The trouble is that there are too many journalists for the (reducing) number of jobs available.

As the numbers  of newspapers shrink and the numbers of journalists working in newspapers reduces and as the future prospects get ever more dire for the news media, journalism does not need a worsening reputation.

For a lot of journalists, there always used to be a safe haven in the PR industry.

No more.

How good are journalists at accepting a client Twitter brief? How long will they be happy buried in a Facebook page? How happy will a journalist be creating QR code and augmented reality brand campaign?

Are journalists qualified for such activity? Are they even welcome in the industry. According to PR Week – not a lot!

So it will be worth watching the reputation of journalism for a while with tools like Trendistic’s.

There is no excuse for the News of the World hacking scandal but it is a symptom of much bigger things going on in the media.

Progressively, the attention of the world has moved away from printed newspapers to online news. More of our news and information is mediated by friends on Facebook, Twitter trending and the depth of coverage on YouTube and blogs.

Right at the heart of this change is Google.

If you missed the news, want deeper insights or are just browsing, search engines keep you a few keystrokes from all you desire.

Newspaper and magazines cannot keep up. They offer comparatively little by way of need satisfaction, prurient or otherwise.  They need a constant supply of very newsy or very profound content to maintain the attention they loved and profited from only a decade ago.

It is not a surprise then, to fine some newspaper taking short cuts.

But the real lesson we all have to learn is that this is a symptom of massive change in the media and the media reading habits of most people.

The big shocks to the system can be seen on every street in the land. Look round and we see people using mobile smart phones, iPads and slates and Kindles just as once they read newspapers, magazines and book.

But these devices are not a substitute medium. They are a window into the whole world as we know it and much more.

Newscorp would like us all to believe that TV is immune and it is the future of news.  Well, why limit the news source to Sky or Fox when all of YouTube is available? On YouTube, real and ordinary people report from the front line and a global perspective is common.

In PR (and marketing and advertising and recruitment and finance – the list is endless), we have to recognise the end of mass and the evolution of diverse channels for influence and opinion in everything we do.

Sorry Rebekah. You are a victim as well.

Wired magazine has added to the interest with a remix of Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android,” crowdsourced from YouTube videos of people playing the song — 36 of them to be exact.

“What’s amazing,” says Wired’s  Angela Watercutter, “ isn’t that someone attempted to create this; it’s that it actually sounds pretty stellar.”

She goes on to says “It’s also impressive to see the diversity of people playing the track. The musicians hail from everywhere from Australia to Italy to the United States.”.

As with music so too with news content.  In the new book I am writing with Philip Young (as well as the 3rd edition of Online Public Relations) ,we have been looking at how much of the news we receive is crowd sourced.

From the initial content announced on Twitter through the structured press release output and thence to a myriad interpretations across media as diverse as Facebook and the Financial Times, there are a lot of potential hiccoughs on the way.  Like the mashed-up version of Paranoid Android, there will be a lot of contributors before during and after the embargo hour.

Astonishingly, most coverage arrives on our mobiles, iPads, laptops or newspapers actually “pretty stellar”.

That is not to say you should believe everything you read on Twitter … but the same may also be said of newspapers.

Today it is fast moving from its nerd image into mainstream popular engagement.

It comes in many forms. Yes, Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft have their gaming machines and yes there are many stand alone devices for play. But have you noticed those people  on the train playing on their mobiles? Have you seen the games that come across the ether to your PC?

We are now seeing games with augmented reality and delivered with QR codes. Games are filling a big slice of, what Clay Shirky might call Cognitive Surplus or Adam Williams ‘Gamification‘.

Games were once a genre in their own right but no more. Games are becoming integrated with PR, Marketing and advertising. They are used in education, healthcare and as part of the online buying experience. As Robert Scoble, doyen of the new digital world, showed in a YouTube video, Kinect is more of a shopping experience than a game.

For those of us who are in the business of engaging people with messages, culture, reputation, brand and product, the use and application of games is now an issue we have to consider as part of the communicator’s portfolio.

Some games are small, short, lightweight and others deeply engaging. Some are so subtle that one hardly notices that they demand engagement and involvement. The tenets of great communication.

Involvement in the message, the emotional and subliminal as well as the direct and ‘shareable’ experience is all part of network communication. Games are part of that.

