Archive for November, 2005

Interested in Learning to Change?

November 28, 2005 @ 8:21 am · Filed under NewPR Wiki, PR, Wikis

Some time ago Steve Rubel has launched the idea of inviting a selected group of leaders from mid-large size PR firms to “brainstorm some joint action initiatives to immerse PR pros” in social media technologies. Jeremy Pepper had a better idea:

Why hide behind an iron curtain, though? Make the Wiki public, and invite all various PR firms and PR bloggers to be involved. Or, why not do this on the New PR/Wiki?

Steve has accepted the suggestion to use the NewPR Wiki for this project, but the participation is still restricted to people working in midsize or large PR firm. I’m not exactly enthusiastic about the idea of having only a small group of people invited to this project, but it’s Steve’s project and I respect his approach (and FishBowl wikis are not exactly new).

But what about the rest of us — PR pros, consultants and students (maybe journalists, too?)– who might want to join the conversation?

Well, it’s simple: we can start a new wiki page and use it for sharing ideas and comments on the same topics as our colleagues. If you’re interested to participate in this project (any suggestions for a name? how about Learning to Change?), please leave a comment below or send me an e-mail at cbasturea@gmail.com, and I’ll send you an edit password.

There’s no need to feel excluded from the conversation; we can start our own.

Update:

Steve Rubel announced me that the Going the Distance project is no longer invitation-only. If you have already an edit password for the NewPR Wiki, you can contribute. If you don’t have the password, please contact Steve or send me an e-mail.

Second, I think I have to clarify a couple of things. Despite trying to do my best to explain the reasons why I posted this entry, here’s what I read on Niall Cook’s blog:

Now Constantin Basturea has weighed in by starting a separate wiki page (also on The NewPR Wiki) for those who feel “excluded from the conversation”. The implication is that - by participating in Steve’s initiative - we want to exclude and ignore other points of view. This could not be further from the truth.

Of course, everyone is perfectly entitled to create their own wikis, or even just talk about the issues on their own blogs, but this is all getting a little bit silly.

What we have here is a failure to communicate (what?), I think, so I will reiterate my reasons:

  • It was clear from the beginning that people who are not invited to participate will be unhappy about it; I didn’t invented this: it’s all in the comments and trackback posted back in October, and reignited recently.
  • Since people asked “what about us?” and since Steve’s project is hosted by the NewPR Wiki, I thought I have to respond to these questions by -at least- offering a discussion space for those who felt that their ideas are ignored just because they’re not working in large PR agencies. It’s people’s choice if they want to use it or not.
  • I never implied that any of the people participating in Steve’s initiative have the intention to exclude and ignore other points of view. That thought never crossed my mind.

Glad to see this solved.

Links:

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PR Digest links for Nov. 27, 2005

November 27, 2005 @ 5:12 pm · Filed under PR Digest

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PR Digest links for Nov. 25, 2005

November 25, 2005 @ 7:23 am · Filed under PR Digest

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PubSub launches the PR Community List

November 7, 2005 @ 7:32 am · Filed under PR, PR blogging, Personal

PubSub’s first series of Community Lists is live now at www.pubsub.com/lists/ and includes The PR List, The Law List (edited by Kevin O’Keefe), The Librarian List, and The Fashion List. The lists are conceived as “miniature roadmaps” of these blogging communities, and as a way of determining what blogs are “hot” -or not- in a given day.

The PR Community List, available at www.pubsub.com/lists/pr.php is the result of human expertise (*cough*) and LinkRanks, PubSub’s method of comparing sites to one another by analyzing their links.

Here’s the recipe:

  • Take an edited version of my directory of PR and communications weblogs (The PR Blogs List).
  • Add the PubSub’s LinkRank of each source, calculated on a daily basis.
  • Publish everything on a single page as an ordered list that shows each blog’s current LinkRank, its changes since the previous day, and which blogs have the biggest rank gain.
  • Plus: offer links to each weblog’s homepage and stats.

Please note that this is very much a work in progress; and that we’re asking for your feedback and ideas in order to make this list better and more valuable. Also, don’t panick if your blog doesn’t have a LinkRank yet, or if it has the same (low) LinkRanks as other — this is either due to a lack of posting or to the fact that PubSub just begun indexing your feeds for the list.

If you have questions about the list, please read the following answers first; if they’re not what you’re looking for, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail at prblogs@gmail.com.

