silentinflames

Moving on...

2009-04-28T11:29:00.000-07:00

Silent In Flames is no more. The content I put here now falls within the remit of Clicking & Screaming, so really I have no need for a strictly PR/SM personal blog.

To get your PR/SM fix, C&S is the blog you're after.I'll be replacing this place with something a little more free and easy, where I can just shoot the shit on whatever takes my fancy. You'll find it in time.

Silent In Flames will disappear one day. Until then, adios!

The Dominos Booger Crisis

2009-04-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

Dominos has been the latest brand to take a bit of a shoeing in the social media echo chamber, following the amazingly fast spread of this video, showing two animals in a Dominos kitchen treating customers to some extra "goodies" on their sandwiches.

I've had my run-ins with Dominos. In late 2006 I convinced myself I was going to die in my sleep against a toilet, thanks to my first ever dose of food poisoning. No prizes for guessing where I'd bought my pizza. Still, they've since been forgiven and I've been able to look at their recent crisis objectively. After I'd finished laughing.

Xzibit, a leading (and excellent) West Coast rapper and regular Twitter user, picked some choice and fitting language to share this with his 13,804 followers. Not a good thing to have so many people put off your brand in less than 140 characters - and that's without all the retweets!

Any huge food brand like Dominos could've been the victim of this issue, and in a sense they can be considered unlucky to have employed this pair of socially stunted morons. More interesting, though, has been watching Dominos' response.

I covered this for our internal newsletter and my tone probably suggested that Dominos had been a little slow in responding. I still think that's partly true, but the fact is they've taken some very appropriate action.

Dominos quickly identified the restaurant shown in the YouTube clip, and dismissed the staff involved. There is also now a pair of snot-covered felony warrants out for their arrests. Pwn3d.

With that all sorted, Dominos took their response to the exact place where the crisis began. I heartily endorse this practice.

They have posted a video (below) on YouTube of Dominos USA president Patrick Doyle. The tone of the video is just right. Doyle's statement is sombre, regretful and emphatic. He reassures us that the two scumbags in the video have been severely dealt with and have more to come, that the restaurant has been scrubbed from top to bottom, that 99.9% of Dominos staff aren't subhuman pondlife, and that Dominos is very, very sorry.

Nicely done. And there's a twist in the tale too, a piece of PR spin so brilliant that I couldn't help but be impressed. Doyle refers to the incident as a YouTube "hoax", and later says that the two employees in the clip claimed that to be so.

In doing this, Doyle, without saying it's all a storm in a teacup, just sews the seeds of doubt - maybe these were just two wayward, misguided individuals having a laugh. Maybe there were no boogers.

With their response - which could have been a little faster - Dominos have simultaneously fully and comprehensively addressed a problem and introduced the possibility that it wasn't as serious as it sounded. And the video is titled in such a way that it will pop up in any search for the original vid. Nice work.

Liveblogging: why and how

2009-04-14T04:33:00.000-07:00

Liveblogging is something that I, as a football blogger, probably should have tackled earlier. I didn't do so because I still fancy myself as a football writer, so I like to write my match reports in full, usually published right on the final whistle.

Liveblogging is ideal for certain situations. Sport is one, but there are many possible business applications for companies so inclined. If you have a dedicated readership, online community or fan-base, liveblogging could be right for your business.

For example, events or press conferences can be liveblogged. In the right industry, launches and quick one-day-only developments can also be the subject of a liveblog.

Most relevant software has chatroom or commenting functionality, so question and answer sessions could easily be held in a liveblogging platform. The beauty of this is that once embedded into your blog, readers can follow the updates live with no need to refresh (and no need for you to constantly republish).

Over the Easter weekend I conducted my first live blog, quite simply a blow-by-blow account of Saturday afternoon's Premier League fixtures.

I found it to be an enjoyable and rewarding experience. People read it, and joined in. I got real time feedback which is unavailable through other methods of covering the same sort of event. Without resorting to steam-of-consciousness bullshit rhetoric, it was liberating to be relaying my thoughts to (a few) people live and uncensored.

If a business is open to its employees, or selected employees, blogging and tweeting on its behalf, liveblogging is not problematic, and could provide a great way - as already mentioned - of communicating particular goings-on.

When you've taken the decision to liveblog your event or press conference, it's time to find a way of doing it. It is possible to directly liveblog through your blog proper, but this can be arduous and looks incredibly untidy in your subscribers' RSS readers. It also moves an comment into the blog's comments section, rendering discussion difficult.