On the cusp of the internet of things  we also have to extend our thinking well beyond the games machine, PC, Slate or phone.

One might imagine, BP attempting to change its reputation with games engaging people at the petrol pump to deliver powerful (engaging) corporate messages. On the other hand, the idea of extending the Olympic Games onto a cooker to encourage both the purchase of new cookers and teen sons to tear themselves from the TV to make a meal for the family in the run up to the 100 metres!

Games can now take their place as a communication genre much as writing, pictures and movies have done for past generations – and look how useful they have been!

DP

Every minute of the working day, the TOWIE brand gets a mention online. OK so Tesco get nearly twice as many but my point is that brands have to work really hard to get good online traction.

The glamour surrounding the hit series on ITV2 provides a never ending patter of content in newspapers, magazines and especially on Twitter .

Every minute detail of story line, clothing and fake tan is subject to close scrutiny.

Now this is not Kate’s’ 400 million viewers streamed on YouTube last week (and who is still getting two mentions online every minute), but it is, after all only a soap and most of the people adding online content are in the UK (Kate is seriously global). What we are seeing is how seriously TV programmes and other brand leaders have to be in attracting committed digital ambassadors.

There are many ways to do this (besides being a Royal or a series with fit actors and curvy actresses) and they all need considerable strategy development to be truly effective.

It sounds and, to some extent, is dull.

Which platforms, what video sharing site, photo, app, Wikipedia profiles, fan involvement , Twitter presence or SEO strategies will give effective ROI is not quite the swimwear party at the end of this series on Wednesday but it is pretty important when you want to get it right and attract 700,000 viewers for each episode.

The British Royal Family is a big brand by any standards and its regular big events are show stoppers.

This one is no exception.

Data released today (27^th April) by The Drum gives a clue about the levels of interest:

• Data from Bing suggests that news stories have increased to seven million per day, up from just one million per day at the beginning of the month.
• Royal wedding related blog posts are up from 46.7m at the start of the month to  102.9m.
• YouTube videos posted with wedding associated tags have leaped from 37.5k per day to 460k per day.
• Twitter witnessed an explosion in tweets with around 5,000 per hour being posted.
• Trendrr  says  that these posts are largely positive with 46% of tweets speaking favourably of the couple with just 12% negative, the remainder being neutral.

Of course, the Royals work hard at sustaining the significance of the image of the monarchy. The work schedule of the 85 year old Queen is punishing and her family follow suit but this week belongs to her grandson and his bride to be.

In public relations we can learn a lot from this event.

The Royal event blog is a classic. The YouTube Royal Channel  is a first. Google has already outlined  the processional route with 3D Street View. Naturally, Facebook has a dedicated channel (and many more unofficial pages). Flickr, the photo sharing site,  has launched a group and contest to crowdsource related photographs from around the world. The People’s Royal Wedding Album is designed to be a counterpart to the official royal album says Mashable, capturing “the people’s view”. Not to be outdone, Wikipedia is updating every day as well.

This is in addition to the traditional press with more than 8,000 journalists, photographers and technical staff in London, based at the temporary media villages outside Buckingham Palace and Green Park.

The BBC is sending more than 850 staff to cover the wedding. Around 550 staff will help produce coverage for BBC1, and a further 300 for Radio 2, Radio 4, Radio 5 Live, BBC News 24 and Newsnight.

The corporation will also have reporters based at St Andrew’s University and at Kate Middleton’s home village of Bucklebury.

ITV has  300 staff to cover the event . Coverage starts on its breakfast show Daybreak with Adrian Chiles and Christine Bleakley, and other hosts include Kate Garraway in Buckleberry, Lucy Verasamy from Westminster Abbey and Grainne Seoige live from Pontefract.

ITV’s director of newsgathering Jonathan Munro said: “Covering the wedding will be one of the most complex and ambitious projects ITV News has ever undertaken.

CNN  is sending around 400 staff including 50 journalists and producers.

Piers Morgan, Richard Quest, Anderson Cooper and Kiran Chetry will lead its coverage.

The US broadcaster has invested in its web coverage of the event and produced new apps for the Ipad, Apple Iphone, IPod Touch, and Android tablets.

Sky News has allocated 160 staff to cover the wedding, a figure that includes journalists, photographers and make-up artists.

Sky will begin its coverage at 6am with Dermott Murnaghan, followed by lead anchor Eamonn Holmes to offer coverage that will be “newsy, celebratory and fun”.

