The Blog Studio

The last few days have seen a higher then usual number of Gloom and Doom posts proclaiming that “Blogging is Dead” and the “Golden Age” of blogging has come to end. A few people even think that blogs have been dead so long they are ripe for a retro-comeback. Discounting the general web fixation of declaring things “Dead” every so often (Bon Jovi anyone?), is it true? Is blogging dead? The main post I’m referring to is from Jeremiah Owyang. The 2nd post is a response to that from Brian Solis and for good measure here is one from Mark Evans.

No. Not only is blogging still very much alive, it’s far from “Living on a Prayer”. Blogging might appear to have taken up residence in the digital hospice, but that’s just because blogging has become the norm. It is an accepted, integral part of the web. More people read and write blogs then ever before, so how can it be on life support?

Many pundits are declaring blogging “dead” because it is no longer the newest, hippest kid on the block. That’s certainly true. If you examine who the people writing the eulogies for the blog are, they are overwhelmingly tech reporters. To a tech reporter, a blog is old news. They’ve been around forever, don’t have the exciting, shiny new start-up street credibility or cache of being the new kid on the block anymore. There isn’t much of a story there for a tech reporter. In the tradition of great reporters throughout the ages, when there is no story...make one up!

Blogs have become one of the main components of the internet. They are a standard, accepted backbone of the web . The other 99.9% of the web audience who aren’t tech writers realizes that a good chunk of their news, reviews, opinions and media are consumed via blogs. Blogs are so much a part of the web landscape today, that readers just see them as “websites”, not as a wholly separate entity and writing format.

The shifting nature of what a blog actually is, plays a big part in the perception some have that they are “dead”. BoingBoing. TechCrunch. Mashable. MetaFilter. Slashdot. When you think of these sites, do you think of a dying medium? Certainly not, All of these sites bring in massive amounts of traffic, regularly break news and interesting stories and have large and engaged user communities. Each of these sites is also most certainly a blog. This is the point of contention. While all of these sites are blogs, most readers just think of them as “websites” or “news sites”. The definition of what we think of as a blog has changed. A blog is no longer an overly long, scrolling page with spinning HTML stars where a 13 year old goth girl reprints Cure lyrics and discusses her depression to an audience of 8 unique viewers per day. Many of the most popular, and most respected “news” sites, are blogs.

Either way you look at it, it’s a game of semantics and definitions. Whether we choose to call a site like Mashable a blog, or something else, is at the heart of things, unimportant. The site, and its brethren are alive and kicking. The blog is not dead, it has just gone through a name change in some cases and a perception change in others. Blogs have become such a dominant force on the web, that we no longer separate them out from the other sites out there. This is an excellent thing, and a more potent argument for blogs being alive and well. So to all the writers out there, declaring the Death of Blogging, I have one question to ask. Where did you publish that article declaring the blog is dead? I thought so…

Over the last few days, one of the most unbelievable and incredibly visible PR disasters has been ripping its’ way through the Geek-O-Sphere: “The Ocean Marketing Incident”. If you haven’t had the twisted pleasure of reading the first hand accounts that make up “The Ocean Marketing Incident” for yourself, I won’t deprive you of that entertainment. Penny Arcade, Kotaku, Venture Beat and scores of other websites have done an excellent job reporting the facts and delivering some scathing opinions. Instead, I think there are some lessons about how to properly operate in the online public relations world and how to interact with geek culture. Being both a lifelong geek and having spent most of my working life in PR, this is a subject that interests me both professionally and personally.

Never Bully A Geek
In my entire working life in the PR sphere, I can’t recall another incident that tore through the web so quickly, and with so much vitriol as “The Ocean Marketing Incident”. Why? Geeks don’t hate anything as much as they hate a bully. Sadly, the web is currently filled with fake geeks. In the last few years, it has become fashionable to throw in a pair of oversized, non-prescription glasses, profess your love of Zelda as a kid, tell everyone you know what Linux is and proclaim yourself a Geek. What’s missing from these credentials is the years of being picked on, bullied and abused for lugging around DnD books, quoting Dr. Who and wearing Spider Man t-shirts.

