I was really impressed to see that the British Library has archived 200 years of newspapers online, allowing anyone to see what made news in the nineteenth century.  Together with the radio, newspapers were the public’s only window to what was happening in the world as they didn’t have access to the same multimedia we have now.

When you look back to what events shaped the news 50 to 100 years ago, journalists were responsible for reporting on significant life-changing events such as the World Wars and the first Atom bomb testing.  This really puts today’s headlines on Peter Andre and Jordan into perspective.

I find looking back on how historic events were reported really interesting and will definitely part with £6.99 for a six hour pass into the news. I just hope that the ease of accessing news online won’t mark the end of people collecting newspapers from their local news stands any time soon.

Angela Woodward

After all the hype in the run-up to last week’s Apple WWDC, you could be forgiven for thinking that what was (or should that be wasn’t?) announced was a bit of a let-down.  It was however, a triumph of marketing over the delivery of anything really new.

Pre WWDC, the blogosphere was full of rumours including:

• a sleek new handset design
• video conferencing
• a surprise return of Steve Jobs

…and, most importantly for the geeks…

• an Apple logo on the back of the phone that lit up.

What we got was Read the rest of this entry »

An interesting list caught my eye yesterday on the BrandRepublic website: Jam’s list of the top 100 most talked about brands on Twitter. Some criticism has been levelled at the research (see the comments underneath the original post), but most would surely concur that it’s virtually impossible to create a list like this that isn’t out of date within a few minutes.

What struck me was the number of brands that are being talked about, but aren’t participating in those conversations via their own Twitter handle. Microsoft does have a page, @Microsoft, though I can’t tell whether it is an official one or not, and has managed to collect over 600 followers without issuing a single tweet. Many technology companies, such as Sony and Nokia,  have accounts but have only started tweeting within the last couple of weeks. Others are prolific twitterers, but are not engaging in any dialogue with others - surely missing the point of social networking - see BBCNews; 47,000 tweets and they all appear to be automated news headlines with no attempt to engage with followers.

It seems to be that there are three major challenges:

1. Big brands are not moving fast enough to secure their brand name on various networks. Have a look at @Dell, @Nike, @Ryanair, for example. Marcomms teams need to be monitoring the emergence of new networks and ensuring they have registered their name before someone else does. Otherwise they’re difficult to find - even for someone compiling a list such as Jam’s.
2. A major stumbling block appears to be one of control, and many companies don’t want just any member of staff tweeting on behalf of the company with gay abandon. You can understand their reservations. At the recent media140 event I attended, Darren Waters from the BBC explained the difficulty of balancing the need for speed, with the need for factual accuracy that one expects from the BBC. As such, the news corporation doesn’t allow journalists to tweet as BBC employees. Unless they are Rory Cellan-Jones (who must be a trustworthy technology user) I note!
3. Finally - and I can’t speak for the brands on this list, only for the clients and prospects that I speak to on a daily basis - many of them simply don’t think it’s important. Someone I met last week was baffled by the buzz around social networking tools such as Twitter in the context of her role as marcomms manager of a global technology company selling both B2B and consumer products; yet says she always checks Amazon’s user-generated reviews before making a personal purchase. Given that tweets are now being indexed by Google, it seems unwise to ignore them and just hope your potential customers do too.

Jo Jamieson

We’ve been discussing ways of winning new business in a recession as Real Business is looking at this topic for an article. We know that every client requires a specific strategy, with creative campaigns and return on investment; but there is one key area that is vital to winning new business - in or out of a recession…

Building a good client relationship beforehand will set the expectations of all parties and enable you to not only meet the brief, but exceed it. In the current economic climate the emphasis is being placed on the question “what will we get for our money?”. Taking time to understand what the potential client needs provides a great foundation for the pitch and, of course, is one of the most cost-effective ways of getting ahead of the competition.

Sara Lewis

I’ll freely admit that I’ve been caught up in the craze that is Twitter. The tool has become a staple part of my working ”diet” and, while I’ll admit that it certainly hasn’t replaced more conventional forms of communication, I think it’s a very worthy addition to my repertoire.

I currently don’t have a personal Twitter account as I much prefer Facebook for keeping in touch with friends, and I’ve never had a MySpace page, but a new piece of research has got me questioning whether this reveals anything about me as an adopter of social media.

According to a study from Harvard Business School, the networking tools that we select - and the ways in which we use them - could be less a matter of choice and more a case of Read the rest of this entry »

At Berkeley PR we’re keen on extolling the virtues of Twitter as a social networking tool with business benefits; a real time search engine; and a live news feed - all very useful stuff, but rather innocuous nonetheless.

But perhaps there is a more political potential of Twitter? Does the micro-blogging service have the ability to empower people with freedom of expression on a massive scale, rally public opinion and unsettle the ruling order? It appears to have rattled the Chinese government who,  in preparation for the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, has cut off all access to Twitter, Hotmail and Flickr; preventing the public from engaging in political conversation which, undoubtedly, will lead to questioning and perhaps, the government surely fears, a return to unrest.

Those of us old enough to remember Tiananmen Square will find it difficult to forget the television image of the lone student standing in front of the tank, awaiting his fate. Imagine if that same event had played out over Twitter, with images uploaded instantly on Twitpic, blogs and Flickr accounts - the government then surely would have had no place to hide.

Twitter has particular resonance in China from a language point of view. English Tweeters are continually challenged to express themselves in 140 characters or less. A Chinese tweet, however, can have three times the volume of an English tweet thanks to the high “information intensity” of the Chinese language and can therefore contain all the elements of a full news piece.

No wonder the government is concerned, but how sad that 20 years after its shocking response to what should have been a lawful protest, it still feels the need to censor and silence its people.  Perhaps non-Chinese Tweeters can help fight the censors and show some solidarity across the globe this week by ensuring the Tiananmen Square massacre does not go un-tweeted, in spite of the best efforts of the government.

Emma Sinclair