Old-school press releases have been a dying breed for a while but the industry is just getting around to figuring out what to do next. Some of the major PR companies are now releasing multi-media releases that include rich media, text, and links and resemble blogs more than news releases. It’s about time!
Archive for July, 2007
User-Gen Space Poised for Growth
Friday, July 6th, 2007User generated content (UGC) is a big part of what is known as Web 2.0. It consists of sites where the content is provided by its users rather than by a staff of editors, writers, etc. The best-known UGC sites include MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia. They are more popular with the young, but are gaining traction with the over 25 set. And advertisers are taking notice.
To quote this article in AdWeek:
“Ad spending on Web sites that have built their traffic on user-gen staples like social networking, photo sharing and amateur video is expected to soar to $4.3 billion in 2011, according to a new report issued by eMarketer. That’s a whopping increase of 330 percent versus the $1 billion expected to be spent in the space this year—which is itself more than double the $450 million in ad revenue tracked by eMarketer in 2006.”
I remember when I first started selling advertising on the web (back in 1997), the heavy majority of web users were male. That shifted quickly. Expect to see some form of UGC take off in the business world. Imagine using personalized “MySpace” technology to power your site’s user groups, for example. (It already exists. Check out Atlanta-based ThePort.) Do you have any ideas on how UGC can be used in the business world? Post them in the Comments section.
T-Mobile announces free calls via internet (WiFi)
Thursday, July 5th, 2007Here’s the basic idea. If you’re willing to pay $10 a month on top of a regular T-Mobile voice plan, you get a special cellphone.But when it’s in a Wi-Fi wireless Internet hot spot, this phone offers a huge bargain: all your calls are free. You use it and dial it the same as always — you still get call hold, caller ID, three-way calling and all.In other words, if you have a wireless router at home or at the office, all your calls would be free and would not use any of your minutes. If you’re at Starbucks, your calls are free, etc. The only time it can’t call out over a Wi-Fi network is if you’re at a place where you have to initiate through a web page first (like a hotel). But then you would use your regular minutes.