Paul Christoforo, the President of Ocean Marketing is a bully. He sent his customer several emails that were filled with the kind of loudmouthed threats that geeks have been hearing on the playground for decades. Christoforo sells very specialized video game controllers, and he knows his audience: hardcore gamers. He assumed that since he was dealing with a gamer, he could play internet tough guy, and abuse his clientele. It was this abuse, and especially the petty, threatening nature of the comments, that rallied the nerds of the web world together to take on Ocean Marketing. The second that the email exchange crossed from “dissatisfied customer” to “geek being bullied”, it was a given that the online nerd posse would close ranks to defend one of their own against an outsider.

PR types, marketers, journalists, bullies or anyone that deals with the numerous geeky subcultures on the web should take note of how this situation played out. There are some valuable takeaways here.

Geeks absolutely loathe bullies. The reasons above explain why, so be certain to keep this in mind during all your web interactions. You may be tempted to act like a creep, throw your verbal muscle around and get pushy. This isn’t “Revenge of the Nerds”. Just a whiff of bullying is all it takes to get the nerd herd riled up, the Lego pitchforks out and the Minecraft torches digitally flickering.

Internet Gangsterism 101: Do You Know Who I Know?
As the email exchanges between Ocean Marketing and their customer “Dave” continued on, and got more and more insane, Christoforo began dropping names. If you’ve spent more then a minute working in PR, and you’re any good at your job, chances are you know quite a few editors and journalists. Christoforo decided that he would use his “connections” in the reporting world to both justify and excuse his inexcusable and irrational behavior. This was a huge mistake.  Most journos don’t have a problem working with flacks who do their job well. In many cases we can make their lives easier and help them create better content by providing access, interviews, products and information. However, this is somewhat of an unspoken rule that good PR people operate in the background. Journalists appreciate the option to keep their sources, including PR, their own. They may or may not feel the need to openly discuss how, or who they interact with in the PR world. Using the names of editors and reporters that you have relationships with as a bludgeon to scare someone is an absolute breach of confidence of the worst kind.

As soon as Christoforo started naming names, he lost any credibility or goodwill he might have accumulated in the press sphere. When the journalists he identified in his emails discovered he was bandying their names about, they couldn’t distance themselves from this guy fast enough. Almost immediately, tweets, blog posts and emails went out declaring that Christoforo’s “connections” wanted nothing to do with him. In some cases they went even further, and denounced him as a liar, a creep and explicitly called his behavior into question.

The Hack/Flack Relationship is sacred - don’t kiss and tell. When you work in PR, a certain level of discretion and privacy is expected. The journalists you work with should have the option to make the call, and be able to decide how their stories are written and how much they want to reveal. There is nothing more pathetic then using “Who You Know” as a weapon. This isn’t a bad made for TV mob film.

There Is No “Undo” Command for Being a Creep
After a long series of back and forth emails, Dave, the very dissatisfied customer in this scenario, decided to take his story to the press, and CC’ed several well know game and tech journalists into the email exchange with Ocean Marketing. Unbelievably, Christoforo then decided to get into it with these writers. Christoforo continued dropping names and flaunting his “connections”. He began belittling Penny Arcade in an email to Mike Krahulik, the sites editor, saying that the site was tiny and insignificant. As a PR person, working in the tech and game sector, you should know Penny Arcade is one of the big players, much beloved by gamers and that they also run the very popular PAX conferences. Even if you somehow missed this major factoid, you should have the good sense as a PR pro to run a quick search on a site before you begin ripping them apart to their founder (then again, as a PR pro you probably shouldn’t be ripping anyone apart...).

Do Your Research! A big part of working in PR is knowing the space you work in. Having detailed knowledge of who the players are, where they write, and their outlook on your industry is part of your job. In 2011, where this information is just a click away it is absolutely inexcusable to plead ignorance. Each and every time you’re about to click “Send”, conjure up the voice of your favorite member of the GI Joe team (I think of Shipwreck...) and remember their immortal wisdom: “Knowing is half the battle!”

I was going to add a second point above, pointing out all the trouble you can get into by verbally attacking someone before Googling them to find out if they are a big player in your space or not. Then I decided against it. Some people are just jerks. If you’re a creep that gets off on attacking people, then you’re in the wrong line of business. I’m sure there is a vivisection lab somewhere that is hiring.

