When the story broke on the terror attacks in Mumbai there was much talk of news spreading through blogs and social networks like Twitter.  Details of the siege were reported minute by minute by people who were there.  There is no doubt that the rise in citizen journalism and the availability of these channels has provided a new layer of news sourcing where information comes fast and direct.

It was the medium of radio however that brought the events into vivid and immediate focus.  As the siege was taking place Jim Naughtie on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme conducted an extraordinary interview.  Business lawyer Mark Abell was barricaded in his room inside the Oberoi hotel whist the murder and mayhem was taking place.  “As I entered my room there was a massive blast …and the gunfire has been going on throughout the night” he said, ”there is no escape and we haven’t heard anything from anybody.”  The immediacy and reality of the situation along with Mark’s stoic bravery was evident throughout.Mark escaped and was interviewed again on Today, 24 hours later.  He described his release and the full horror of the carnage he saw when he was escorted under armed guard through the lobby of the hotel.

Radio can deliver insight that text or still image based channels never can.   I have always been persuaded by the views of Gary Carter of FremantleMedia who argues that so called ‘old media’ are not replaced by new they continue co-exist.  He argues  ”The only mass communication medium in history to have been replaced by another is the telegraph and …arguably, of course, the telegram was not a mass communication technology.”

We need to stop thinking of media in terms of “newness” and think more in terms of “richness”.   We can be seduced by something shiny and new and but we must still celebrate that which we already have.

Just when you’re waiting for something about Twitter to come along, a digital truck load arrives all at once.

Albert Maruggi - always a reliable listen - has a great podcast about how Twitter is more than just a way of micro blogging what you’re doing from minute to minute (though that happens too). He interviews Julio Ojeda-Zapata about his book “Twitter Means Business” and how Twitter can help build relationships with businesses and journalists.

Uber-blogger, Chris Brogan, gives a more personal take on what Twitter means to him plus some strategies on how to get the best out of it, without Twitter becoming a full-time job.

Finally, Stephen Davies over at PR Blogger, has created a roll-call (or Hall of Shame, depending on your viewpoint) of PR people now, officially, Twitter addicts.

As recession looms, anyone with a line in therapy for digital addictions is going to mop up.

Last night’s inaugural meeting of Manchester’s Social Media Cafe (#smc_mcr) suggested that the “death of the blog” has been greatly exaggerated.

And not only is blogging very much alive, it has graduated from the perceived image and PCs of young men whose bedrooms are adorned with model aircraft.

Craig McGinty, journalist, blogger on This French Life and panellist on the #smc_mcr’s first debate, described a blog as an online “base camp”: “It’s important that you have your own entity on the Internet,” he said. “You’ve got the opportunity to get an audience without going through the gatekeepers of newspaper editors and all it takes is time.” At a more fundamental level, McGinty feels that blogging is just the latest emodiment of a basic human need to communicate, which began with cave paintings. “The only difference is the tools,” he added.

Fellow panellist, Chi-chi Ekweozor, MD of real fresh tv, cited renowned blogger, Robert Scoble’s use of blogging and social media to “meet one new person every day”. Clearly, a bigger task than is possible in the offline world, unless you have hours to kill and walk quickly.

But what about corporate blogging? Is there room for social media activity with professional funding and - potentially - an underlying agenda to sell? Chi-chi Ekweozor has been monitoring the FTSE100 for such activity, and while there are good examples of blogs at work  the UK’s major companies still lag behind the USA, where CEOs have readily taken up the blogging mantle.

But she sees a future for corporate blogging, “for communicating with staff and establishing credibility” with the wider world.

So, it’s agreed: both boardrooms and bedrooms will continue to hum with the creation of blogs and interaction with social media tools such as Twitter, but still leaving time to finish assembling that scale model of Concorde. 

P.S. Keep watching PR Media Blog for exclusive interviews from the Social Media Cafe event.

The way we get our news is changing.  Just over a week ago I learnt that french actor (and son of Gerard) Guillaume Depardieu had died.  He was not well known outside France so it’s perhaps not surprising that I didn’t hear about it in the British press.  I didn’t come across it through the media in France either.  I saw it on Twitter.  A colleague Lucille Reynard in the Paris office of our sister company TBWA\ posted “Guillaume Depardieu est mort :/ suis triste” at 5.50pm on October 13th.

I checked on Google News there was nothing there.  I looked up his Wikipedia entry and it confirmed he had died that day.  The news reports started to appear about half an hour later. 