Better, then, to let a third party create an embeddable widget for you. This can then be placed in a one-off blog post which does not, in itself, need refreshing.

A recommendation from Ginge, via Jason, led me to use Cover it Live for my first liveblog, and to be perfectly honest it was so flawless that I'll be using it from now on unless they make drastic changes to it.

CiL looks fantastic - modern and clean - and gives the user loads of flexibility over the way the liveblog session works. And here's more good news for businesses: Cover it Live Enterprise (PDF) lets you set up a permanent live panel on your page. There must be plenty of possible uses for that!

Nine Inch Nails launch iPhone app - here's why it's cool

2009-04-09T04:41:00.000-07:00

I love Nine Inch Nails. I love the ethos and the innovation. But most of all, I love the music - so you'll have to forgive me if this post is too fawning. And it will be.

In his latest innovation in music/fan technology, Trent Reznor has launched the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app. In typical NIN style, it looks like it's been pretty damn well done, and there are many reasons why I think it's very, very cool.

I thoroughly recommend you watch the video embedded below, from WiReD. It shows Reznor and Rob Sheridan running through the features of the app. The whole of NIN.com has been rendered for the iPhone, meaning the app operates as a fully operational website, including membership functions.

This brings to the iPhone the social nature of NIN.com. Reznor is a great advocate of fan rights, and consistently provides raw materials for fan mash-ups. All of this is available on the new app, including a huge library of downloadable photographs. At this point, it's worth noting that the Nine Inch Nails iPhone app is free.

But the really amazing thing about this app is Nearby. Sheridan says Nearby is "kind of like Twitter within the Nine Inch Nails network". Sounds ok so far, but really it's more like a location-based Yammer.

It's a members-only GPS-enabled messaging tool which allows conversation between NIN fans (and Reznor, probably) and can be filtered by location. That's pretty social. And they've even thought of the personal security risks, by adding a location fuzziness option.

Trent = genius.

(Photo: Synthtopia)

What I get out of Twitter

2009-04-08T05:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, the Twitter backlash is starting to irritate me rather a lot. Way back when I first signed up, I didn't get it and I thought it was pointless. Then I started using it and now I'm hooked - and I'm not the only one.

But more and more people are signing up because of all the celebrities who use it - some properly, some not - and they don't understand how to use it. They then combine with all the skeptics and, for some reason, feel the need to slag it off. It's nothing new, of course. Some people, me included, are just miserable bastards.

Last night I was listening, against my better judgement, to BBC Radio 5 Live, and @richardpbacon's guest said what people always say when they don't use it, don't get it and assume, because they hear about it through the likes of Bacon and Tim Lovejoy, that it's about hearing what some half-celebrity had for lunch: "it's pointless".

If you use Twitter to starf*ck, it is pointless. But here's some of the stuff I get out of it:

I can promote my blogs to a carefully grown list of followers. Some are interested in this blog, some in Clicking & Screaming and some in twofootedtackle. Others are interested in all, none or individual posts. Either way, Twitter has acted as a promotional tool and a targeted ping service

Twitter has allowed me to tap into several social circles which I find fascinating and engaging, and were previously not accessible for whatever reason. The social media scene is relevant for work and has allowed me to exchange comment with people way above my level. I also regularly discuss football with other bloggers and with a core of fans from the USA. That doesn't happen offline

I get interesting news in real time without having to go look for it. If you follow the right people (i.e. people with similar interests to your own), Twitter is a useful, convenient, relevant and lightning-fast source of news and commentary. You won't get that from half-celebs who don't know what the hell they're doing

I've made some good contacts, both in my football world and my professional world. Bizarrely, lots of these contacts belong to other PR agencies. Twitter has helped us all to share more, respect each other more and made us a little less suspicious of each other. That can only be good for the industry

It's fun. If you desperately tweet at celebrities or just read their banal crap, you'll get sod all out of your Twitter experience. Don't then turn on everyone who uses it properly - it's your fault

Rant over.

(Photo: Uniquities)

Fresh business thinking from...me!

2009-04-08T04:12:00.000-07:00

With a little help from our marketing team here at Porter Novelli, one of my humble blog posts got picked up this week by Freshbusinessthinking.com.

You can (re-)read my post "13 bleedin' obvious tips for writing a good blog post" here, if you so wish. It's pretty basic stuff, but that was kinda my intention. Also, I'm delighted to see that tip number 11 - "Slag off Harry Redknapp" - remained intact. I'm more pleased that I held back, my true opinion on the old sod would've been unprintable.

