I want to be famous

Being a b2b Tech PR bod through and through I have just recently been asked by my consumer colleagues to help out on a “little” b2c campaign for IFA Berlin.

The product we are pitching is being endorsed by a famous American record producer, rapper, and record executive. The media loves him and the product he gave his name for. Radio, glossy men’s magazines and the crème de la crème of the consumer electronics press – are all mad about the gadget we are pitching.

So, I was thinking… can’t I have a celebrity for all my b2b campaigns as well? It would make live so much easier. Would it? Not really. I guess I can’t really have Paris Hilton endorse ethernet services and ask Brad Pitt to support a product launch for a new multifactor authentication product.

But that’s fine because b2b has its own celebrities. It think the Microsoft’s, the Googles, the SAPs and the Nokia’s of this world are “b2b celebrities”. If I am approaching a journalist and mention that I am calling on behalf of “b2b celebrity company X” or that my client has just partnered with “b2b celebrity company Y” things usually start off much easier... or if not easier I am at least assured that people know who I am talking about.

Fire Eagle - for better or for worse?

This week Yahoo! launched Fire Eagle, its location tool that lets users update and manage information about where they are, so that third-party services can connect and use that information to tailor their service. Already, more than 50 service providers have lined up to use Fire Eagle technology. Described by Yahoo! as being a "switchboard that anyone can build on top of", more are destined to follow.

So far, so good. Yahoo! is definitely onto a winner.

Or is it? Despite boasting an opt-in facility, privacy advocates are already warning about the dangers of rushing headlong into using location based services. Fire Eagle users are sent reminders every 45 days to confirm they still want to share their location, and Yahoo! says it'll delete all historical data immediately if they opt out.

But the same can't be said for the services using the data. Yahoo! can't dictate what its partners do with the information they collect, because privacy policies vary from website to website, and they can be changed without warning.

In theory, Yahoo! has come up with a tool that brings us closer to a future where location is going to become increasingly important for Web services. Progress. But until everyone adheres to digital privacy laws, we'll still be in the dark ages.

Olympics are the Digital Games

The Olympic opening ceremony is less than 24 hours away and everyone is forecasting medal counts (and predicting doping scandals).

The Games also will be a test of how much the media industry has changed in the last four years. The lines between the Web and traditional media like television have blurred even more radically since Athens. Digital media landmarks of the Beijing Games include the first games where every sport is filmed in HD; and YouTube will be used to broadcast events.

So, digital will be tested alongside the human competitors. The ambition of the media companies is exceptionally high and they're taking some real risks in the level of investment and the expectations that they are setting.

E-Petitions Slipped into the Commons

The last day before the UK Houses of Parliament goes into very long recess over the summer is often when the UK Government slips out news it wants to bury and avoid full parliamentary scrutiny. One exception might be an announcement that British members of parliament should be petitioned over the Internet. UK MPs have a (unfair) reputation for being notoriously low tech and Parliament's processes are regulated by tradition not technology. The Government may want to share the pain of e-petitions given the experience of the prime minister's office Number Ten which ran several e-petitions that famously got out of control. Our sister agency GBC Public Affairs reports on this and much more in its rolling blog of political news. Always worth a look.

Amazon Eats up Abe

The biggest forces on the Web get very different press.

Google is no longer the media darling. It's under attack for its privacy policy hypocrisy and the Google Street project. And much of last week's excitement about Cuil comes from a primal urge for a Google beater.

Contrast this with Amazon which just keeps on getting bigger and bigger. Revenues are growing, its ebook Kindle is actually selling well and now it's bought up Abebooks, the online used bookseller network. But, the media reaction is benign with little to no venom. You get the sense that the media like Amazon.

Why?

It could be the profile of Bezos is much softer than the Google boys who've been very flash with their money (Think Bezos and my first association is his desk made from a $10 door; think the Google founders and it's their party plane).

Another reason is the privacy issue. With Amazon we're happier to share data about what we spend and browse. Google is much more closely woven into how we live our lives digitally that every miss-step they make on privacy issues has a rising resonance with us. It's not turning people away from Google (in fact where can we go?) but its souring their profile bit by bit because they themselves set such high expectations.

Cuil Brand Autopsy

It's not only the catastrophic mismatch between hype and performance that PR and marketing bloggers are raking over but the Cuil brand itself. Here's one very good analysis that summarises all of the problems rather nicely but makes the good point that others (namely Google) commit equally awful crimes against sound branding logic

Wishing Cuil Well But...

Like many others, I tried out the much hyped pretender to Google's throne yesterday. It worked reasonably well for me but it looks like there's been an almost instant backlash to Cuil's claims of search superiority because of technical issues. Unfortunately these reports highlight problems with the inherent design of Cuil as much as being the result of so many people trying out the new service on its first day.

Cuil looks like becoming an object lesson in how PR should be used to manage expectations when a new product or service is launched. In this case it appears that the opportunity to control the hype wasn't applied as rigorously as it should have been. There is always a risk that the raw enthusiasm for new technology can overbalance sound judgements about a product launch. This is especially true of a search engine service for which the basic expectations are that it is BETTER than Google; and that it works. The core of the problem can lie in how PR and marketing interact and sometimes don't properly communicate.

So why did they go for a full blown, all singing and dancing launch? The beleagered Cuil spokesperson makes a good point that launching the service with a beta tag wouldn't have stopped the criticism either.

The solution? It's a hard call. There's been many touted challengers to Google and none has really shone. But we think the media wants to see a serious alternative to Google. Don't forget Google came out of the blue too (anyone remember how Alta Vista turned ever one's heads once upon a time not many years ago?). So there is a deep well of support and goodwill.

So Cuil can turn it around? The answer is maybe but they need to respond fast which to their credit they're doing. Going forward inject a little more realism into the PR machine. Maintain open relations with the media. Invite bloggers for briefings and updates. Demonstrate a sense of humour and quietly start to get it right.

But are there second chances in Web 2.0/Pr 2.0 launches? Well that'll be the most interesting outcome of the whole debacle. So let's see where Cuil's reputation sits in six months time. Hero or Zero? Dud or Dude?