Ubiquitous Marketing

Ubiquitous Marketing is the personal weblog of Keith O’Brien, editor-in-chief of PRWeek. All opinions and work represent that of Keith O’Brien and not of his employer. Topics covered include marketing, PR, advertising, journalism, culture (both mainstream and alternative), and their inevitable confluence.

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Entries from May 2008

Wither (redux) YouTube(s)

June 26th, 2006 · No Comments

There are, according to Om Malik, 173 YouTube-like companies out there (via UGC)
That is one difficult business prop to handle. I would love to hear from any communicator that is handling PR for any of these firms. I have one single question: What is your business prop?
I don’t know if starting anything with "It’s like [...]

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Tags: New comms tools

Digg on

June 26th, 2006 · 1 Comment

Some interesting news aggregation news - Digg is expanding its purview to science, world and
business, videos, entertainment, and gaming. On Digg.com, users can
vote stories onto the front page. Normally I enjoy playing the skeptic, but I feel like the user fervor will translate over to any number of new categories. After all, tech nerds do [...]

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Tags: Product debuts · Technology · Weblogs

Wither YouTube?

June 26th, 2006 · 1 Comment

It’s not lost on anyone with a) even the briefest remembrance of Napster 1.0, b) a basic understanding of copyright law, and c) the vaguest inkling about the financial challenges for the content industry that YouTube.com does not have a clear future ahead of it.
Like MySpace, YouTube needs to balance serious security issues while [...]

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Tags: New comms tools · Television · Weblogs

SecondLife continues to astound

June 25th, 2006 · No Comments

I’ve finally check out SecondLife and it certainly is interesting. Especially interesting is the news that American Apparel has set up a store in the virtual world (I could not find it; I am suspended somewhere on the island without a home or a clue. I may have begun begging).
I didn’t get on in time [...]

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Tags: Web 2.0

Why Mariotti is part of the story

June 23rd, 2006 · 3 Comments

If you’re in the business of dispensing opinions, you are very likely to encounter the need to do four particular things a) dispense opinions, b) dispense them often, c) dispense them strongly, and d) backtrack when those opinions are clearly misguided. The true stars of this field are forthcoming when pursuing d.
Anyone who follows [...]

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Tags: Media · Sports

Customer disservice

June 21st, 2006 · 1 Comment

This isn’t news: AOL gets rapped for bad customer service.
I repeat: all the blogging and PR in the world cannot mask bad customer service.
I would argue that sorting that mess is more important than any Netscape/Weblogs, Inc. initiative.
Fair play update: I love the fact that Netscape.com conducted an interview with the guy [...]

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Tags: Customer Service

Show your Moz on your Mog

June 21st, 2006 · 1 Comment

I’ve just started getting some things up on my new TagWorld page (what can I say, Paula Gould gives a compelling interview), when I find out about Mog via a friend. David Hyman, who was the creator of Gracenote (which supplied the irreplaceable CDDB that works with your media player to identify tracks), started up [...]

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Tags: Marketing tools · Music · New comms tools · Product debuts

The mass stays put

June 21st, 2006 · 1 Comment

This WaPo article, highlighted by Steve Rubel, will likely make all the rounds tomorrow.
It’s a nice temp. gauge of the business that so much of us depends on: dissemination and consumption of information (surely the literal number of humans affected by that trade would probably obliterate our most gaudy projections).
With all due respect [...]

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Tags: Media

The name of this post is PRWeek podcasts

June 20th, 2006 · 1 Comment

PRWeek has launched podcasts. In addition to Q&As and PRWeek editorial staff reading their columns (including the very popular Hamilton Nolan-helmed PR Play of the Week, we’re doing a weekly review where EIC Julia Hood and I sum up our coverage for the issue hitting the streets (as it were) on Monday.
Podcasts are available here.
Now, [...]

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Tags: Ubiquitous · Web 2.0

I’m guessing frags are unlikely in this embedded job

June 20th, 2006 · 2 Comments

This is perhaps the first use of new media I’ve seen that has caused me to feel complete ambivalence.
From WaPo:
Armed with a laptop and an all-access tour pass, Semitsu, 32, is
spending his summer on the road with Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and
Emily Robison, documenting All Things Dixie Chick. He is one of the
music industry’s [...]

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Tags: Music · Weblogs