Web Rule No.1: don't be stupid

2009-04-07T06:44:00.000-07:00

At the risk of upsetting my fellow geek-folk, I have to admit that I think the X-Men movies are crap and the last movie to fill me with as much apathy as X-Men Origins: Wolverine probably starred Keanu Reevezzzzz.

But what does interest me is online stupidity, those moments of such arrogance/ignorance that one can barely stifle the chuckles. And it just so happens that good old X-Men has provided such a story.

I'll let the BBC website take up the matter:

"A US columnist is out of a job after posting an online review of an illegally downloaded copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
"Roger Friedman, who wrote the piece on his regular column, had worked at the Fox news website for 10 years.
"The journalist wrote in his column on Thursday that downloading the 20th Century Fox film was 'so much easier than going out in the rain'."

Here in the Porter Novelli digital igloo we have hundreds of unwritten rules - don't astroturf, don't pretend to be someone you're not, don't write in technobabble. But top of the list is don't be a bloody idiot.

The rights (pun intended) and wrongs of piracy - or whatever you want to call it - are for another post on another day. But in our increasingly digital and even-more-increasingly social media lives it's is so important to think about what we're saying and what the implications might be.

Friedman, in bragging about how he got his hands on the movie in question, was incredibly stupid. But to do it in his Fox News column is frankly mind-boggling.

Remember - be careful out there, digi-folk.

(Photo: ET Online)

Major League Soccer leads the way in social media for football

2009-04-03T10:24:00.000-07:00

Ahem. Ignoring the hefty gap between posts, I'm going to jump straight back in with a bit of football.

As part of an article I'm writing for someone else, I've been hunting around for good examples of football clubs using social media. Properly. Apart from General Krulak engaging directly with Aston Villa fans, Everton's Facebook group and Liverpool's Twittering, successes have been few and far between.

So I was chuffed yesterday when Ginge tweeted about a new site from Major League Soccer's FC Dallas. MyFCDallas.com is the "Official FC Dallas Fan Network", a social networking site built on the Ning platform, and was launched this week.

Why I like MyFCDallas

MyFCDallas is a great approach to fan engagement. It recognises the need to be in touch with supporters. In fact, it's especially important for FCD, because their match attendance last weekend was embarrassingly low.

The site possesses all the usual functionality of a social networking website, but it allows the fans to get up close and personal with (presumably briefed) players. With English clubs preferring to punt out half-arsed "player" blogs, this is a bold approach - though I accept the environment is different in MLS.

But what I really like about this site is that it's integrated properly into the rest of the social web. It has many of the characteristics I'd associate with a social media newsroom.

The photos, though not hosted on Flickr, are "social" in that they can be uploaded by anyone. The videos appear to be piped in through YouTube, a method of which we thoroughly approve for a variety of reasons which I've probably outlined elsewhere and have definitely outlined the draft of the aforementioned article.

But the bottom line is that FC Dallas are showing clear intent to engage with the fans and they're doing it well (well, in this case, being defined by my opinions on how this stuff should be done).

The first MLS franchise to go down the Ning route was Houston Dynamo, with MyDynamo.net. Like MyFCD, this site is well intentioned, well designed and well executed. But there are non-PR benefits for the clubs too. They are able to run ads about events, sales, matches and so on directly to a ready-made bunch of people who want to know.

That community of evangelists is something many brands dream of but football clubs can lay claim to at the drop of a hat.

In general, I've been quite impressed with Major League Soccer's digital approach. While it is naturally a little obsessive over ownership of its materials (i.e. hosting all videos on-site), that is understandable. The fact is, producing excellent downloadable content like the Extra Time video podcast is a useful marketing strategy.

In fact, video is something FCD has done well recently too, jumping on a specific event - Kenny Cooper's goal from his own half a couple of weeks ago - and producing entertaining video in response.

Football supporters are a huge market, full of exciting and innovative content - the difference is, they're desperate to share it with the clubs. Why the clubs, by and large, just don't want to know is beyond me.

Update: Attacking90 pointed me in the direction of MyQuakes, the Ning site of the San Jose Earthquakes.

13 digital and social media tools I don't use (but I tried)

2009-03-17T06:08:00.000-07:00

In my professional life I often come across or become made aware of new tools, why I should be using them, what they can do for our clients at Porter Novelli and how not using them could one day result in my whole knowledge being obsolete.

Here are some I've seen or heard about (and mostly tried) and I no longer use.

