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Kat Herding

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A new blog burst on the blogosphere this week, and I am still laughing.

Kat Herding.

This is what a satirical character blog should be, and we should not be surprised that the "site contributors" are Chris Locke and Jeneane Sessum, who get the absurd like no one else online.

Why do I like Kat, and I haven’t always liked similar character blogs? Because apart from being funny and poking holes in Web 2.0 hype (something I will ALWAYS be for), it is honest. We don’t have to look hard to know who is behind this effort.

Since RageBoy is probably the first* known character blogger, who can do it better?

*Disclaimer: I have done no empirical research on whether RageBoy actually was the first character blogger, it is just a guess on my part, so please do not send me comments that he wasn’t. I actually don’t care one way or the other. I still think he’s funny.

NOTE: June 3, 2007 — Comments and Trackbacks closed on this post due to comment spam.

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Blogs and SEC Disclosure

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Interesting developments recently on the public company material disclosure front.

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz has been pretty vocal that he believes blogs and Web sites are better than "anachronistic" vehicles like press releases and conference calls to broadly disseminate material information.  He recently wrote a letter to SEC Chair Christopher Cox asking for clarification of Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), the rule that requires disclosure methods to be "reasonably designed to provide broad, non-exclusionary distribution of the information to the public."

Cox’s  reply, posted in a comment to another post on Schwartz’s blog a little over a week ago, indicates that the SEC is open to the idea:

"The Commission encourages the use of websites as a source of information to the market and investors, and we welcome your offer to further discuss with us your views in this area. Assuming that the Commission were to embrace your suggestion that the "widespread dissemination" requirement of Regulation FD can be satisfied through web disclosure, among the questions that would need to be addressed is whether there exist effective means to guarantee that a corporation uses its website in ways that assure broad non-exclusionary access, and the extent to which a determination that particular methods are effective in that regard depends on the particular facts." (emphasis mine)

In other words, does the site have a broad reach? Is it open to all? And most importantly, is it GENERALLY true, not just specifically true in certain instances.

This last is the key one, in my opinion. Sure, Sun’s site and Jonathan’s blog are widely read, and would likely qualify under the FD Regulation. But in order for web disclosure to become a rule, it would have to be generally and broadly true for all public companies, not just some. That’s the much harder test.

So, don’t cancel your PR Newswire or BusinessWire accounts just yet, folks. I suspect we are going to need the old, beleagured press release for a bit longer.

Thanks to John Cass and Robert French. Also, more details in this AP article.

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Today’s trivia:

  • Schwartz is a fellow alum of Wesleyan University.

  • Today is the 2d birthday (anniversary) of this blog.

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The Ethics Lesson from the Wal-Mart/Edelman flog fiasco

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You know, we all learned pretty much everything we need to know to avoid a similar ethical foul up by the time we reached first grade.

It’s simple.

Tell the truth.

And here’s the truth. The failure in the Wal-Mart Edelman fiasco wasn’t simply a lack of understanding of how blogs and social media worked. That may have been part of it, but it wasn’t the root problem.

It was an ethical failure, full stop.

Here’s the lesson, and let’s be crystal clear. It is not okay to cloak your interests or advocate without honesty. Sure, people do it all the time. We call them liars. It doesn’t matter whether it is explicit or by omission. It is still a lie.

And here’s the other part of today’s lesson: this mess does not mean that companies shouldn’t blog, or sponsor blogs, or reach out to bloggers. The Wal-Gate mess was a lapse of ethics, not an indictment of social media.  Social media can be excellent vehicles for reaching out to and talking with customers, but we have to do it honestly. Your customer knows you have an agenda. EVERYONE has an agenda of some sort. Be honest about your goals, disclose your interests, tell the truth,

It may not set you free, but when you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember what you told the last person.

Words to live by.

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Bye the bye, the latest word from Edelman on this — 

He recently gave an interview to IT World (Japan). When asked what happened, he says: "We were insufficiently transparent about the identity of one of the two bloggers who went on that RV tour. And in a certain way, it’s not a failure of new media; it was a failure in all media. Which is to say, if they were talking to you in your IDG mainstream media hat, you would want to know the name of the spokesperson and what his background was and what his credentials were and we failed that basic test." He goes on to once again accept full responsibility as the boss and reiterate what they intend to do to prevent future occurences. I wish them luck.  Thanks to Shel Holtz for the link.

UPDATE 11/3/06: Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) puts Edelman membership under 90-day review. See also WOMMA’s 20 Ethics Questions and discussion draft of guidelines for contacting bloggers.

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Pay-per-post

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I hadn’t really given much thought to the OTHER cause celebre of the past few weeks, pay per post, because I was so embroiled in the fandango of the large chain store and the big PR agency (I’m going for three posts in a row without using their names. No promises after that.) It had a faint odor of "not quite right" but I couldn’t put my finger exactly on why.

It came up in another context last weekend and in part due to comments from Jeneane Sessum, I decided to take a closer look. Here’s my take:

The arguments being made by some of the big A-list bloggers (Calcanis, Arrington) seem a little weird, given their reliance on advertising/sponsor support. Provided the pay per post blog entries clearly state that the post was a work for hire, I don’t see anything terribly wrong with the model. It really isn’t that different from freelance writing. You have to disclose your interests, including whether you are being compensated in any way for your words, but assuming that’s done, what’s the harm? Readers can make up their own minds.

One of the best things about the ‘net is the wisdom of crowds.

However, I think it would be very difficult to make a living under their model, given the prices being paid for this freelance work (can you spell sweatshop?), so I am a wee bit interested in following the money. Who is making the serious money here? I’m betting it is not the bloggers.

My other concern is that I would not want to see companies replace blogger relations efforts with pay per post. Pay per post is an article about your company. Blogger engagement begets viral marketing. We shouldn’t confuse the two.

There is a real, tangible and long term benefit from active engagement with bloggers who care about what the company cares about, whether it be issues, products or both, and this cannot be replaced by pay per post. I’d hate to see companies take this shortcut, thinking they were going viral.

And ending up just sick.

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From the in-box: Why blogging matters and Crayon

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A couple of items from the in-box

Eric Kintz from HP sent me a link to Why Blogging Matters, a group post written by six top marketing executives (David Armano, Digitas; Pete Blackshaw, Nielsen Buzz Metrics; David Churbuck, Lenovo; Dan Greenfield, EarthLink;  Eric Kintz, Hewlett-Packard and Will Waugh, ANA)

They each tackle a topic to explain "Why Blogging Matters."  Now, there isn’t anything terribly new in the post for someone who has been involved in social media marketing and PR for any length of time, but this post still matters.

Because six top marketing executives who get it and are demonstrating social media leadership in their organizations is worth something.

Particularly given the ethical lapses we’ve seen elsewhere in the blogosphere recently.

Neville Hobson wrote me about Crayon, his new venture with Joseph Jaffe, Shel Holtz and CC Chapman. Neville describes it as a "true mash-up that combines the best in traditional and new thinking about marketing, advertising and PR." The new business will be virtually located in Second Life and will launch this Thursday from their Second Life home, Crayonville Island.

This may just give me the impetus to check out Second Life. Even though I’ve got my hands pretty full with the first one. 

🙂

Good luck guys!

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