I already use Twitter as a kind of news feed; following the BBC, sections of The Guardian and the New York Times as well as a selection of media industry feeds. What was different about this was that Lucille (or @lovny as she is on Twitter) was aware of the news because Guillaume was a friend of a friend. 

Because Twitter limits its posts to 140 characters it is quick and immediate.   The responses on Twitter to event’s like earthquakes are well documented.  The value of Twitter in these situations is that it is instant and unfiltered.  When a moderate earthquake struck near Los Angeles in the summer official news began to emerge after just four minutes. That sounds pretty quick until you examine what happened on Twitter.  The first update said simply “Earthquake” and it was posted seconds after the Earthquake began.  After four minutes the word earthquake was trending on Twitter Search with several thousand updates.  

When NASA’S Phoenix Mars Lander found water on Mars there were Twitter discussions as to whether the story was true several hours before any major news organisation announced the story.  This speculation was fuelled by a Twitter feed called MarsPhoenix, clearly written by a NASA project insider as if it were the voice of the lander itself.  It twittered the news hours before NASA issued a press announcement.

As more people join Twitter we will hear more and more information direct from the source.  We already have citizen journalists perhaps this is the start of the citizen news-wire.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the rise of the Twitterati; celebrity micro-bloggers using Twitter to engage with their fans.  The latest addition to the ranks is Stephen Fry and his arrival may just be the trigger to that brings Twitter into the mainstream.   The reason I say that, is the sheer speed at which his Twitter following is growing.  His first micro-post appeared at lunchtime today and within three hours he had amassed over a thousand followers.

Whilst Stephen Fry may not be Generation Y like his fellow Twitterer Andy Murray, he has a long history of engagement with the web.   Stephen was using e-mail in the early nineties before most people knew what it was and his podcasts or Podgrams as they are called in Fryberspace (ouch…sorry!) are amongst the most popular on the web.

Fry is using Twitter as part of the the publicity for his new series ‘Stephen Fry in America’ which starts on Sunday (October 12th) on BBC1 at 9pm.  It’s genuine stuff and he will be posting as he travels across the continent in a black cab, visiting all 50 states.

Twitter isn’t just publicity for the series it provides another dimension to Fry’s travelogue adding value to the TV series and providing backstage snippets.  Stephen Fry is a big name and he is giving us a real reason to follow.  He is also up to speed with Twitter etiquette and is following people back.  I can’t deny there is a frisson of pleasure that comes with the e-mail that says “Stephen Fry is now following you on Twitter!”.

What do you call a Skoda with a sun roof? A skip! (dumpster, if you’re a US reader)

Such jokes, unthinkable about Skoda cars now, were testament to the failure of a company to manage its appalling brand image. Certainly, the product didn’t help. But as Spencer mused on Twitter, Skoda moved from “embarrassing purchase to surprisingly good cars” - a “transformational brand”.

But “brand” - that word is everywhere. “So what, dummy?” you might say, and rightly so; working in PR, the concept should be a given.

But now that brands and branding seem to have entered the common vernacular - Top20 Coolest Brands reported in the Daily Star, a compendium of wise words from the experts in the Sunday Times’ business section, and even mid-evening radio programmes devoted to it on BBC Radio 4 - has the concept lost something? Is the alchemy of branding devalued by the possibility that Joe Public is “in on it”?

A useful definition from an unlikely source, legal news site Lawdit Reading Room, says “Many decisions about brands are made by customers emotionally or intuitively rather than rationally”. I never bought into that, reckoning my buying decisions were driven by the head (or, more often, the stomach), not heart. But recalling a trip to the USA, I realised that a brand journey was pure, unbridled emotion:

1. Book Florida/Disney/beach holiday with Virgin in one easy transaction: LOVE Virgin!

2. Arrived to find hotel atrocious - actually fearing for life - and Virgin reps couldn’t give a hoot: HATE HATE HATE Virgin!

3. Pour out heart to waiter at Hard Rock Cafe who vows to help us out: LOVE Hard Rock Cafe!

4. Move to Disney resort hotel. Previously HATE Disney because of prolonged exposure to son’s favourite Lion King soundtrack. Now, LOVE fabulous Disney hotel, even with Inca-themed restaurant.

5. Return flight to UK on same day as discovery of international liquid bomb plot. But, Virgin allows  me onto plane with contact lens fluids. LOVE LOVE LOVE Virgin!

I suppose that whether punters grasp a product’s “brand essence” or not, if you can get hold of their heart strings their purse strings will follow.

Recently I wrote about the rise of the Twitterati and how Twitter was becoming a way for celebrities to engage with their fans.  Incidentally after a few days of silence Andy Murray is now microblogging again.  

