Twitter hacked

January 5, 2009 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Looks like my colleague Yan's 2009 "un-predictions" are already starting to come true. "Hope it doesn't happen in 2009" prediction #2 was a wish against spam on Twitter. Well, it looks like hackers have been able to access the accounts of and send spam messages from:

• Barack Obama
• Brittney Spears
• Fox News
• Rick Sanchez, CNN
• Facebook

(the offending posts have already been taken down)

From ReadWriteWeb:

Twitter Security Collapses; Obama, Fox and Britney Accounts Hacked
Days after a wave of phishing attacks fooled thousands of Twitter users, it appears that another security hole has been found by...someone. Obama's account, unused since election day, sent out an affiliate link to a survey with a gas card prize, Fox News said that "Bill O'Reily is gay" (not that there's anything wrong with that) and Britney Spears' made a lewd post about her anatomy. Rick Sanchez, the Twitter loving CNN anchor, says he's "high on crack and might not be coming into work today."

(click through for screenshots above or on Techcrunch)

Clearly, this will be a major blow to Twitter as they attempt to build a secure enterprise monetization strategy. Twitter's reputation has already been damaged by technology hiccups, fail whales, and questionable user authenticity, certainly leading some marketing execs to wonder how Twitter could help their company (or hurt). Will Twitter manage to retain its largest users and continue to attract new ones despite these troubles?

Twitter has not yet addressed these latest attacks, although they did post on their blog about the phishing scam this weekend.

As a side story -- did anyone note how Barack Obama's Twitter account has not been updated since November 5? I think that speaks more to Twitter's use as a tactical campaign tool versus as an ongoing communications and reputation management tool.

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To Avoid in 2009….

December 26, 2008 | Written by Yan Shikhvarger

Inspired by annual prediction and end-of-year reviews, here are a few things which I hope will not happen next year within our industry:

• More new niche "beta" social networks that do not work
• SPAM hitting Twitter
• A new free web analytics solution
• A hyped comeback of Cuil
• Either a way to monetize Facebook or a government bailout
• Microblogging affecting the course of history

And last but not least...

• More irrelevant thought leadership pieces from the "experts"

It can be a decent year if these things can be avoided, but we shall see....

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Fetal tweet - when worlds collide

December 12, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

I'm a PR guy who blogs on digital trends. My wife is a midwife.

Yesterday, our world's were mashed in the following story from BoingBoing:

Youngest Twitterer EVAR?
Corey Menscher, an ITP student, has designed a kick sensor which monitors his pregnant wife's belly, and generates a fetal tweet whenever the baby kicks.

Here are some of @kickbee's latest tweets:

Here are some photos of the device:

http://portfolio.menscher.com/itp/kickbee/

Can you imagine wearing one of these for the sake of digital trends?

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Big 3 PR Analysis

December 10, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Ruder Finn co-CEO Kathy Bloomgarden recently penned an article for Harvard Business School blog Conversation Starter, talking about PR lessons from the congressional testimony of the "Big Three" automaker CEOs:

Detroit's PR Lessons and the Right Way to Ask for Help

Her main points:

1) Be sincerely willing to talk--and act--differently
2) Understand the context and present a fact-based case
3) Admit mistakes and take the blame

From a digital trends perspective, it's interesting to note that the Big 3 have taken their case to the web with sites like Ford's The Ford Story and GM's GMFactsandFiction.com that address their respective cases for federal aid.

(via PR Week US)

Are you swayed by these online efforts?

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Will we have to pay for Twitter?

December 4, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Twitter founder Ev Williams spoke at a conference last night where he partly detailed his outlook for Twitter, explaining his reasoning for turning down an offer from Facebook, and how their business model could be developed.

Here's a digest of three articles on it:

Twitter CEO: The revenue's coming soon, but I won't tell you how (CNET)
"...[Williams] revealed that the company is in talks with large consumer packaged good companies, and whether that's to sell the company internal services or to help the company monetize its own Twitter feeds, it's promising."

Why Twitter Turned Down Facebook (NYT)
"...Mr. Williams said that Twitter gets daily calls from companies who want to pay for sponsorships, but it plans to avoid making money from ads. Instead, it will figure out a way to charge businesses who use Twitter to talk with customers or sell products. Companies like JetBlue Airways, Dell and Whole Foods Market have used Twitter in these ways."

A Tweet Time with Ev Williams (Portfolio)
"...He still isn't saying exactly how Twitter will make money, but says he is confident THAT it will make money. Thanks to the downturn, he's focusing on revenue earlier than he would've otherwise, and thinks Twitter will have real revenue by early 2009."

Most interesting for those pushing corporate involvement in digital media is the prospect of a business model funded by corporations.

Will corporations be less likely to engage in Web 2.0 if they have to pay to do so?