Good PR Advice from Hall and Oates

The way the “Ocean Marketing Incident” has shaken out on the web over the last 24 hours, it appears that both Ocean Marketing and Paul Christoforo are both complete write offs. They won’t ever be working in the PR or gaming world again. While he won’t be getting much pity from me, I do think it’s a bit sad, because this entire ugly incident could have been prevented by following what is essentially the Golden Rule of PR. What I like to call “The Hall and Oates Rule”.

When I started my first PR gig at an agency, back in the age of 3.5 floppies and monitors that weighed 45 pounds, my boss sat me down my first day on the job to fill me in on the landscape of where I would be working. The first thing she told me was, “I can, and will read your emails”.  My initial thought was that this was an unnecessary, creepy invasion of privacy. Then she explained why. There is nothing that I should ever be writing to a client, or a co-worker that I wouldn’t want to have read out loud in public at a meeting. This is truly excellent advice. If Paul Christoforo kept this in mind while he was replying to Dave, this situation would have turned out entirely differently. It may have even ended with a happy customer and Ocean Marketing looking like heroes for solving the issues that caused this out of control kerfuffle in the first place.

Act like anything you write will be read publicly (Private Eyes - They’re Watching You. They See Your Every Move!) There is no such thing as privacy in the PR world. Any email, tweet or blog post you write can and will be shared, forwarded, screen shotted, passed around and commented on. Write like your Mom is going to read it. Would she approve of the tone and what you’re saying? Always keep this idea at the top of your mind when writing, especially if you’re ticked off or angry. Before you hit send, take a second and give what you wrote the Dear Old Mom Test. Would it embarrass her, your boss, your client or yourself? The hit delete and start again.

It’s too late for Ocean Marketing and Paul Christoforo. Any apologies, change of Twitter handles, connections to the Mayor of Boston or hired goons are a day late and any dollars short at this point. The “Ocean Marketing Incident” will go down as one of the great, and most entertaining, PR screw ups in history. When agencies warn rookies to be careful on the job, they will tell them to Google “Ocean Marketing” as a cautionary tale. My advice may be too late to help Ocean Marketing, but I hope it can help prevent someone else from stepping on a digital land mine like this. As amusing as I find this whole incident, I actually really hate that it happened. After doing a bit of research on Paul Christoforo, and reading his various apologies, I see that he has a newborn child, and wants to make things right in order to survive. This won’t happen. Take this as a cautionary tale flacks.

The Supreme Court of Canada has just made a landmark decision that will have a huge effect on all of that work with the web and social media. To sum the decision up in the simplest terms, a hyper link cannot be libel. This means that you can publish any link on the web, without being concerned that someone will sue you because they don’t like the content. This is a huge victory for web freedom.

How did the Supreme Court come to this decision? The case began with a Vancouver business man, named Mr Crookes who filed suit against a Mr Newton, a newspaper publisher.  Mr Newton’s paper published an article, with some links that portrayed Mr. Crooke’s business interests in a negative light. Mr. Crooke’s files a libel suit, attempting to have the newspaper remove the links from the story.

Throughout the history of the web, suits like this have been fairly common. Because of the distributed nature of the web, the outcome of these suits really runs the gamut. In some instances, sites have been forced to remove links, strike entire articles, issue apologies and pay monetary damages. In other cases, courts have upheld the right of newspapers to publish what they like in the interest of free speech. There is also the issue of what court has jurisdiction in many cases. If a site is created in one country, hosted in a second country, and the aggrieved party is in a third, who gets to make the final legal decision? That is one reason this particular case is so important. Since all the parties involved are Canadian, it was actually possible for a decision to be reached.

While freedom of speech, and freedom of the press are certainly at issue here, the justices actually based their judgment on another factor entirely: footnotes! The court views hyperlinks as footnotes, that is reference materials. It’s a huge positive that the court is clearly tech savvy enough to understand and support the idea that an open web cannot function without the use of hyperlinks, and by stifling the use of hyperlinks you threaten the very ability of the web itself to function.

The court explained:

“The Internet cannot, in short, provide access to information without hyperlinks. The potential ‘chill’ in how the Internet functions could be devastating, since primary article authors would unlikely want to risk liability for linking to another article over whose changeable content they have no control.”