Today social media pioneer Neville Hobson used Twitter as a quasi IT department.  On discovering that his website had vanished, Neville or ‘Jangles’ as he is know in twitterville, turned to the fast growing online community for help.   Shortly after 8am GMT Neville posted a cheery hello followed a couple of minutes later by the following; “Whoa, looks like my blog disappeared. Someone else there instead. Wtf?”.   Just three minutes later Neville was getting advice from fellow users of the Twitter service, notably from 6consulting.  Throughout the day Neville was updating on his progress and the lack of a response from hosting company Dreamhost.  Given that Neville has over 1,700 followers on Twitter that’s a real PR issue.  By tea time the site was back up but I wonder at what cost to Dreamhost, who according to the tweets still hadn’t contacted Mr H.

With user numbers growing 422% year on year, Twitter is a phenomenally simple idea that provides seemingly limitless possibilities.  Yes it’s a social network, but you can use it as a social search tool, a promotional mechanic, a news feed or a micro diary or even for IT support.  I wonder, did anyone suggest to Neville that he switched it off and on again? 

The new media world of Manchester’s bloggers came face to face with 140 years of newspaper heritage at the Manchester Evening News (MEN) last night.

But even a paper that began life in a “dingy office in Brown Street” has had to change with the times. Now housed in shiny offices, the decor is not the only thing that’s changed.

Assistant news editor, Paul Gallagher, explained how the MEN’s print, online capability and tie-up with Manchester TV station, Channel M, means that decisions on news are very much based on its suitability for the medium, though the paper tends to time the release of online news with the hard copy, so not to compete with itself.

What’s also changed is the way content comes together, combining old fashioned news hounding with readers’ online comments, video taken on reporters’ mobile phones and the work of citizen journalists. As Paul says: “The benchmark for a good story hasn’t changed. But you just have more people contributing to it.”

And the days of the “death knock” - visiting the homes of the recently bereaved in search of a story and, vitally, a photo - may be numbered with newspapers like the MEN turning to online tribute sites for the material they need.

Head of online editorial, Sarah Hartley, described the paper’s move to greater online content and gave a sneak preview of the live blogging and Twittering planned for the Labour Party Conference in Manchester, which starts this Saturday in Manchester.

Still, it was great to see some relics from the past remain, such as the MEN’s hard copy reference library (see pic).

Figures from Nielsen Online reported on Mashable show Twitter to be taking off like nobody’s business, with users growing 422% on last year and sticking around on the site for 7 minutes on average (a veritable lifetime online).

Still, Jeremiah Owyang refers to this (unsurprisingly via Twitter itself) that in the context of social media networks, Twitter’s 2.3m users is small beer when compared to the hulking 100m registered Facebook users.

So, as a Twitterer myself, I now know what it feels like to be in an official minority and a growing one at that. Makes you want to pick up a placard and demand your rights!

 STOP PRESS: Robert Scoble (again, on Twitter) says he’s seen Twitter “all over CNN”.

Microblogging to your Fans

 The British number 1 tennis player and finalist in the recent US Open is on Twitter.  He’s been up there for a month and as of today’s date he has just over 400 followers.  This will rise dramatically.   What is interesting, is not just that we can tune in to a leading sporting figure as he prepares for a major match,  Andy ate pasta and played Scrabble the night before the Open final, but that fans get to hear directly from their hero, with no-one in between.  In the worlds of music, sport and entertainment that’s gold.   

I can’t be certain that Andy is posting himself but every comment has the ring of total authenticity and the first person he followed was his brother Jamie which makes me confident this is the genuine article.  No doubt a PR person or someone else in his entourage suggested it and has advised on it, but the fact that it is real and direct is what makes it work.  There are other celebrities on Twitter but I think Andy is blazing a trail.  The former lead singer of Black Flag and post punk poet Henry Rollins is up there too.  He announced his arrival on January 22nd 2007 with the words “I hate everbody“.  Since then with just 75 ‘tweets’ he has gained 11,785 followers.  There are musicians (or more probably their associaties) who are using it as a promotional tool but Andy and Henry are telling it as it is.  

Stand by for a rush to join the new ’Twitterati’.It won’t be long before we have a flood of singers, sporting heroes and stars of the screen, sharing stuff on the microblog of the moment.  Mark Borkowski will have to add it to the next edition of his book The Fame Formula.   The ones like Andy, who don’t try too hard, keep it interesting and avoid the hard sell will turn followers into ardent fans. Advantage Murray.