New Communications Blogzine is a bi-monthly online publication is dedicated to exploring new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, (including blogs, wikis, RSS, podcasts, search marketing, etc.), the growing phenomena of participatory communications and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, politics and society at large.

Signs of change are everywhere, and not just from a small group of rogue bloggers, as some would suggest. From radio broadcasting behemoth Infinity launching an all-podcast station, to senior editors from E.W. Scripps suggesting that AP be replaced by a creative commons model, to the continuous rise of online advertising revenue, new research indicating that businesses are incoporating blogging into their marketing in large numbers and BusinessWeek's recent feature, "Blogs Will Change Your Business," we are seeing powerful examples that new communications tools, technologies and models are being successfully developed, launched and advocated by traditional media and big business alike.

It's an exciting time, and these changes are not to be ignored. This issue of NewComm Blogzine will provide you with the latest news and tips to help you stay on top of the trends. We feature news from Yahoo, Factiva/Newsgator, Microsoft, Infinity Broadcasting, FastClick and Google; as well as a recap from Anita Campbell of a recent study conducted by HP indicating that many small business are beginning to use blogs as marketing tools. We offer you tips on how to make your podcasts sound more professional, from our new contributor Glenn Emerson Morris and we take a look at the future of advertising, marketing and public relations, communications law and much more. 

We hope you enjoy this issue of New Communications Blogzine; and invite you to forward it to your friends and colleagues, and request that you add us to your blogroll and/or syndicate us.

We hope you'll participate by commenting on any of the articles, and engaging in discussions with other media and communications professionals. (If you are interested in commenting on any of these articles, just click on the link and add a comment.)

If you are interested in writing for or advertising in this publication, please contact us by emailing me at jenmcclure@gmail.comor call (650) 331-0083.

Best wishes and thanks for your time and participation in this exploration of the world of new communications.

Jennifer McClure Managing Editor New Communications Blogzine

By Anita Campbell
Posted on the Small Business Trends blog, May 2, 2005

Ten percent of small business owners in a recent study reported that they have included blogs in their marketing plans. And 16% plan to invest in blogs over the next two-to-three years.

This is from a study of small business owners that HP announced last week. The study was conducted by Harris Interactive in March of 2005, and was part of HP's activities during national Small Business Week. I was pleased to participate in discussions about the Harris/HP study results.

The HP study covered a wide variety of topics. It's an interesting study on a number of fronts, and I will be writing more about it. But right now I want to focus on the information about small business blogs.

Of course, no actual count of business blogs today exists. But the number in the HP survey, suggesting how many business owners' marketing plans and future plans include blogs, is quite interesting, especially when you compare the numbers with those whose plans include websites. When you consider that not quite half of the small businesses surveyed do not even have websites, the fact that 10% are including plans for blogs is pretty remarkable.

By Glen Emerson Morris

Making a podcast sound professional is essential to its effectiveness as a sales generator. While most podcasts are amateur productions, and sound like it, your company's podcasts need to sound as professional as national radio spots. Your company's image is on the line, and it's hard to get consumer's dollars if you don't get their confidence first.

Podcast production goes well beyond commercial production. A podcast is an entire program, and as such, it has, or should have, the additional elements of an opening and closing theme, an announcer, a program host, an ID and, if needed, a musical score and sound effects. Once, the hardware required for this alone would have cost a small fortune, but these days two or three thousand dollars can buy a high quality computer-based multi-track recording system. The rest is not hard to get.

By Jennifer McClure

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, stated that "a blog is much better at tearing things down - people, careers, brands - than it is at building them up." When asked about the 'the blog revolution,' Denton responded: "Give me a break. The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe there's going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed."

At the risk of sounding a bit too Pollyanna-ish in the face of Denton's cynicism about the promise of blogging and other new communications vehicles, I must respond, "Nick, give me a break."

By Glen Emerson Morris

The biggest problem with the end of mass media is that there is nothing readily available for advertisers to replace it with. Direct mail has taken up some of the slack, as have a few other approaches, but they can't replace the attention mass media got with the public, for one key reason. The creative talent that attracted a mass audience is missing.