This highlights the idea that no one is “forcing” you to click a link, so in essence the person including a link in their work, is not responsible for the content that they link to. Overall, this is excellent news for bloggers, online journalists and users of social media. The Supreme Court of Canada is guaranteeing your right to write, publish and link to materials without worrying that someone who disagrees with your content will easily be able to sue you. This is a huge event in the history of the web, and will likely set precedent in other courts and countries when similar issues pop up.

We encourage you to read the entire Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, to really dig into the details of the case. It’s compelling material for anyone who works on the web or creates contents. In the meantime, we can all enjoy a big win for web freedom courtesy of the Canadian Supreme Court. 

The Google Art Project is the best use of the web I have seen in a very, very long time. GAP is a web interface that uses the Google Street View engine to let you explore museums. It looks very similar to your favorite first person shooter. The concept is dead simple. It is the executing that makes this app so fantastic.

It loads right into your browser, with no downloads or plug-ins needed. You select a museum from the list, which includes many of the best of the world. Moma, National Gallery in London, Uffizi in Firenze and two dozen more. The list is impressive and covers a big range of time periods, styles and mediums. From here, feel free to wander the virtual museum of your choice. The interiors you walk around were photographed with the same tricycles that create the Google StreetView visuals, and look excellent. Walking around is smooth, and the artwork is clearly visible. You can easily kill hours wandering around and taking in the best paintings in the world. The quality of the art is high enough that you can enjoy staring at it for a while, and not feel like a second rate sucker.

Here’s the real kicker. Certain works of art in each museum have been given what Google calls “The Gigapixel Treatment”. These are photos that are 14 billion pixels deep. You can zoom in so close you can see the ridges in the paint, and the individual lines of the brush strokes. Digital representations like this are clearly the future of how we are going to view art online from here on out. It isn’t the same as viewing works of art in person, but it’s pretty close, and absolutely enjoyable. There is also huge potential for students, and anyone who wants to increase their knowledge of fine art.

Once again, Google has taken an idea that many people have had, and created something truly wonderful. Using a combination of photos, access and creativity with an eye towards enjoyment they have built something that people will be using for years. The lesson here is that perfect execution can make any idea into something groundbreaking.

The Guggenheim is hosting a worldwide bienniale in partnership with YouTube, and promises to be the biggest thing the art world has seen since Jeff Koons. To date, the renowned Modern and Contemporary Art Museum has received over 4000 videos from international artists, videographers and graphic designers in an open call for submissions. The Guggenheim has an insatiable appetite for fresh work, and they won’t be satisfied until they hear from YOU. So budding Picassos, Film Noir-ists and bravuras alike—it’s time to flex your creative muscles. The Guggenheim is accepting video submissions for the next ten days, and will short-list twenty entries to be exhibited at their museums in New York, Berlin, Bilbao and Venice in October 2010.

If you’re artistically inclined, this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Few artists experience this level of elevation and only under the most exceptional of circumstances. This project also speaks to a growing trend in social media, which we discussed in our post referencing Ridley Scott’s ‘Life In A Day’ project: Crowdsourcing.  Crowdsourcing is at the forefront of countless public projects across many genres: the arts, politics—like David Cameron’s plan to crowd source the UK on fiscal policy, and your very own Facebook profile. The practice of crowd sourcing guarantees diversity of opinion, innumerable choice and ultimately, peak results. This presents groundbreaking opportunities for artists to forge deep, permeating connections in the international art world.  The divide between ‘art for art sake’ and preconceived notions of what is museum-worthy has effectively been broken down.  This is reminiscent of the Tate Modern’s graffiti exhibit a few years back.  For me, this is what social media is all about: increased connections and the spread of ideas. Prior to social media and online crowd sourcing how else could a local artist receive this kind of exposure?

The Guggenheim and YouTube jury will select 200 videos to stream on the youtube.com/play channel with the twenty most outstanding submissions exhibited in Guggenheims worldwide.  Take note, The NY Guggenheim blog ‘The Take’ instructs that the jury will seek out creative, innovative and experimental submissions. For further information visit http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york and to make a submission via http://www.youtube.com/play

Take a risk! Submit and let us know when you do.