Valleywag: great moments in public relations

Google to employees: No comment, and don't even try that "off the record" stuff

Owen Thomas — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 10:24:49 PST

Google PR überführer Elliot Schrage has issued a diktat, we hear: No comment! Google employees are forbidden to comment "officially or unofficially" on the Microsoft-Yahoo deal. Right. Like that makes any difference. We haven't been able to get any of our Google sources to stop laughing long enough to give us an opinion.

Privacy-obsessed social network's promoter proves public embarrassment

Mary Jane Irwin — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 16:20:06 PST

When you've got the buzz from Demo, Chris Shipley's startup conference, and $30 million in funding, it's hard to believe a startup would sink to spamming blogs with upbeat comments. But social network Moli, which hawks itself as a privacy-oriented alternative to Facebook, isn't above such base tactics. Blogger Sabrina Dent called the network on its spam-laden socializing, and was soon greeted with an overly enthusiastic proclamation of Moli's greatness. Turns out Moli's director of customer service, Daniel DiFiore, has been slinking about the Web, masquerading as Hawk5721, Moli evangelist. The goal, of course, is to delude people into thinking that Hawk5721's comments represent a surge of Internet users embracing Moli.

But Hawk5721's identity proved none too private — ironic, given what Moli promises. You'd think after the great Facebook bank-intern escapade, people would learn to actually keep their private data, you know, private. The public availability of a picture showing DiFiore drinking a jello shot on Moli.com just proves that Moli isn't about to disrupt the marketplace.

Facebook founder redefines "opt-in"

Paul Boutin — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 21:34:29 PST

People say the craziest things to New York Times reporters. In an attempt to explain that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wasn't, you know, lying when he implied to NYT staffer Louise Story that Facebook's Beacon ads wouldn't report on users' purchases and other activities unless they opted in to the system, "Matt Hicks, a Facebook spokesman, said Mr. Zuckerberg had meant that users would be given the opportunity to opt out of having information sent out by Beacon, and the company had assumed that anyone who didn't say no meant yes." As Story reports, Coke is having the same "Huh?" reaction, and has withdrawn from early participation in Beacon ads. I confess: I'm biased. I went to MIT, so whenever a Harvard man like Zuckerberg opens his mouth, I start listening for the bullshit. I wish I were wrong more often.

Dear PR flack, don't make us laugh

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 12:28:51 PST

Monica, Monica. First you rob me of all that I loved about PR — the illusion that you labor over each email you send to make it personal to me, just me. Now you're threatening to kill our relationship entirely by bringing in lawyers. Monica, how am I supposed to write the news without your help? How will I learn of the glories of your clients? But I think we can still make this work, Monica.

Just ask your colleague at MWW, Tom Biro. After we posted your email, he sent out a companywide missive in response, outlining "dos and don'ts" when dealing with bloggers. A tipster leaked it to us. Give it a read, will you? If there was something in there about making ill-advised legal threats, I missed it.

Here's the condensed version of the note from Biro, MWW Group's director of new media strategies:

In light of an unfortunate situation that occurred with a blog pitch gone bad, now is a good time to reiterate some best practice guidelines for engaging with bloggers.

Don't pitch, talk: Bloggers are for the most part well-versed in PR spin and hyperbole and react poorly to it. Help the writer do a better job.

"A-List" blogs that consistently receive attention. It's a better tactic to find someone smaller interested in the "pitch." A worth story will find its way up.

Use links.

Be brief.

Don't send attachments.

Make sure you're not asking for coverage you've already gotten.

Make sure you're not asking for coverage someplace that just trashed your client.

Rushing through outreach efforts - to traditional media or online media - is no excuse for being sloppy. If something doesn't look right ask for help.

Any chance this helps, Monica? Or are we completely through?

AT&T CEO says better iPhone coming next year

Nicholas Carlson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 10:42:57 PST

Thinking about getting an iPhone as a gift for your loved ones this holiday season? Wait 'til next year! That's the message AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson delivered at a meeting of the Churchill Club in Santa Clara yesterday when he announced that a 3G iPhone would arrive next year. "You'll have it next year," Stephenson said. Way to help sales, Randall!

