commbasics

There were two posts this week that got my attention, one was by John Murrell of Good Morning Silicon Valley and the other by Rick Merritt at EE Times. In the first, was a discussion of Apple shutting down the Think Secret blog that broke the story of the Apple Mini a couple of years ago and whether the court decision was a chilling prediction of the end of journalistic freedom for bloggers. The second was a diatribe about marketing spin making it difficult to get information out of companies. It got me thinking about a much-discussed subject in journalism circles: the public's right to know. When I was in J school, we talked about this a lot. The public's right to know stuff was an absolute we learned. That's why we were in business, but there was a caveat that was also taught, but rarely discussed. What the public has a right to know about is the risk they face in given situations so they have the information to ultimately lead to better societal decision-making....

There's been an interesting conversation about trade shows bouncing between this blog and John Blyler's . One thing that hasn't been discussed, however, is the competition between industry groups and events. The competition between CES and COMDEX eventually killed the latter. And DesignCon and DAC have been working at opposite ends as well. But last week the Fabless Semiconductor Association announced a name and purpose change. They are calling themselves the Global Semiconductor Alliance now, claiming worldwide membership of semiconductor, EDA, manufacturing and SIP companies. The FSA events are far flashier and exclusive than the semiconductor and EDA events, much less academic and relatively profitable for the organization. However, their exhibitions have been less than stellar and that's where the real money is. I'm wondering if they are making a play for the exhibition business from the smaller organizations.

I spent a really wonderful evening at the Fenwick and West offices in Mountain View, this week, listening to elevator pitches from Irish startups. The event was sponsored by Enterprise Ireland and included lots of marketing consultants, investors, irish entrepreneurs and the Irish ambassador to the US, Michael Collins (who is a very tall, very gracious man). Now, putting aside my personal adoration of the Emerald Isle and it's culture, there was a definite hint of a trend going on. The trend: web-based companies that are have revenue strategies not totally focused on advertising. The official program included a travel website (Travel Republic), a mobile advertising concept (Nubiq), and automated e-newsletter (SpoiltChild) service, a digital-content storage service (PutPlace.com). But I also met representatives from several other companies (keep an eye out for http://www.benchd.com) that plan to use advertising as one source of revenue, but are really focusing on subscriptions, f...

This video on Youtube gives all of us something to keep in mind. Video... .

I attended a Business Wire breakfast event last week on "Working with the Major News Wire Services" and confirmed what I've pretty much figured out over the past few months: Major business publications are primarily looking at electronic coverage to alert them to trends in business and technology. The wire services were represented by Eric Auchard, chief technology correspondent for Reuters in the Bay Area; Jeff Taylor, SF Bureau chief for Bloomberg News; Rachel Conrad, Silicon Valley correspondent for the Associated Press; Steve Yoder, SF Bureau Chief for the Wall Street Journal; and Alexander Davis, managing editor of MarketWatch. What was surprising is that no one objected to receiving news releases, nor do they object to being pitched. But there was general agreement that neither news releases nor pitching ever results in coverage. Yoder stated that polls of his own organization's staff revealed that no reporter or editor could remember doing a news story that re...