The Journal Offers a Hand Up to Startups

The Wall Street Journal offers to small business startups a very helpful online site -- StartupJournal -- where entrepreneurs can drill down for good tips, podcasts and other useful information.

Businesses interesting in podcasting should pay attention to the podcasts on this site. They are short, six minutes or so, clearly presented, and full of how-to information. The StartupJournal also offers a discussion section where business owners can talk about their hits and misses.

The price is right -- FREE.

Long Live the News Release (Software)

If you think the last post was way too cheerleaderish about this web hype, check out the recent announcement by Edelman, the huge worldwide PR firm.

Edelman, recognizing that companies now need to get out there to the blogs, YouTubes, MySpaces and Facebooks of the world, has put together some software to help PR types create "social media news releases."

A social media news release is written differently and presented differently for today's fragmented, multitasking audience that can't deal with the old puff stuff.

Here is the announcement about the fill-in-the-blanks software, and here is another PR firm's examples of social media news releases.

COMMERCIAL TIME
News releases in the web world will be part of our January 10 seminar in Philadelphia, which is explained in the column to the right of this post.

Remember 8-Tracks, Slides Rules and Press Releases?

Is the old fashioned press release on its last legs in this Web New World?

Not yet, but Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, a corporate blogging star, calls press releases "anachronistic," especially as a vehicle for disclosing important corporate announcements,

For months now, Schwartz has been bugging the SEC to recognize Web sites and blogs as the legitimate means for disseminating important corporate information. Web sites and blogs, he says, should satisfy the SEC's tough "Regulation FD" rules for releasing data.

Schwartz made his case in a letter to SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, which is here.

Cox has responded with a positive letter that seems to agree with Schwartz without proclaiming web sites and blogs as sufficient vehicles to satisfy regulation FD. See the letter here.

Worth watching.

Adland is Getting "Crowded"

Who in your company comes up with advertising, promotion or PR ideas? No one, you say, because you outsource it to an ad agency or PR firm?

Well, how would you feel about letting your customer public create your outreach to the public? It's a variation of what is called "crowdsourcing," whereby web users of all kinds contribute to a product.

If you think it sounds goofy, take a look at the National Football League's latest innovation at this site. (Aside: don't you wish Microsoft was half as innovative as the NFL?)

Letting customers pitch their television ad ideas is a major shift in corporate thinking, but the internet has demanded it. Now companies such as Dove, Southwest Arlines and others are doing the same thing.

It's cheap. The NFL ad winner will get a free trip to the Super Bowl. Chicken feed compared to ad agency concept fees.

This idea may be coming your way, whether you like it or not.

Big Red Gets The Video Download Thing

Companies toying with the notion of creating video podcasts (vodcasts) should be checking the quality and positioning of videos created by other organizations. An example of a very clean and appealing collection of vodcasts is one that popped up on our radar screen recently.

Cornell University gets it. Its page of video offerings is easily taken in and within a second the user is deciding what video to download or watch on the tube. The variety is interesting -- a poet reading her works, talks on exciting Alzheimer's discoveries, an explanation of rising tuition costs, a violin solo and an "All About Birds" video gallery are but a few of those listed.

Yes, it is an educational institution with some enlightening topics to explore. But if you can't think of an interesting way to present your products or services, well, then give us a yell.

Take it Off. Take it All Off.

Business executives who dismiss Web 2.0 -- blogs, podcasts, online video, etc. -- as all hype are absolutely correct. The web is much about hype these days.

But hype can be incredibly helpful to a company looking to gets its name or products out there.

Media outlets are full today of news about unboxing.com and a few similar sites that are attracting a growing audience and gobs of advertising. The "unboxing" sites even made the front page of today's Wall Street Journal

What do unboxing sites do? Simply provide lots of videos of people unboxing products, iPods, HDTVs, bean bags, phones.

Who could have predicted such a site a year ago? Who knows how long it will last as a popular site? No one, of course, but that's not the point.

The point is this: creative, even wacky sites that may be able to promote your services will be coming online with increasing frequency. The question is this: Is your company ninble enough to make use of them?

KITOWS

Can you sum up your company in one word? Probably not. And, you might add, there's no reason to do so.

But there is a bit of a marketing moment going on now that can be summed up in one acronym -- KITOWS.

Keep It To One Word, Stupid.

While this movement is inspired by the young internet generation (think iTunes, iPods,IMs, Borat, Britney, etc.), it is best articulated in a masterful article by the advertising master himself, Maurice Saatchi,whose first name is superfluous in the ad world.

Saatchi's piece, found here, is all about what he calls "one word equity."

Check this out and be more aware, as you monitor the marketing/PR world, how brevity has become the soul of marketing. "Just Do It!," evolved into "Do It!" and then fell victim to a lonely swoosh.

What are you selling? And, assuming that only one word could be connected with your company, what's your word?