This must be reuse-your-email week

Paul Boutin — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:54:53 PST

I got a free pass to DEMO! I was really happy — until I got to the last line of the attached email.

Sender: Erica Lee To: paul@paulboutin.com Subject: Invitation to DEMO 08 Hi Paul,
On behalf of DEMO Executive Producer Chris Shipley, I would like to invite you to attend DEMO 08, in Palm Desert CA, January 28 - 30.

[...]

Please join our exclusive audience of VCs, gurus, entrepreneurs and business executives as we spend two full days identifying industry trends and peeking into the future of technology innovation. We have a limited number of complimentary press passes and GigaOM has been selected to receive one. To sign up for your free pass, please contact me.

PR guy misses PR lesson from Guy Kawasaki

Tim Faulkner — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:30:32 PST

PR blogger Vince Bank is peeved that tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki is using Twitter to promote his startup Truemors, instead of giving him "personal insights." And he calls himself a PR guy? Kawasaki's fanboys accept and defend his self-promotion. Bank even misses the valuable lesson Kawasaki taught him when Bank's self-promoting post to Truemors was banned. He asks, "Is this a classic case of 'Do as I say, but not as I do?'" The answer is yes. Unlike Kawasaki, Bank just isn't brassy enough to get away with it.

PR guy's site links to bestiality, rape porn

Nicholas Carlson — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 10:40:02 PST

Richard Laermer of RLM PR is either into some really depraved adult entertainment. Or he's very lazy. That's the conclusion of fellow flack Peter Shankman, an early riser who was no doubt checking out Laermer's source code at 4 a.m. before going for a jog. The site's code reveals links to sites featuring bestiality and "nonconsensual sex," a cute little euphemism for rape porn. So how did Laermer let all that onto his site?

Search engine optimization experts told PR blogger Peter Shankman that if Laermer isn't a violent sex fiend, he either copied his code from a porn site or he doesn't have effective security in place to keep porn "bots" from writing over his HTML to boost their search rankings. (Photo by It'sGreg)

Apple flacks caught on tape acting like control freaks

Owen Thomas — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:44:41 PST

A British journalist attempts to ask Apple executive Phil Schiller a question about the effective iTunes monopoly on downloads for the iPhone. Apple's PR people jump in and try to end the interview, saying how they're "excited" about the iPhone and "want to stay focused." The problem? Their body language betrays them. This is why Apple is really screwed if it ever loses Steve Jobs: He's the only guy at Apple who can actually pull off this act and handle the press convincingly while parroting the party line. Everyone else at Apple who's even allowed to speak to reporters just ends up looking robotically defensive when they try to erect a Jobsian reality-distortion field.

Is Amazon.com supporting Google's Facebook killer? Don't ask

Tim Faulkner — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 11:28:10 PST

Read/WriteWeb last night reported that Amazon.com will announce today, among other things, support of Google's OpenSocial Web widget platform in all of its applications going forward. Now Google can tout Amazon's support for its rival platform to extend social networks. Or can it? Amazon flacks, after sending Read/WriteWeb a press release about the move, are now retracting it and claiming the company is not adopting OpenSocial. Or if it is, they're pretending they don't know about it.

Read/WriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick Twitters:

Update: Amazon contacted us this morning to let us know that though they sent us a draft press release, they are not in fact making any such announcement, they are not supporting OpenSocial and if they were it would still be under embargo anyway despite the date on said release.

In other words, yes, Amazon is probably supporting OpenSocial. Adding the online retailer to the list of OpenSocial supporters would certainly be a major help to Google's assault on Facebook. Amazon helped launch Facebook's apps platform, and in the buildup to Facebook's Social Ads announcement, everyone used Amazon as an example of its potential power. Last week, however, Amazon was nowhere to be found.

Apparently, though, Jeff Bezos & Co. aren't prepared to diss Facebook quite yet. Amazon's PR team messed up and hopes we'll just ignore their own press releases, or honor some after-the-fact embargo. Sorry. Even when done right, the day of the embargo is over.

