commbasics

There's something of a controversy over the Dish Network 's technology that automatically skips over advertising on content recorded on their DVR system.  It's been the focus of Dish's advertising program as well as a Congressional investigation on the Future of Video .  Most people are pretty thrilled with the technology and it is boon to Dish.   I am a devotee of blasting through commercial breaks with my DVR and I'm a little envious of Dish subscribers who have the tech, although I'm very happy with Direct TV over anything else I've tried ( AT&T doesn't service my area with their system).  Here, however, is where the controversy rages. Dish is dropping AMC and a half dozen other channels over increasing fees , claiming there are nbot enough viewer to warrant the increase.  The problem is all the channels Dish is dropping are also subsidized by advertising and he advertisers are balking at pay rates for commercials...

Contributed articles became a very big deal during the Web 1.0 boom.  Suddenly, print and online publications had a huge need for new content.  Not only did publications start running news releases, verbatim, but they started asking companies to write opinion and analysis about their own industries.  Public Relations companies were flying high organizing the rush of opportunities.  Then the boom busted.  Publications started disappearing, mostly print but several online publications as well and both journalists and PR folks started looking for other means of income. That did not, however, stop the demand for contributed articles.  The publishing world found that they could fill a lot of space, especially on line, with opinion, white papers, technical documents and presentations that they didn't have to pay for and could cut their newsroom budgets even more.  When webinars came around, they could actually charge companies to put their crappy ...

Social and earned media content is seen as truer because it is uncontrolled and has the perspective of the third party. Whether it comes from a known journalist or from the comments on a Facebook post, the readers know, in the least, that the author is not on your payroll. That provides a level of objectivity and even integrity that doesn't exist in an advertisement or corporate website.  Last post we looked at "suspect content" that is distributed over owned and paid media.  It's suspect to the audience because it is highly controlled and partisan.  Today we look at the "trustworthy content" that is found in earned media.  Social and earned media content is seen as truer because it is uncontrolled and has the perspective of the third party.  Whether it comes from a known journalist or from the comments on a Facebook post, the readers know, in the least, that the author is not on your payroll.  That provides a level of object...

The term “return on investment” (ROI) gets bandied about a lot in my business, as in “what’s the ROI of you service?”  We all know what that questions is supposed to mean: how much money can I make back from what I pay you?  But no matter how many statistics and case studies you throw at the questioner, the real question is: “How little can I actually pay you for your service?” I’ve started answering that question with another question: What is your content worth?  If the customer can answer that question, I can better answer their original question. Every company, especially engineering-driven companies, says their content has immense “value.”  They believe that their customers have an absolute need to hear what they have to say.  It is so vital that the customers very existence depends on purchasing a particular product or service.  At least, that’s generally how they answer the question.  But they can’t put a monetary value on that content....

The recession for PR folks actually began in 2000 when non-marketing professionals figured out that by posting a news release on a wire service, they could show tons of "clips" to their bosses that stated, verbatim, the corporate crap in the releases.  They no longer needed press relations budgets and had become their own "news outlets."  Google did that to the PR profession. But recently, Google did a big favor for the hacks when they changed their algorithm to cut out hits on content farms .  This, effectively, eliminated the budget benefit of bad-press-releases-on-wire-services strategy.   I haven't done any press releases for companies for a while because they are really useless exercises, but I got roped into a contract with a company, after getting promises that they wouldn't have me do the same old thing, that forced me into that really bad strategy once again. I noticed very quickly that when the release hit the wire, It showed...

I just got off my fourth phone call in the past week from someone asking my to help them get some media attention on another partner release.  I've told them the same thing I've been telling everyone for three years: Unless it is a painfully slow news month the chances are virtually zero.  Here's why:  First, there are 5,000 private technology companies in early to mid stage funding in the US at any given time, according to Dow Jones, Second, All 5,000 of those companies are negotiating with at least on Fortune 500 company on some sort of partnership/joint agreement.  All of those companies will issue at least one news release about the agreement and will be seeking media coverage.  That means the technology press are dealing with, on average 13 partnership announcements every week. Third, none of these agreements will mention what specific customers are being served by these agreements, nor what products will be made available to customers as a...