01/24

But, if a newly released study is accurate, it is too late.  They are trying to hold back the sea in a hurricane, and they will be drowned. According to Websense Inc., file swapping networks increased by 300 percent in the last 12 months, and there are more than 130 peer-to-peer swapping programs available online.  In addition, peer-to-peer file swapping has moved into TV shows, video games and software.  The Yankee Group estimated that 5 billion music files were downloaded from peer-to-peer networks and 5 million video games in 2002.  The growth of broadband only exacerbates swapping because it is easy to transfer hundreds of megabytes in minutes rather than hours. 

Yet the RIAA and MPAA feverishly pile sandbags in their effort to hold back file swappers.  They have yet to understand they cannot win and their dikes will fail as fast as they erect them.  A writer in Wired Magazine has predicted the end of the music industry as we know it either this year or next because no one is buying CDs. They are purchasing blank CD-ROMs to burn their own music mixes using songs they have swapped with others.

From a PR perspective, it makes little sense to descry file-swapping behavior as illegal.  It is wrong, but millions are doing it and are not about to stop.  It is analogous to Prohibition when drinking of alcohol was outlawed, but drinking never ceased. 

The best the RIAA and MPAA can do from a PR point of view is to accept they have lost the battle and to accommodate to reality.  But they aren't there yet. 

Millions are wondering how long it will take for them to wake up.   
 

01/23

I favor self-regulation, but this strikes me as foxes guarding henhouses.  The group, called the NAI Email Service Coalition,  formed because there is a move afoot in Congress to ban spam, and permission-based e-mailers want exemptions. 

Regrettably, self-regulation works best when there is a hammer over the heads of those regulated.  It is "regulate yourself or we'll do it for you."  When there is fear, competitors will coalesce to guard against misbehavior.

This is why I think this coalition is doomed unless a law passes Congress, and the group is part of the law.  That will provide teeth.  In addition, spam will continue whether or not there is regulation in the U.S.  Anyone who has been bombarded with solicitation letters from Nigerian scamsters knows spam comes from everywhere.  Illegal spammers will move offshore to a more hospitable environment, just as Internet gambling companies moved to the Caribbean to escape state laws in the U.S.

Spam wastes Internet resources and millions of people's time daily.  It should be outlawed and there should be stiff penalties for doing it.  PR practitioners who spam reporters are no better than purveyors of Viagra or hot porno sites. 

Join the fight against spam by knowing who you e-mail and make sure what you send is appropriate for the reporter who gets it.
 

01/22

While this is clever, it is not new.  French university students used the Minitel system in the 1980s to organize country-wide strikes against the government.  Minitel, for those of you not old enough to remember, was a precursor to the Internet that took root in France and showed the world how quickly networking could change society.  It was built and run by the French phone system and despite valiant attempts to export the technology, it never took off elsewhere.

The size of the protests this past weekend are in dispute, but there is no argument that the speed of organization was unprecedented for the U.S.  That could not have happened without the Web.  Among features the magazine described is the ability to type "anti-war" into Google and get a list of websites instantly.  

Wired cited the United for Peace website as a clearing house that stored "news, contacts, background information, fliers, printable posters, contacts for scores of local activist groups and comprehensive travel arrangements to the protests from 300 different U.S. cities."

PR practitioners should study the organization of the protests because it increases our jobs and risk.  Let's say someone organized a demonstration against your company for a product you make.  You could have pickets suddenly outside of every factory in the U.S. or even globally.  How would you handle that?  Would you be prepared to defend yourself in the media in 10 or 12 or 15 separate locations from Detroit to Sri Lanka?

The protest against a possible war is an issue that is larger than most companies might confront, but even smaller demonstrations can embarrass a company trying to maintain its reputation. 

Get ready.
 

01/21

It is typical of all things computer that the card I installed came in a BIG box from Dell that was 90 percent foam padding, two manuals, a CD-ROM and an itty-bitty cable made by the mini-micro manufacturing company. The Dell instruction book said to install the antenna cable (the teensy-weensy thing I could barely see) onto the back of the tiny card.  Since my eyes are going, I borrowed a magnifying glass from my daughter to view the connection.  The glass was barely strong enough to see the point where I was to squeeze the cable lead onto the contact.  It took about eight tries before it anchored. 

The instructions then said to open the back of the Dell Latitude laptop and to drop the card into place using a 45-degree angle, then pushing it down gently until it snapped into place.   Well and good.  I popped the back and sure enough, there were two antenna leads taped into the well where the card was supposed to go.  They didn't show in the instructions, so I pulled them aside and popped the card into place.  No problem.

The instructions said to attach the other end of the cable to the cable pin on the computer body.  Problem.  I inspected every inch of the computer body and there was no pin.  I looked for about 10 minutes then went back to the instructions to read again what I was supposed to do.  It was then I noticed I was reading the WRONG DAMN INSTRUCTIONS!  The instructions I was supposed to follow started a page later and I was supposed to connect the two micro antenna leads I had pushed out of the way to the card that I had just pushed into place.  Grrrrrrr. 

I got them in after a few tries and a cable or two that popped back out then put the back on the machine.  I put the CD-ROM into the computer, cranked it up and found instructions for working with Microsoft OS 2000.  Of course, this is a Microsoft OS XP machine.  But there was no alternative, so I punched the 2000 button and started an install.  I stopped quickly because it made no sense.  So, I went to the client manager button on the CD-ROM and checked that to find out what it meant.  Sure enough, after clicking the button I found instructions for installing the XP client manager.  Everything went smoothly after that. 

It felt good to carry the laptop to my wife and have her dial a web page while she sat there about 50 feet from the Linksys router.

Free at last.
 

01/20

The problem is that all the e-mail is going through Internet servers owned and operated by Saddam Hussein, and the e-mail is monitored in real time.  Any guesses on how many messages are being delivered?

Apparently, the military told CNN that it is the first time that its psychological operations  branch is trying this approach.  Usually they employ leaflet drops, AM/FM radio, TV, military communications bands and loudspeakers on aircraft. 

Psychological operations are a form of public relations in that they try to persuade target audiences to perform a specific action -- e.g., surrender.   However, psyops are not above using devious means to make point.  That means lying, if they can get away with it.   Some PR practitioners are like that.  Their regard for fact is far less than their desire to win.  And, if winning in the short term means twisting the truth, then let it be.  Christopher Buckley satirized this mentality in his hugely funny novel, "Thank You for Smoking," which burned the tobacco industry.

However, there is no greater unintended satire than campaign tactics used now to smear opponents.  It is clear that issues mean nothing in most elections.  It is whether one can tar another enough that the other loses votes.   This has always been the case in American politics -- well, at least since George Washington --, but it is disturbing to see that it still works in a time of pervasive media. 

Campaign managers use PR and advertising as psyops against the American public.  Sad, isn't it?