Mike’s Points

Poynter’s Monique Van Dusseldorp has a cool posting today, about the use of instant messaging for new personal communication. Microsoft is assisting the Netherlands in several tests by licensing commercial “chatbots” that users can added to their buddy list.

One cool one involves a couple banks: “Dutch banks already have started to use the service: Postbank and SNSBank ran trials in which IM users could get account information within the IM chat — just by typing in questions like ‘How much money do I have?’”

Then, there’s the really cool feature: getting news.

“News is indeed a good option. Dutch newspaper ‘Volkskrant‘ has been the first to launch its own IM messenger service, called Nieuwskraker, this week. Once you add Nieuwskraker to your buddy list, you automatically get a single news update when you log in, and then get automatic breaking news alerts in the chat environment. Additionally, you can ask for news at any moment by typing in some set queries — and Nieuwskraker also will do archive searches on any word you type in.”

Yes, there are news agregator sites and tools, but there is interesting potential in the use of IMs. If you can pull news, you’d definitely be able to pull RSS and related feeds for blogs and other sources.
– Mike

Technorati tags: Poynter, instant messaging, Microsoft

An amazing story is going on in India. I first posted about it a week ago, after first reading about the story from the Yahoo! Group Image Management. (BTW, Image Group is a very good PR/communications group if those in North America want a more global industry perspective.)

Basically, one Indian blogger, Rashmi Bansal, ran a review of Indian Insitute of Planning and Management’s claims about affiliations with some international institutions. The review was in JAM Magazine, where she is editor and publisher.

Then, a second Indian blogger Gaurav Sabnis posted his reactions to Bansal’s review — which, like Bansal’s, were critical. Sabnis received legal threats from IIPM for his critizism. He ended up resigning from his job — not being fired — rather than cause trouble for his employer and possibly being asked to stop blogging.

According to what the Image Management moderator posted, here are some very interesting stories and various sides to the story, which has exploded in the India blogsphere:

Hindustan Times, A leading Indian newspaper has a detailed article.

The official response of IIPM is posted in a blog. (UPDATED Oct. 28, 2005, 9:50 p.m. ET. The link is not IIPM’s site, as noted in the comments. My apologies. It’s just that IIPM’s official response was posted in the Logical Thinking blog.)

Meanwhile, bloggers have started a signature campaign demanding IIPM to apologise to the bloggers under the title “IIPM: Stop your lies.”

I think only the recent Dell-Jarvis episode could rival what is going on in India. It’s very interesting to see how the blogging is being treated and companies are responding to in two different cultures.

Definitely something to keep an eye on.
– Mike

Technorati tags: India, blogging, Gaurav Sabnis

Bacon’s MediaSource is taking bloggers seriously.

Reecently, it sent its informational survey to bloggers — though I didn’t get one — seeking profile information on them for its database (which my company uses).

As “BusinessWeek’s” Stephen Baker points out, bloggers are growing as an important media outlet for those in public relations/media relations.

Peter Himler did comment one major concern: “I am concerned about the inevitable backlash that will result when PR pros en masse ‘pitch’ their clients’ goods and services to citizen journalists.”

It’s a valid concern. However, as I also commented, why should bloggers be treated any different than how good PR/media relations professionals should treat other media outlets. Though, unfortunately, many PR “pros” do mass-pitch media, they shouldn’t. Even Micro Persuasion received an off-target pitch.

To effectively pitch media, think like the media. That is, have a good sense of what good news and feature stories are. Know your outlets. Know your outlets’ audiences. And, as much a you can, customize your pitch. (Self promo: One of my first posts was on this subject.)

One-on-one communication: Blogs are great for it; PR, not so much.
– Mike

Technorati tags: BusinessWeek, blogging, public relations, Bacon’s

As much as I don’t like to admit it, I’m really starting to like Google. Its desktop search is much quicker in finding old e-mails than the “Find” function on MS Outlook.

And, its Google Earth and its API map applications others have used are really neat tools.

So, I guess yesterday, there was a lot of hubub about its Google Base. Yes, Micro Persuasion has a note on it. But, TechDirt really has some good analysis. As Mike said, Google Base is really about ” enabling people to create their own specialized apps, using a simple online database powered with Google’s search tools.”

See, Google is making useful tools. Making stuff that real, every-day people can use. Making it easy to blog. The previously-mentioned desktop search. Practical, useful stuff. Not flashy, but functional.

What a concept! Maybe that’s why Bill Gates is so concerned about Google.
– Mike

Technorati tags: Google, Microsoft, Google Base

Great piece from Steve Outing on Editor & Publisher about how newspapers and other media can take advantage of the current (and permanent?) citizen journalist craze.

My biggest problems with CJ is the potential for credibility, integrity and basic honesty (at least, as honest as any naturally biased person can be. We all have our biases.).

But, Outing has a great section regarding whether or not to train CJs, or citJs, as he refers to them:
“I can’t help but think that that’s a good idea. Consider holding public seminars that educate community members about your citJ site and how they can contribute, and offer up some editors to give advice about producing good-quality content.”

The counter point to training CJs is:
“We Media’s [Chris] Willis concurs: ‘There is little hard evidence to suggest that your average citizen is interested in being a journalist in the traditional sense.’

So perhaps we really want to train community members to use our citJ sites to ’share their experiences,’ not pretend to be journalists.”

I really don’t care if CJs are journalist “in the traditional sense.” I just don’t want propoganda in the “news” of what I read.

So, if CJ is not the proper terminology, maybe as I noted recently, they should be citizen columnists. Or their stories labels “citizen scoops?”

Whatever CJ evolves to, there will be notable differences in CJs reporting on professional media sites and papers/broadcast, and CJs who act as their own publishers. Of course, there’s the third category of CJs, stand-alone sites who use nothing but CJs (like OhMyNews.com and Orato.com).
–Mike

Technorati tags: Citizen Journalism, Journalism