For over seven decades, radio and TV acted as middlemen between advertisers and a talent pool of gifted pop musicians, film actors, directors and other creative talent. With radio and TV rapidly becoming obsolete, it's up the advertisers to start developing a direct relationship with talent in a variety of media. After all, that was the way it was before mass media.

By Tom Foremski
SiliconValleyWatcher.com

Much of the debate about the "blogger journalist," or more simply put, the online journalist, is because the online publishing business model is growing ever stronger, while the established media business models in print, radio and television are in trouble.

And while the transition will be painful for many of those that choose to stay with print or established media, it will be less so for those that jump to the blogger/online platform.

This transition to online publishing should benefit society overall, because each time the cost of publishing has dropped, it has helped to accelerate changes in society. The Gutenberg press certainly helped Martin Luther, and cheap production of pamphlets helped in the American and French Revolutions, and cheap newsprint helped in the Russian revolution as well.

I'm not saying we will have such as drastic change in society because of blogging. But using the new media technologies that are represented by blogging, RSS, etc., will undoubtedly lead to a more vibrant "mediasphere" that will trade in a broad currency of ideas, rather than requiring a lot of currency to broadcast ideas.

By Errol Smith

If you have not yet heard of podcasting, you will very soon. It's popping up all over the place. The buzz is that conventional radio has a new competitor, a form of on-demand Internet radio called podcasting. Wired magazine is calling it the end of conventional radio as we know it, while to others it's just a passing fad with little commercial significance.

But we see it as a very powerful new guerrilla marketing weapon that every guerrilla marketer needs to learn about fast -- as in yesterday.

By Elizabeth L. Fletcher

When Michael Kremer felt he received a bad hair restoration job from the Bosley Medical Institute, he sued the facility and its founder, Dr. Larry Lee Bosley, for malpractice. But when the case was thrown out of court because he couldn't find a doctor to testify against Dr. Larry, Kremer eventually turned to the Internet as a form of self-help. He purchased the www.bosleymedical.com domain name, constructed a Web site and posted investigative findings from various agencies and news organizations critical of the California-based group.

Kremer is not the first to create a so-called "gripe site" (also known as a Sucks.com site). Gripe sites tend to be created by disgruntled laypersons who experienced some sort of past bad dealing with the target company. The site's content, which outlines complaints and other negative information about the target, is not authorized by the company yet the URL for the site usually contains the company's trademarked name. Companies such as Equifax (www.EquifaxEatsPoop.com), Ford (www.FordReallySucks.com), Delta Airlines (www.BoycottDelta.com), American Express (www.AmexSux.com), Capital One (www.Cap1Sucks.com), PayPal (www.PayPalSucks.com), and Northwest Air (www.NorthWorstAir.org) have all been the subject of these unwelcomed Web efforts.

By Thomas Murrell, MBA

Editor's Note: The following article was posted as a comment by one of our readers, Thomas Murrell, in response to an article in the last issue of NewComm Blogzine. We liked it so much, we decided to feature it in this issue. Tom is a strategic communications professional from Australia and we are delighted to welcome him as a new contributor.

Too many CEOs, mid-level managers and executives seem to believe that corporate communications is all about schmoozing with people at a networking function. Nothing could be further from the truth. PR, media relations or strategic communications is an essential management function critical to the success of any organization.

Successfully implemented, strategic communications activities can add thousands of dollars in value to an organization for minimal cost.

My definition of PR is "the development, nurturing and strengthening of relationships with stakeholders that add value to an organization and help it achieve its organizational goals." That value can be measured by shareholder value, human capital, customer service, market share or brand awareness.

New Communications Blogzine is a proud media sponsor of OMMA WEST
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Just to prove that we understand that everything old is new again ...

"With the growth and extension of the press... there is hardly a European engaged in the work process who could not, in principle, find an opportunity to publish somewhere or other an account of a work experience, a complaint, a report, or something of the kind. Thus, the distinction between author and public is about to lose its axiomatic character. The difference becomes functional; it may vary from case to case. At any moment, the reader is ready to become a writer."

- Walter Benjamin, from "The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility," published in 1936.