Advertising Research: Harris Interactive

Harris Interactive, a full-service market research firm with more than 40 years' experience, provided a free webinar on Apr. 26 that treated participants to the future of integrated media, especially as it applies to mobile advertising (cellular phones).Led by Judith Ricker, (president, marketing communications research) and Joseph Porus (chief architect, technology research practice), the webinar presented preliminary...

Making Improvements: BlogCatalog

There are dozens of blog directories on the Internet; too many according to some. But with its recent format change, BlogCatalog stands out.Like many directories, BlogCatalog's purpose it to list and categorize blogs available on the Internet. Originally, it was mostly a search engine and directory categorized by topic folders, countries, and languages. In fact, I had almost forgotten all about it until I noticed a few...

Addressing Ethics: Virginia Tech

One of the prevailing themes that continues to be discussed in the media, recently on PBS News Hour Extra, is NBC's decision to air the the Virginia Tech killer's so-called manifesto. NBC didn't have to, as I pointed out last Thursday and again on Monday. However, that is not to say I don't appreciate the decisions that networks face.When I teach public relations practitioners about media ethics from the perspective...

Selecting Stories: Content Editors

Story selection is never easy. Yesterday, there were dozens of news releases (on the wire and in our e-mail) and hundreds of stories in the news about companies working to raise funds for nonprofit organizations and worthwhile causes. From this ocean of news, we settle on a single story every work day on our other blog. I thought it might be worthwhile to share why we selected yesterday's story at the National Business...

Kidnapping Posts: Story Indeed

Someone thinks they have a good thing going. The blog they are working on mirrors a questionable trend in social media that I've seen before. All seven of the associates listed on the somewhat unconstructed Story Indeed site seem to be joining the ranks of republishing blog posts without citing the sources. (My apologies if the links no longer exist after this.)Sure, they all have their own blogs and some look pretty good. At a glance, I might even be flattered that they decided to rerun some of my posts, if not for fact that...

Solving Mysteries: Rosie O'Donnell

When I participated on the The Recruiting Animal Show, I ended by saying that "If you live only by publicity, you will likely die by publicity." Recruiting Animal called this statement a mystery. Today, Rosie O'Donnell solves it.She is leaving ABC's "The View" when her contract expires at the end of this season. She made the announcement at the top of today's program. Sure, she said she will be back as a guest and Babara...