RIP

i-level

1999 - 2010

RIP

Neil Shah
2005 - 2008

RIP

Gen Citro
2007 - 2008

RIP

Zahina Uddin
2005 - 2008

RIP

Malcolm Murdoch
2003 - 2008

RIP

Timothy Pemberton
2005 - 2007

Social Media Going a Little Too Far?

Interesting development - social networking for people with disabilities.

It's something that makes lots of sense but seems a little specialised. I think ning have got the right idea where epople can create their own social networking sites around their own specific ideas (see Faris' Plannersphere). This allows Ning to then go out and sell these specialised demographics. Disaboom will find it easy to get some niche advertisers on board but I think they will struggle to get more than that.

We'll see what happens over time!

Very Bad PR

Sheer genius: from the web to Homer Simpson | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

Some person or organisation has compiled a list of 100 genius. Their PR people obviously didn't buy Rachel Williams a very nice lunch as they don't get their company mentioned at all.

Bad points for whoever paid for that! Six consultants don't come cheap!

Amazing PR from the AA

Oil hits new high | | Guardian Unlimited Business

The article is about the fact that oil prices are approaching record highs. Towards the end of an article all about the economic reasons for high oil prices, we cut into an AA spokesperson talking about the possilbe oil hikes:

Paul Watters at the AA said that this week could see a new all-time high for petrol prices. At the moment competition between supermarkets is helping to hold back price rises, but this is unlikely to last.

What's Paul Watters got to do with anything? I suspect Ms Balakrishnan had a very nice lunch from someone from the AA's PR team. The article did not need to quote anyone at all to link high oil prices with possible high petrol prices. It's not like Paul Watters was quoted saying anything insightful.

Maybe he did have a full briefing session that included some very insightful thoughts about why high oil prices lead to high petrol prices. I doubt that they would need a quote from someone to inform people that high potato prices would lead to high chip prices.

Trust in the media

Interesting BBC/Reuters poll I came across showing the public's trust in the media vs. the government in different countries.

Trust in media was highest in Nigeria - 88% vs 34% for the government.

Notably, trust in the government was highest in the USA - 67% vs 59% for the media. Perhaps not so surprising though when their media consists of things like this.