create a web widget (small online sometimes viral application) and turn it into a real Facebook Application in just 20 minutes. All this based on… indeed, the RSS feed of Blackline.

You can find the widget here and the Facebook Application here.

By doing so I did 2 things:

1. I made my latest blog content portable so that anyone who wished to do so can take my little widget and republish my content on their own website. The content will be updated automatically by RSS, always showing my latest articles.

2. I adapted this little application to the Facebook platform (more than 64 million users) so that anyone who wishes to do so can add my content to their profile page.

Will people do this…? Well, in my case probably only my hardest fans (there are some 76 people who read my blog on their mobile phone, proving that I do have fans !) but imagine you’re working for a gaming company, a B2C retailer, a trend setter like Apple…

It is all about repackaging your content and make it available on as much platforms as possible…

And to close the loop - one of the best ways to do this online is via RSS feeds.

Tomorrow one of the best conferences on social media and PR of 2008 will start in Brussels and Blackline will be part of it.

You can find the full agenda of the Euroblog 2008 conference here and with the great list of speakers this 3 day happening can't go wrong.

Blackline will blog and podcast the conference "almost" live and you'll be able to follow everything that happens in Brussels on our conference page.

Philip Young copied the broadcast page on the Euroblog site and on his own blog as well so content will definitely be syndicated.

Next to this I also set up a link to major conferences in Europe where I will be present and speak this year (check the right side updates under "Conferences").

Hope to meet you at Euroblog or at one of the other conferences soon !

Although I could agree on "most agencies don't get social media" it is not even me saying this but a recent survey by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony.

The survey, based on 60 responses from marketeers in the US, UK and in France had one clear message: agencies - be it PR, Marketing or Creative/Design agencies - do not understand social media and tend to treat them like any other medium.

One critique that came back from in house marketeers was that agencies themselves have no real hands on experience with these new tools and apply the same communications model they are used to apply.

Here's my take on this, based on my own experience as a freelance consultant/trainer:

• Agencies have been my very first clients; my first training session about social media was with a "traditional" PR agency eager to understand what social media could mean to their business. So do they "get it"...? Well, I think they all know that blogs, RSS feeds etc.. are influencing their profession and are on the agenda of their clients. But that doesn't mean they are all experienced in using social media.
• Each year I track which PR agencies (based in Belgium) have RSS feeds on their websites. I do believe that this is one of the signs that show if you "get" social media or not, as RSS is the basis of good content syndication and information management. Guess what... agencies are very, very slow to get with the RSS game and only 8 out of more than 20 agencies use feeds to promote their content.

So what's the problem...?

It is the model... or rather the fact that the communications model we all learned in PR, Communications, Marketing school doesn't apply to social media at all. It is not about the "sender" and the "receiver" as it used to be.

When using social media we are entering an ecosystem where feedback, two way communications and transparency rule, and most of us are simply not used to this. Many of my colleagues in agency are used to the command and control model and feel very uncomfortable engaging the public online, for all to see and react.

But to be fair - several of my corporate clients feel exactly the same way and need as much information, awareness training and hands on experience before using social media than my agency colleagues. In short, we all have a very long way to go.