What weblogs/websites are included in the list? The list includes most of the sources listed in the list of PR and communications weblogs, as well as other relevant sources that are publishing RSS feeds, i.e.:

  • personal blogs
  • CEO and corporate blogs
  • educational blogs
  • group blogs
  • corporate publications with RSS feeds
  • news portals with RSS feeds
  • news from professional associations
  • podcasts and corporate podcasts
  • wikis
  • book blogs
  • event blogs.

Not included in the list are the weblogs maintained by business blog consultants, as well as a number of weblogs that were not updated in the last couple of months (I will continue to watch them, and if they become active again, I’ll add them in the list).

Where’s my blog? Or: why is my blog in this list?
If your weblog -or a PR blog you know- is not in the list already, please don’t take it as a personal offense. Just drop me an e-mail at prblogs@gmail.com and I’ll add it. The same goes if you want to take your blog out of the list.

What’s a PR blog, anyway?
“PR blogs” is a nickname for weblogs that are mainly about public relations and communication in an organizational context. (This definition excludes weblogs focused on advertising, branding, marketing, and SEO.) We’re using this nickname because it will be too complicated -and inconvenient- to say, each and every time, “weblogs focused on public relations, communications, speechwriting, PR education, PR professional associations - and PR and communications news portals.” Of course, there is no universally recognized and “objective” set of criteria for determining if a weblog is -or is not- a PR blog; this is determined by the blog’s author and by its readers.

Is there a way to subscribe to the blogs included in the list?

  • If you want to subscribe to a small number of weblogs, it’s better to go to their homepages and find their RSS feeds.
  • If you want to subscribe to the entire list of PR blogs, or to a larger subset, you can use the list’s OPML file (save it as somename.opml, then import the file in your newsreader; your newsreader might give you the option of selecting which feeds do you want to import).

How are LinkRanks calculated?
“PubSub monitors over 16 million web feeds daily. Each day’s LinkRanks are based on a careful algorithmic analysis of the 16 million links that are found in those feeds on an average day. Individual links are given different values based on the LinkRank of their source, the age of the links, and the number of links created by any one site on a day. Once all the sites that are linked to on a given day have been ranked in numerical order, they are also divided into percentages. Thus, it is easy to see if a site is in the ‘Top 1%’ or in the ‘Top 75%’. Not all sites will have a LinkRank. If a site hasn’t published in the last 30 days or its feed isn’t read by PubSub, it won’t be considered during the LinkRank calculation.” (source: PubSub)

What does it mean that PubSub LinkRanks measures “the strength, persistence, and vitality of links”?

  • Strength: How many links come into the weblog, and from whom did they come?
  • Persistence: Is linking a continuous and regular process or is it one-time or “bursty?” (i.e. do people link to the site every day or is it like one of the “Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction” sites that only got a burst of links and then faded away)
  • Vitality: The variability in LinkRank over time. Is this a weblog with “stable” numbers? Or, does it jump up and down over time?

What should I do if I think that my blog’s rank is inaccurate?
Please contact PubSub at feedback@pubsub.com.

What will happen with the PR Blogs List?
The PR Blogs List will continue to index PR blogs by country and type. New weblogs will be added to both the PR Blogs List and the PubSub’s PR Community List.

What the list isn’t
Please note that the list doesn’t provide “the top PR blogs” or my “top picks of PR blogs“; what I provide is a directory of weblogs, and I try to make it as comprehensive as possible. I’m not ranking the weblogs; PubSub’s algorithm is doing the rankings - and they can change daily.

I’m not a fan of rankings, especially when it comes to the blogosphere, and when ranking is seen as the equal of influence. Blogging is about individual voices, different ways of thinking, personality, personal experience, and more; if we’re reducing all this variety and wealth to a simple number, we’re missing the core of blogging. Blogging is not athletics; we can have more than one “winner”.

Moreover, the relationship between ranking and influence it’s not simple; top blogs are, of course, influential - but for whom? And how? (I read Z-listers that are, for me, more influential than the A-listers — because each one of us has a personal A-list).

What this mean is that I’m inviting you to use the PubSub’s PR Community List in a way that will serve you well: be aware of the “top blogs”, but please try to discover new voices. Appreciate the top 1%, but also pay attention to the blogs that have the biggest LinkRank gain; you have an excellent chance to find ideas that you’re going to miss otherwise. Pay attention to the top influencers, but don’t make the mistake of thinking that only those at the top of the list have this quality. Finally, use the rankings wisely; they’re important, but they’re just a part of a bigger picture. My opinion, of course.

Credits
I would like to thank Steven M. Cohen, Senior Librarian at PubSub, and Joel Richman from PAN Communications, for their collaboration and for involving me in this project.

Related links:

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