Facebook Places kills hide and seek

by Andrew on August 19, 2010

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An unintended consequence of Facebook Places? Or was it intentional? Zuckerberg please explain yourself!

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Why iPhone users are having more sex

August 11, 2010
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Technical difficulties does have its advantages. Here’s the real reason why iPhone users are having more sex…

Facebook passes 500 million user mark

July 21, 2010
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Is this a good day? Bad day? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments. I couldn’t let the day pass without a commemorative cartoon.

How laziness killed my PR pitching platform

July 13, 2010
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Josh Bernoff of Forrester has “a new model for PR and influencers.” It’s a fantastic idea and one that I really hope will take off. Actually, I wished it had taken off two years ago.
You see, back in 2007 I started researching ways to improve the quality and relevance of PR pitches. I spent 6 [...]

How smartphones may change human evolution

July 7, 2010

Next time you’re sitting in a restaurant or cafe take a look at the people around you. Practically everyone is typing on a smartphone. What I find amusing is the posture: head slightly forward with arms outstretched. It made me think of human evolution and how smartphones may eventually change our physical anatomy.

The rise of fake PR and how to manage it

June 29, 2010
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I know. This probably isn’t a real trend (yet), but fake PR cases seem to be on the rise.
The most notable of course have been the following: the fake BP Global PR Twitter account, the General Mills press release hoax, and now, the fake PR account for AT&T.
My personal favorite is the Heishman Flillard stunt [...]

How to use the iPhone 4 in your advertising

June 24, 2010

Trust me. This strategy will work. Use “iPhone 4″ generously throughout your ad copy and people will line up in droves to fork over their hard earned cash. If it worked for Sam the Hobo (see below), it can work for you.

Happy Father’s Day!

June 20, 2010

If this is you. Seek help. Now.

Four steps to better press release optimization

June 10, 2010
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I really don’t like press releases. So when Portland-based search engine marketing firm Anvil Media posted something about press release optimization I was immediately skeptical.
But this post was refreshingly different because Anvil Media was honest about one thing: no amount of optimization is going to help a press release that isn’t newsworthy to begin with.
You [...]

Journalists will reward humor in PR

May 27, 2010

If you still need a compelling reason to explore humor in PR, this post is for you. This week, a company called SonicMule decided to do add humor to a new hire announcement and it resulted in a major PR victory.
For those of us who work in PR, writing and pitching the new hire press [...]

Could advertising replace PR?

May 13, 2010

Rich Becker of Copywrite Ink has an interesting post today about how the lines between advertising and PR are blurring. I’ve been noticing this as well but I wonder if all this blurring could eventually lead to the replacement of many PR functions by advertising.
Here’s why I think this:

People in advertising are better at telling [...]

HubSpot is a hub for humor

April 28, 2010

I’m going to make a bold statement: HubSpot would be nothing without humor. Ok, maybe nothing is too strong a word but the company is certainly more successful because of humor.
How did HubSpot do this? Simply put, they took their humor public. Early on the company made a decision to let humor become part of [...]

Should Twitter sell ads on the Fail Whale?

April 23, 2010

Last week I posted a toon about Twitter selling ad space on the Fail Whale. At the time it was just for fun, but a few days later I started to wonder if Twitter should consider it a legitimate revenue opportunity.
Though the frequency is a lot less than in the early days of Twitter, I [...]

How to kill (bad) PR

April 9, 2010

Begin rant.
What is it with all these angry memes aimed at the PR industry? Kill the press release, fire your PR firm, death to the embargo, all PR people are idiots etc.
Unlike other professions that simply ignore them (e.g., lawyers), we PR people love to jump on the bandwagon (me included) and share the crap [...]

Behind the scenes with Dave Carroll and United Breaks Guitars

March 31, 2010

Most of you by now have viewed one or more of the brilliant viral YouTube videos titled: United Breaks Guitars. This topic is of special significance to me because I too was a traveling musician (violinist) who battled often with the airlines to ensure that my instrument didn’t suffer a gruesome death at the hands [...]

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