Review: The New Rules of Marketing & PR

The media world has been turned upside-down by the Internet. You don't need a journalist to tell you that -- if you're over the age of 30 all you need to do is compare your media habits circa 1994 to your media habits right now. Chances are you're spending many hours every week consuming news and information from websites, and far less time getting information from words printed on paper.

This shift has affected consumers as well as media companies. At Computerworld, we've been racing to retool and expand the Computerworld.com website to match the changing needs of our readers. I've been involved in developing many online initiatives, including IT Blogwatch, podcasts, webcasts, Shark Bait, and Tech Dispenser. However, it's sometimes difficult to explain these services to readers, friends, and other journalists who don't keep up with the rapidly evolving online media industry. There are so many new concepts and models that are being introduced, not to mention IT-specific and Computerworld-specific issues. For instance, how can you describe in 200 words or less how Shark Bait works, much less the appeal of the Back In The Day section?

I am not going to answer these questions here, but I would like to point readers to a resource which I think does a great job of explaining many new facets of the expanding Web media universe. It's a book by David Meerman Scott called "The New Rules of Marketing & PR." Don't be fooled by the title -- while the book does devote many pages to the ways in which marketing and public relations campaigns can be optimized for the Web, it also explains how various services and technologies work and, more importantly, how people are using them to get the information that they need.

Scott's language is clear, and he gives excellent, thought-provoking examples to support his case. For instance, he puts his finger on two key reasons why Amazon is such a success. Many people assume it's because the site has been around for a long time, or because it has a huge selection of products, but there's more to it than that. Scott points out that it is great for users in that it's optimized for both search and browsing, through devices such as user ratings. That got me thinking -- browsability is an issue that many website owners don't consider, but is a hallmark of some of the biggest media success stories of the past few years. What would Digg be without ratings on both the submissions and comments? How would sites like the New York Times on the Web fare if it didn't have boxes showing the most emailed or most popular articles? Many readers use such features to browse through the layers of headlines to get right to the content that peers have found most valuable. Scott's observation about browsability is a simple one, yet it is vital to understanding how the Web works and how sites can use it to succeed.

There is only one area of The New Rules of Marketing & PR that I took issue with. It's the chapter that talks about the benefits of podcasting. To be sure, there are some benefits to podcasts, especially for consumers -- it translates to free, portable, high-quality audio programming in practically every genre and topic you can think of. But I disagree with Scott's suggestion that podcasts are an effective way for businesses or media outlets to reach customers/consumers -- at least right now. Speaking from the point of view of someone who has been involved in audio production since the late 1980s, and has created and produced podcasts for Computerworld since 2005, I have to say that a number of factors will continue to hold back podcasting as an effective mass medium for the next several years, including:

• Confusion over copyrights
• A lack of reliable, easy-to-use advertising schemes
• A relatively complicated subscription/playback interface, when compared with radio
• Low audience levels
• Labor-intensive production requirements

But podcasting is still in its toddlerhood. Some new technology, UI, or funding scheme may come on the scene and make podcasting a more viable Internet medium. That's one of the exciting things about working in the Web media world -- one really doesn't know what new platform or technology or software tool may next come down the pike, and transform the ways in which we produce and consume media.


Disclosure: I personally know David Meerman Scott. I first met him at a presentation I gave to the Social Media Club (Boston Chapter) earlier this year. It was the toughest presentation I've ever made -- the group of PR professionals, including David, was frustrated with my answers to a question about the role of journalists in blogging conversations. Still, we were able to develop a positive dialogue later, and he also interviewed me for his column in EContent magazine about two months ago.