Google's holiday party

Owen Thomas — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 07:29:33 PST

Did you get your pass to the Google Holiday Party? We understand. Email can be so unreliable. A helpful tipster saved us the trouble of digging through our Gmail spam filter to find our invitation. Don't know if we'll crash the December 12 event at the Googleplex. If it's like past parties, expect a room full of tiresomely cheery Google flacks and a drive-by appearance by Larry and Sergey. If you do get any founder face time, watch out: They'll likely bore you to tears with an explanation of why they call Web applets "gadgets" instead of "widgets." Not that you could use any of that conversation anyway, since the event is "off the record." Still want to go? After the jump, the full detail of the exclusive holiday soiree.

Google Holiday Media Party 2007 Incomprehensible as it may seem, we are just a few weeks away from Google's annual holiday media fest. We hope you'll join us for a friendly evening of informal conversation (one that's off the record) with our PR team and a number of our execs. As always, Google chefs will prepare a great spread along with drinks.

When:
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm

RSVP:
Click here to RSVP
by 12/05/2007 *See below

Where:
Google, Slice Cafe, Building 40
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
Click here to see map

*Your invitation is non-transferable. If you can't attend and want to suggest a colleague in your place, you may do so on the RSVP form.

Chris Anderson hates receiving spam, benefits from sending it

Megan McCarthy — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 06:00:20 PDT

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had it up to here with unsolicited emails from PR agencies. But he's the beneficiary when colleagues use the tactic. Del.icio.us founder Joshua Schachter notes that his inbox is filled with unsolicited emails from Wired flacks. Sent to an email address, Schachter points out, which is on his blog, not one he uses to sign up for mailing lists. Call it the Long Tail of PR. Whether or not Anderson approves, he certainly gains from the PR mail-all list: The most recent Wired message touts Wednesday's edition of the PBS show Wired Science, and the subject line highlights a special appearance by Anderson himself.

Wired editor in a snit over unsolicited emails

Megan McCarthy — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 16:59:47 PDT

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson has had enough of unsolicited emails from PR professionals. So much so, that he posted a list on his blog of 329 PR Hester Prynnes, guilty of promiscuous overuse of their email outboxes. No more will their very unimportant missives waste his time — emails from these people will be summarily blocked. Among the guilty: Flacks from SparkPR, Edelman, Ogilvy, Weber Shandwick, SutherlandGold, Bite PR, and Text100. If you're wondering, Outcast, Hill & Knowlton, and Burson-Marsteller managed to escape Anderson's long flail. Prepare for lots of stories about Facebook, Hewlett-Packard, and Hillary Clinton in the next few issues of Wired.

Flack swears off Kool-Aid

Nicholas Carlson — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:30:58 PDT

Last we heard from PR flack Steve Rubel, he was on his knees apologizing for publicly trashing PC Magazine. Now Edelman PR's spokesblogger wants the world to know he's sorry for inflating the Web 2.0 bubble. He writes, "Since I started this blog lots of people have rightfully made fun of how much I touted every little new site to come along. Their criticism is accurate." Don't worry, Steve. It's not your fault. You'd only be guilty if you'd actually succeeded at imitating Michael Arrington.

Facebook calls reporter's question "harassing"

Nicholas Carlson — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 15:33:17 PDT

This morning, we reported on a Facebook employee who allegedly looked up a user's password, logged into her account, and changed her profile picture to a graphic image. When a tipster wrote in to name the employee, I contacted the accused, Jordan Moncharmont, for comment. I wrote, "Jordan — Please read this and then call me immediately," pasting a link to this morning's story. Facebook's response?

I found in my inbox, not a reply from Moncharmont, but this:

The "Acknowledge" checkbox struck me as some kind of Chinese Communist Red Guards-style self-confessional, so I refused to check it off.

Here again is my request seeking comment. Perhaps the word "immediately" came across as too demanding? Next time, I'll be gentler in communicating my deadlines.

A journalist asking the subject of a story for comment? Facebook views that as harassment. But viewing users' profiles without permission and perhaps replacing profile pictures with lewd images? Why, for Facebookers, that's just part of the job.