I think Twitter was smart to turn down the offer from Facebook. Mostly because there are bigger fish out there to sell to. If Twitter is looking to generate revenue outside of advertising, then it might be a very attractive acquisition for Google to diversify its revenue stream. Not to mention Ev was with Blogger when it sold to Google.

Some of my colleagues at Ruder Finn had this to say:

Given that Facebook seems a bit shaky in terms of revenue generation, they might be smart to turn it down. But it's not as if they have their own revenue-generating idea just yet. I think Twitter is surviving on a hope and a prayer, at least as a business, and is far from unique as a service. (Eric)

I think we'll see Twitter copy Yammer (which copied Twitter) and really focus on a subscription-based, secure "behind the firewall" version of Twitter for enterprise connectivity and collaboration. (Tyler)

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Is crowdsourcing reverse plagiarism?

December 3, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

"No crowd surfing" via clagnut

Vote for crowdSPRING today! (more on that at the end)

I recently predicted that:

Creativity will be crowd-sourced, redefining the role of the professional creative mind. PR will be tasked with orchestrating the crowd talking to itself.

A few questions came in on what crowdsourcing is, and I was surprised to find that the term wasn't as self-explanatory as I had thought.

According to Wikipedia, crowdsourcing is the:

Act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people, in the form of an open call.

One might consider Wikipedia itself an experiment in crowdsourcing, although its founder Jimmy Wales is cited in the very same article as having said that:

"I find the term 'crowdsourcing' incredibly irritating," Wales says. "Any company that thinks it's going to build a site by outsourcing all the work to its users not only disrespects the users but completely misunderstands what it should be doing. Your job is to provide a structure for your users to collaborate, and that takes a lot of work."

(source: "The Wales Rules for Web 2.0", Business 2.0)

His distinction would be that Wikipedia has enough of a framework in place to foster productive collaboration rather than willy nilly idea stealing and general run-amokedness.

Despite the controversy around crowd sourcing, Ruder Finn client crowdSPRING has been able to show success in an area particularly prone to debate, creative crowd-sourcing. They are self-described as:

an online marketplace for creative services. For buyers, crowdSPRING is a place to post a creative project, watch the world contribute ideas and choose the one they like. For creatives, crowdSPRING is a global stage for creativity where title and experience don't matter.

The process is facilitated by a framework established by crowdSPRING to ensure that creators own their ideas, are paid, and have tools at their disposal to ensure that they are protected.

Incidentally, the WIRED Small Biz program is hosting a contest for one of five businesses they've selected to win $40,000. Voting is open through this month, so:

Vote for crowdSPRING today!

Have you ever crowdsourced something?

**UPDATE 1**

crowdSPRING is currently in second. Get thee to the polls, readers!

**UPDATE 2**

WIRED contributing editor Jeff Howe has a blog on his book about crowd-sourcing:

Crowdsourcing Blog

Also, the WIRED Small Biz program has a forum for small business owners to pose problems and collaborate to solve them:

WIRED Small Biz forum

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Religion, not Working, and Google

November 26, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Yesterday I presented to a group of my colleagues at Ruder Finn about Twitter and brainstormed some uses for our corporate clients.

One point that resonated was imploring people to explore Web 2.0 on their own to discover tools and services that may be of use to them or clients. Ruder Finn social media coordinator Tyler Pennock put it this way at the PR Week Next Conference:

#nextprweek One skill I think future PR pros need to have: curiousity - the desire to always look for more questions to answer

This curiosity is often fostered by a healthy dose of "wandering." And wandering has a long history of success in developing breakthrough thinking and ideas. There are ancient examples that Boston University professor Stephen Prothero presented in a lecture series entitled: The Work of Doing Nothing: Wandering as Practice and Play

From Bostonia, the BU alumni mag (disclosure: I'm a Boston University alum):

Prothero explores wandering as one of the great themes in the world's religious and literary traditions, and as an antidote to our contemporary obsessions with efficiency, productivity, and the purpose-driven life. Adam and Eve were wanderers, as were Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Paul, and the Buddha. Ulysses wanders across the pages of the Odyssey and the Pandhavas across the chapters of the Hindu epic the Mahabharata. To wander is to move without destination into the unknown, and to open yourself up to surprises. But wandering is often disparaged as deviation and digression. These lectures seek to redeem wandering from its critics by championing it as both practice and play. Although wandering aims at nothing, it is work of a sort. And on occasion, it can do some of the hardest work of all: liberating us from the tyranny of those voices -- of parents and gods and friends and governments -- that tell us (with authority, and sometimes coercive power) who to be, what to think, how to live.

A more contemporary example of "wandering" comes in Google's 70/20/10 model:

The 70/20/10 Model is a business resource management model pioneered by Eric E. Schmidt. This model dictates that, to cultivate innovation, employees of a company should utilize their time in the following ratio:

* 70% of time should be dedicated to core business tasks.
* 20% of time should be dedicated to projects related to the core business.
* 10% of time should be dedicated to projects unrelated to the core business.

