Archives: September 2010

paidContent:  Facebook’s Sandberg: In The Future, All Media Will Be Personalized

Fortune:  Oprah agrees to increased presence on OWN Network

DailyBeast:  LinkedIn Signal combines Twitter with the resume site

TheWrap:  Daily Beast-Newsweek Deal Chances ‘at Best 50-50′

BusinessInsider:  President Obama Is Into Jon Stewart’s “Rally To Restore Sanity”

When Benjamin Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), visited Manhattan’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center last week, he also made history. It was the first time in history that the organization’s sitting presidents visited an LGBT center.

It’s part of an outreach effort to promote the  “One Nation Working Together” march in Washington D.C. on October 2. Last year, the NAACP advocated against Proposition 8 and, in July, rolled out an LGBT Equality Taskforce at its annual convention.

In its story, The Root attributes this increased solidarity with the LGBT community to Jealous’ personal experience (he has a brother who’s gay) and his age, with younger African Americans favoring gay rights more than older members of the community.

In addition, studies also show that LGBT members of the Black community are more severely impacted by the lack of unity. The “One Nation Working Together” march will focus on jobs, an area where a large swath of the population is feeling the pain in this economy.

“The person who stands in my position needs to be prepared to stand up for the civil rights of everybody,” Jealous is quoted on The Root. “And it’s now my job to make sure there are no second-class citizens in this economy.”

Goldman’s doing good. That’s what a new series of ads is set to show, according to a CNBC story. Goldman Sachs had a full pager in today’s Wall Street Journal “touting the company’s role in raising capital for a clean energy project,” the story says. It suggests the ad as the start of a “new public relations campaign” for the firm, which has faced multiple reputation-related struggles, especially since the financial crisis began.

While we wouldn’t quite call it PR, it does seem to be an attempt to spruce up the firm’s image. The article sees it as an effort to show Goldman’s positive contributions to various communities.

Goldman, in short, is trying to show how it is playing a role at improving the lives of Americans rather than simply increasing its bottom line.

Other ads will allegedly highlight how Goldman helps women and small business owners via business education.

Almost a year ago, we asked you if Goldman Sachs’ initiative to invest $500 million into 10,000 U.S. small businesses changed your perception of the company.

Maybe it’s time to ask again. Do you think the new ads will help?

Vocus and Brian Solis partnered for a study titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono!,” which sought to find the difference between popularity and influence, and how to build online influence.  The white paper resulting from the research says 57 percent of respondents would “pay an influencer to help ‘drive actions and outcomes.’” At the executive level, like CEO or CMO, the stat goes up to 63 percent.

According to the press release announcing the research, more than 90 percent of respondents said there was a difference with one respondent answering “Lady Gaga is popular, Bono is influential.” Between August 25 and September 10, 739 people from around the world were surveyed for their thoughts. Read more

PRNewser spoke with David Rich, CEO and founder of Off the Quad, a newly launched company that provides college students with a free e-mail newsletter of information about local happenings.

“Our goal is to [take] a single subject telling them about something that we think is great, something that we’ve experienced, and try to be genuine,” said Rich.

After the jump, Rich discusses the college student demographic and why it’s important.

For more about programs and outreach to college students, take a listen to PRNewser’s podcast with Karen Strauss, CIO and co-developer of Ketchum’s student crowdsourcing program Mindfire and click here for info about the push from location-based apps. Read more

Software makers readMedia have officially launched PressWiki, a “free, open-source media database that anyone can edit.” To start, readMedia has loaded 50,000 sources from its own database, including reporters, editors, and media outlets. Most of information now consists of basic contact details, but they’re hoping that PR pros and others will go in to add and update information.

“Just like Wikipedia, PressWiki’s usefulness will hinge on the quality of contributions from the community,” reads the readMedia site.

As for why the company has launched this site, it says that some PR tools charge so much it puts smaller organizations at a disadvantage.

It’ll be curious to see the amount of contribution to the wiki. A lot of companies have wikis that quickly grow outdated because no one has the time for upkeep. With so many busy schedules and other resources, some of them free as well, this may be too much work.

Most of them are words that can lead to pornography sites, but some are head-scratchers, like “Latina” and “are.”

Mashable links to a site called 2600 for the list that they’ve compiled containing the words that are restricted by Google Instant. Typing in these words won’t deliver the usual results a visitor would get from other searches.

According to Google, they’re trying to protect people, children in particular, from pornography sites or websites that depict violence or other potentially offensive behavior. The restriction is caused by an algorithm that’s also used for functions like Autocomplete.

But Mashable raises the point that some of the words, like “lesbian” and “bisexual,” (or “Latina”) could cause a PR problem. “Type them in to Google and the instant search will immediately stop delivering new results. You have to hit enter to confirm, yes, you really do want to know about something in some way related to bisexuals or lesbians,” the post reads.

A Google spokesperson sent a statement in response. “Our algorithms look not only at specific words, but compound queries based on those words, and across all languages,” it reads. “This system is neither perfect nor instantaneous, and we will continue to work to make it better.”

This morning, PRNewser’s Tonya Garcia spoke with Karen Strauss, CIO at Ketchum. Strauss is also the co-developer of Mindfire, a student crowdsourcing site that the firm launched last week. The program has more than 100 participating students from universities around the world. She discusses the details of the program, client participation, and the importance of college students to the PR industry.

Click here to listen.

Left to right: Drew Patterson, Jetsetter.com; John Boris, Lonely Planet; and Valerie Edmonds, Weber Shandwick

The discussion at Advertising Week’s day two travel seminar centered on how leading travel publishers, websites, and destinations are creatively embracing a range of digital platforms.

Tanzina Vega, digital advertising reporter for The New York Times, moderated the panel, and participants included John Boris, EVP, Lonely Planet, the worldwide travel publisher; Drew Patterson, CEO and co-founder  of Jetsetter.com, a members-only commerce site for luxury travel; Valerie Edmonds, account director in the travel and lifestyle practice at Weber Shandwick, and Ed Hasbrouck, analyst at the Consumer Travel Alliance who also writes The Practical Nomad blog. Read more

If you’re passionate about music and film, Sacks & Co. needs you. The media company is looking for a senior account executive for its New York office, who has a solid background in public relations and an impressive number of contacts that can be called upon at a moment’s notice.

If hired, you’ll be expected to conceptualize and execute a campaign from start to finish, while maintaining constant communication with your clients and overseeing a small staff. You should also be comfortable with schmoozing, attending events and seeking out new business for the company. But that’s probably all in an average day for you already.

You’ll need four years of PR or media experience and a proven background in driving successful campaigns. You should also be passionate about entertainment and open to working a wide variety of accounts such as venues, start-up companies and new technologies. Sound good? Apply here.