Obscenely rich Mark Zuckerberg declares war on poor leakers

Owen Thomas — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:21:01 PDT

One curious thing about the Wall Street Journal story reporting that Facebook was looking to raise as much as $260 million — but not the $500 million celebritard blogger Fake Steve Jobs suggested. The Journal's Vauhini Vara cites "a person" or "people familiar with the matter" six times. What does that indecipherable journalism-speak actually mean?

Attributing a statement to "a person familiar with the matter" is perhaps the loosest sourcing an uptight outlet like the Journal will tolerate. It means, in short, someone who knows what he's talking about, but can't even let his employer, position, or even connection to the subject of the story be known.

And why is that the case here? Because, we hear newly minted paper billionaire Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has threatened to fire anyone caught leaking to reporters like Vara. Gee, Mark. I don't know if that's really wise. Don't you think it might get a bit lonely without all your pals?

Comcast calls AP story "Web gossip"

Jordan Golson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:16:21 PDT

A reader emailed Comcast to complain about its blocking the Bible and received back a typical PR-speak response. Within was this gem: "We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our customers have the best broadband experience possible." Aha! I hadn't realized the "best broadband experience" excluded BitTorrent. That's Comcastic! Also a nice touch: Dismissing a story that ran over the Associated Press wire service as "web gossip." The full email after the jump.

Thank you for your message. My name is Lindsay, and I appreciate you taking the time to contact Comcast.
I understand you have some concerns over recent web gossip that has suggested Comcast is blocking or hindering customer access to BitTorrent. I will be happy to assist you. We do not block access to any P2P (Peer To Peer) applications, including BitTorrent. We respect our customers' privacy and don't monitor specific customer activities on the Internet, or track individual online behavior, such as which websites are visited. Therefore, we do not know whether any individual user is visiting BitTorrent or any other site.

Additionally, Comcast does not "throttle" bandwidth (limit throughput on the network). Comcast also is not traffic shaping or packet shaping. We have a responsibility to manage our network to ensure that our
customers have the best broadband experience possible. That means we use the latest technologies to manage our network to provide a quality experience for all Comcast subscribers. This is standard practice for network operators around the world. I do not have specific information to provide to you regarding the details of how we manage our network, or vendors that may be used.

If you have any more questions feel free to reply to this e-mail, or you can chat with one of our Online Customer Support Specialists who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at

http://www.comcastsupport.com/chat

To assure the proper tracking of this issue, we have created the following customer service ticket: ####.

Please refer to this number should you contact us regarding this same issue.

Thank you for choosing Comcast.

Sincerely,

Lindsay
Comcast Online Customer Support

(Photo by AP/Douglas C. Pizac)

Web 2.0, here we go

Paul Boutin — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:00:00 PDT

In response to my public putdown of tomorrow's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, conference organizer Tim O'Reilly's publicist gave me a press pass to the three-day event. This is becoming like the plot of Dune — tricks within tricks within tricks! Look for my fawning, co-opted coverage at Rupert Murdoch's feet, starting 8 a.m. Wednesday morning.(Photo courtesy of Read/WriteWeb)

Fake Steve impersonated by One-Laptop PR shill

Jordan Golson — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 09:11:44 PDT

A few weeks ago, Forbes editor Dan Lyons, writing as Fake Steve Jobs, wrote a devastating analysis of the One Laptop Per Child project. On Tuesday, Wayan Vota, a blogger who follows the OLPC project, responded in essence, that while he agreed with Fake Steve, he still agreed with the project's aims. That would have been the end of it, except for a comment left on his post by "Fake Steve Jobs." The problem? Lyons didn't leave that comment. Vota compared the IP address that left the comment to others that he'd received and tracked it back to the Racepoint Group, the PR firm that reps OLPC. The commenter has since apologized, but the damage is done. To Kyle Austin, soon-to-be-fired flunky at Racepoint Group we say: great spin control. Proof after the jump.

(Screenshot from DCMetblogger)

Starbucks has a rumor response website that ...

Jordan Golson — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:24:33 PDT

Starbucks has a rumor response website that it uses to dispel nasty gossip about the company. We wish all companies had this sort of thing so mock scandals can be quashed before they get out of control. [Barron's]