Tweetdeck - this Twitter client is a tool which I really like but just falls short of my love for Twhirl. While Tweetdeck does some very cool stuff, I just don't need it enough to sack the client incumbent

MySpace - this was all the rage a while ago, wasn't it? Before Facebook found its way into my life in 2006, I'd spent a solid year on MySpace. But it's all about who uses it, and these days it's nobody. I have no account now, not even a dormant one

Yammer - is Yammer the name of the tool or a description of their marketing? I'm sceptical about this Twitter-for-enterprise, because we have business IM and Twitter already. Getting a regular nagging email if you sign up and don't update is not helpful

Friendfeed - didn't get it, then tried it, then didn't get it. This one seems to have died a death recently anyway

Second Life - I can't remember for the life of me why I tried this, but I gave it about 30 seconds. If anyone *normal* uses it regularly, I'd be surprised

Tumblr - don't get me wrong, I like Tumblr a lot. I just don't really have a use for it, despite a couple of attempts. If you're a social scrapbook-keeper, it's bloody brilliant

Zemanta - Zemanta provides related links for your blog posts. I kinda like the idea, and I covered it pre-launch on an old blog of mine which hit the buffers. I just never really got around to using it

Last.fm - great tool, used to like scrobbling, but really and truly it just ended up getting SPOTIFIED

StumbleUpon - Stumble was great fun when I was at university, flagging up all manner of random shit for me to enjoy, share and vomit over

Yahoo! Answers - again, like the idea and I'm sure some people find it useful but it just isn't for me. I prefer to use Google and just do my own filtering

LiveJournal - learned about this bad boy at university, thanks to the awesome Dr Paul Hodkinson who wrote about it quite a bit (it's big among goths). Had a look, but it's another where the value is in the people, and I knew no people. I like that it integrates blogging and communities

Friends Reunited - signed up, didn't want to pay, then lost interest. Now it's going down the tubes, unless something is done sharpeesh

Blip.fm - just why?!

Propping up democracy

2009-03-13T10:33:00.000-07:00

Readers from Liverpool, look away now. Kelvin MacKenzie features heavily in this post.

MacKenzie oversaw as editor a controversial period in the history of The Sun, Britain's "favourite" tabloid. Having read Piers Morgan's book, I can't say I was surprised that MacKenzie is viewed as a ruthless operator. One doesn't gain the ear of Murdoch without being a little professionally devious.

He's moved in radio, television and publishing circles since leaving The Sun, but is best known for the newspaper's disgraceful coverage of the Hillsborough disaster. To this day, many newsagents on Merseyside refuse to stock The Sun and its sales in Liverpool are (anecdotally) negligable.

As a sidenote, the 20th anniversary of the disaster, in which 96 Liverpool supporters were tragically killed, is almost exactly a month away - MacKenzie is bound to be in the spotlight. Still, makes a change from Topless Darts.

He is quite obviously a touch right-wing which means that I wouldn't agree with anything he says for the sake of it. But something he wrote this week has at least made me think, and the only thing MacKenzie normally makes me think is that I don't much like the fella.

As you may have noticed, I've been reading (and writing) a lot about the future of newspapers lately, both here and on my personal blog, Silent in Flames. So it was certainly interesting to read a former tabloid editor's view on it, particularly when the figure in question has been so divisive a character over the years.

As reported by Roy Greenslade, MacKenzie argued the case for fighting for the survival of local newspapers in his column for The Sun.

And he makes an interesting point, too. While the rest of us discuss the loss or hyperlocalisation of news, the online v print advertising question and possible solutions, MacKenzie believes that local newsapers are a keystone of democracy:

"Who will tell you what the local councils are up to in future? Not Google. Who will cover the magistrates' courts, the inquests, the local crime, the speech days? Not Google."

Of course it would be well within Google's power, but personally I can't see the inclination ever being there. I suppose we could ask whether those events quoted are absolutely central to democracy, but they're definitely important pieces of news which the local media excel in reporting.

MacKenzie also suggests that the public must take responsibility for saving this vital democratic tool, telling us to use it or lose it. That's the whole newspaper futures argument in a nutshell, I reckon.

But the assumption that newspapers - particularly locals - are a cornerstone of democracy raises some important questions. How far would newspaper closures really erode democracy? Is there an online alternative?

A crucial part of MacKenzie's argument goes roughly thus (my interpretation): if the government is willing to use public wonga to bail out parts of the car industry (too late for Longbridge, by the way) and the banks, surely it should do the same for democracy? What do you think?

Cross-posted from Clicking & Screaming

(Photo: The Speakers Agency)