I was wishing, hard, that Google would let me in on Google +. It has, and now suddenly I’m thinking it will take me years to organise my contacts and am somewhat concerned that if I don’t some measurement company will dive in with a measurement tool for ‘influence’ – at the moment my followed is far more than my followers because half of my ‘followed’ don’t have Facebook accounts leave alone Google +, (my gmail account’s always been for private stuff rather than work related). Although I do have a Google profile for my Claire at Waves PR email address which is used to access analytics. I can’t link the two accounts. This will need resolving. My to do list just got longer. It feels like a huge invasion of privacy, but I’m simultaneously compelled to dive in. I may follow Mr Zuckerberg and the Google execs into privacy mode! ((Oops reverse that – they just went back into public again.)
So whilst I’m wishing that perhaps I’d not wished so hard for a Google + account, the big story that’s been raging, of course, is the News of the World telephone tapping debacle. UK print media needed this like a hole in the head! I, like most people, am absolutely appalled that someone can not only tap into a dead girls phone but delete messages that could have helped bring someone to justice sooner. The person concerned lacked any kind of morality and was quite rightly put behind bars.
But before we get hot under the collar about tapping, we should probably get hot under the collar about ethics.
There’s so much being said about the Hargreaves Report that I scarcely need to repeat it here, but if you’d like to read the original, here’s the link: http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ipreview.htm
There’s lots of online comment, most of it positive. But, as with all things, there will be winners and losers. For me, one of the most interesting things that’s being discussed is digital rights direct payments. Thinking this through, this could have an additional impact on micropayments for journalism if implemented – as well as those artists – including photographers – who currently use third parties (like istock) to sell on their wares if they want payment.
This could absolutely change the face of paid journalism and create an egalitarian market where good quality work is sought after and rewarded. It will be interesting to see where this pans out. If I was Twitter, one of the content distributors but still looking for a revenue model, I might be keeping a very close eye on this potential lifeline.
I can see it now: the conversation between client and PR consultancy. Facebook has been getting a good public kicking over privacy. And others are getting away with it. And they want some help turning the tide of public opinion. (From the queues at its stand at Internet World, it’s not affecting even savvy users’ clamour to know more about this Internet success.)
So the first, and most simple. rule of good PR is: if you don’t like what people are saying, put your house in order. And in fairness, Facebook has been trying to do just that. It’s just not getting heard terribly well. (Possibly because as a company it doesn’t seem terribly ‘social’, at least with my UK eyes? Whilst Google’s teams are out and advocating, getting hold of someone to speak on Facebook is a lot harder and a lot less friendly. I digress.)
Now Facebook is a GIFT of a client. It’s a name everyone’s heard of. It’s even had a film made about it. As a PR person, people *want* to talk to you rather than get you off the phone. Having put your remedy package together, it’s easy enough to brief the changes out. Imagine the headlines if Faceboook said sorry, for example! Overnight heroes.
media | claireatwaves | 
July 14, 2011 2:48 pm | 
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