And finally...

Having blogged for the past few weeks, I think I have a far better understanding about how blogging can be of benefit in PR. I was amazed at the number and diverse opinions in blogs which cover so many different subjects.

There is an infinite amount of space and an infinite amount of information on the Internet and it is difficult to comprehend how to best use it. In the future different PR campaigns, though, will have to use different PR 2.0 tools and target audiences with key messages in many different ways.

Everything is also changing so quickly with new products and ideas thrown up almost every day. This means that PRs will need to be ready to match these changes and adapt to new ways of working. Some things, though, never change. This week's data found on hard drives is depressingly familiar to the old newspaper stories about personal information being dumped in landfills or discovered on waste ground. There is now so much information so easily available that it seems it will ever harder to keep it secure.

I am frequently amazed at the personal information, including pictures, phones numbers, details about friends, etc that people willing give over on social networking sites. No one can control the amount of data out there and that is what, in many ways, defines the Internet.

Even this very limited experience of blogging has shown me the way blogging makes people confront such issues. This may be my last post here but I don't think it will be long before I reappear blogging somewhere else.

Wired up to YouTube

YouTube has become such a part of our every day life that even the prime minister now thinks it is one of the best ways to deliver messages to his key audiences.




Although on reflection he will probably wish he hadn't made that one.

YouTube is an incredible resource hosting millions of videos from all corners of the globe. It also offers a space for anyone to store or share videos with their friends. There are also free tools on the Internet so that anyone, even a simple PR student can make up a video and post on YouTube or in a blog. Here is one I made earlier...It is not meant to be taken too seriously.

Evening all

Having worked for the police, I was pleased to see a police officer winning the Orwell prize for his anonymous blog, NightJack. All too often police are in the news for the wrong reasons and police officers are more angry than anyone about the behviour of the tiny minority of officers who fail to keep up the very high standards we so rightly expect of them.

Police officers are not known for their great communication skills, so it is good to read in the blog what life is really like on the beat. This is the best PR the police can have...from the horse's mouth.

This also shows how Web 2.0 tools can empower ordinary men or women to speak to the majority. More power to this PC's PC.

Is anyone there?

Picture from http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1076973

Blogging seems to me a solitary sport, unless of course there is someone really out there commenting on what I am writing. This led to me thinking that I might just be completely wasting my time blogging. So do blogs have any use as a public relations tool? In search of an answer I stumbled upon Michael L. Kent's article in the Public Relations Review: Critical analysis of blogging in public relations. Even this learned academic appears to have no answer to my question, concluding that "...many professionals are suggesting that blogs have tremendous potential as tools for online communication and reaching diverse publics. They do. Interestingly, however, scholars have been saying the same thing about the Internet for almost 10 year and most organizations have not yet figured out how to use their Web sites well except to sell things. Ultimately I believe that the jury is still out on blogging."

So what really is the answer? Am I just talking to myself? Should I just stick to speaking to myself in front of the mirror? Perhaps blogging is just the green ink brigade finding a new arena in cyberspace? So is there a real point to blogging? I think that there is only a point if someone is out there. Is anyone listening?