(source: Wikipedia)

More on the 70/20/10 concept here.

How much time do you spend working at not working?

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What Left Brain's UK counterpart is thinking

November 25, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

As Ruder Finn expands its blog network, my colleagues on the other side of the pond at DotCom ask an interesting question: Why are we blogging?

It's an important question that our clients, friends, and co-workers ask as we implement digital campaigns. In addition to Alison's reasons of showing allegiance to a company vs. company unity, I would add that corporate blogs broadly can be used to:

• Build online presence: you can't be known as a blogger if you don't blog. Also, it's good policy to practice what you preach.
• Establish thought leadership: corporate blogging can be used to show that you're a smart thinker, and if you have an active community of commenters, possibly even develop your ideas further.
• Showcase client work: corporate blogs can and should be used as additional marketing tools when appropriate. Your own corporate blog can be your first blog hit. Use it if you got it.
• Drive new business / recruiting: this is one more point that pajama bloggers might find distasteful. But the ultimate goal of being known, having a good reputation, and doing good work is to grow your business and attract great talent.

I look forward to reading more from Left and Right Brains' UK counterparts DotCom and DotOrg. Cheers!

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Google Life

November 20, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Google's new photo archive posted in conjunction with Time LIFE brings us millions of photos from some of the first photographs to today. And many are available for the first time ever:

http://images.google.com/hosted/life

We've seen a similar effort before with the Library of Congress' Flickr page, and both sites serve a business purpose that goes beyond the "cool" factor of being able to browse old-timey and iconic images.

For the Library of Congress, the Flickr page accomplishes 3 business objectives:

• Using resources: according to the LOC, the photos on the site "have long been popular with visitors to the Library; they have no known restrictions on publication or distribution, and they have high resolution scans."
• Experimentation: Also from the LOC site, they "look forward to learning what kinds of tags and comments these images inspire. To gain a better understanding of how social tagging and community input could benefit both the Library and users of the collections. To gain experience participating in Web communities that are interested in the kinds of materials in the Library's collections."
• Access: Of course, this is the technology people are using and the best way to reach them. Who would ever have thought of going to the LOC website or the LOC itself to see these?

(As a side note, Ruder Finn client Alvin Ailey has a traveling exhibit with the Library of Congress. Maybe someday those photos will be up on Flickr too?)

Google's LIFE site similarly accomplishes similar objectives (sharing rare photos, coolness factor) and achieves at least one additional business objective that I can detect, and that's to sell merchandise. Using the same vendor that Flickr uses to sell merchandise (Qoop), Google/LIFE allows people to buy framed prints off the site with just a couple quick clicks.

While I think the Google venture could use more social aspects like commenting, sharing, and embedding (right now it only features rating; tagging/labeling is done internally), I think it sets an important precedent for digital business. Content needs to be compelling, easily accessible, and jibe with your business goals.

Here's my favorite photo so far:

http://snipr.com/63dxa

What's yours?
(put it in the comments)

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PR Week 10th Anniversary Issue Drops

November 17, 2008 | Written by Darius Razgaitis

Just digging in to my long-awaited 10th anniversary issue of PR Week. EIC Keith O'Brien has done a great job pulling it toghether and working long and hard hours on it.

A few articles to highlight:

• PR's Forefathers: Luncheon from this summer with four men who have more than 200 combined years of experience in the industry. Harold Burson, Daniel Edelman, Al Golin, and David Finn (Ruder Finn co-founder) helped to establish the PR industry that exists today. They discussed how they entered the field, who tried to acquire whom, and what the future holds.
• Illustration contest: PRWeek enlisted an illustrator to artistically interpret 20 of the industry's most influential PR professionals from the past decade. They are giving a framed print of the illustration to the first PRWeek reader who can identify all 20 PR professionals. Runner-up gets a free subscription.
• Bold predictions: Including the following 4 from Ruder Finn:

FACTS
Kathy Bloomgarden, co-CEO, Ruder Finn
Fact and fiction will become indistinguishable in online news media, making trust a vital commodity that PR can provide

MEDIA CENTERS
Michael Schubert, chief creative officer, Ruder Finn
New media technology will make television obsolete and put the computer screen in the living room.

TWITTER
Scott Schneider, EVP and managing director, RFI Studios (Ruder Finn)
Complete Twitter burnout

CROWD SOURCING
Darius Razgaitis, senior account executive, Ruder Finn
Creativity will be crowd-sourced, redefining the role of the professional creative mind. PR will be tasked with orchestrating the crowd talking to itself

**UPDATE 1 (11/18)**

You'll need to register to access the PR Week site, but it's free.

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