The Press Association plans to have up to 100 editorial staff covering the wedding including 40 wire reporters and 30 photographers and video journalists.

Subscribers to the wire services will be able to access reports and photographs alongside archive images, as well as a rolling 24-hour news feed that can be embedded onto customers’ websites,

It has launched its ‘Royal Wedding Newswall’ service in partnership with web technology firm Ultra Knowledge.

In addition the newspaper industry is geared up for a print and online fest to offer page after page of insights and news coverage.

The numbers are awesome. A million people are expected to line the streets, a billion people will watch the event online and on TV. Already, a New York Times/CBS News poll revealed that 22 per cent of Americans are following the Wedding news and  U.S. media outlets are publishing twice the amount coverage as the British media on Kate and William’s nuptials, according to a new Nielsen study reports the Mail.

Here we see a multi media, global and well executed programme managed with consummate skill and viewed with a professional PR eye, there is so much we will learn about modern communication from this event.

In 2010 the biggest gain was display advertising, thanks to a nearly 200% surge in display advertising in a social media environment  which is not surprising as social networks now account for 25% of time spent online in the UK.

Mobile advertising has experienced a staggering 116% year on year growth (on a like for like basis), up from 32% in 2009. Advertisers spent £83 million on mobile advertising in 2010, led by the entertainment and media sector, but with encouraging growth from finance, telecoms and consumer goods advertising.

There is good reason for so much interest.  The Office for National Statistics’ (ONS) Retail Sales Index for February showed that some £474m was spent each week via the internet, accounting for 9% of total sales, excluding car fuel.

Forrester predict this will increase to more than £30bn from the £25.7bn spent last year. Britain will spend a third of the £85bn expected to sell across Europe.

The FT, in reporting a general downward trends in retailing reported weakness in almost every category of retailing with the exception of non-store retailing – generally internet sales – and petrol.

Verdict Research reports that the online sales growth rate – the fastest in six years – is about 10 times that of the UK’s retail market as whole.

For an organisation like Publicasity with  a very strong digital offering, this has had a considerable impact. With social media programmes, the application of mobile apps and a strong trend towards integrated campaigns, online has been a staple for some time.

The problem that we and our clients face is one of balance. The balance between online advertising and online PR is one that does need careful consideration.

There is no doubt that a mix of both is needed for optimum effect and the extent to which resources need to be shared between the two is a matter of much discussion across the whole industry.

Online PR is unusual in that it is very time intensive; and for best effect needs experienced account executives and managers to achieve optimum return on investment (the use of work experience, interns and junior staff is not a habit we have adopted).  The online audience is sophisticated and needs to interact with equally sophisticated client representatives in-house or in-agency.

Meanwhile SEO, as clients who use receive our newsletter will know, is going through something of a revolution (both Google  and Bing are putting more and more SEO techniques out of bounds after considerable abuse by a minority of organisations).

Above the line, there is an equal need for sophistication. Pay per click and display notably as Social Network advertising  can be spread too thinly to have optimum effect.

There is no perfect answer and each circumstance is unique.

Working with experts in the field and clients, budget optimisation is improving and it needs to do so. The opportunities are too big and the ability to capture online sales so important at this stage in the economic cycle.

DP

In this probably very long but, for PR practitioners, a very relevant post in which I look at what this means in practice for the digitally active public relations professional.

At first glance and largely by the way the ASA is promoting the changes, the rules look pervasive, impossible to implement and naive. The promotion of the new standards says:

The new ASA remit will ensure the same high standards as in other media and will cover:

• Advertiser  own marketing communications on their own websites and;
• Marketing communications in other non-paid-for space under their control, such as social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

A closer look shows a more constructive approach.

Let’s make it clear, I have no interest in people who have any intent in online content to promote in any other way than what is legal, decent, honest and truthful. This post offers no comfort to those who want to rip off or delude internet users. They deserve everything that the online communities will throw at them and the law (and ASA) can sanction.  However, there are some considerable gaps in the ASA approach.

The first is one of legitimacy in that the committees involved are advertising and traditional publishing committees. The representative bodies such as the CIPR , PRCA or the association that are of the digital world are not included in the deliberations. The level of digital expertise represented at the table are thin, to say the least.

Secondly, the distinction between Relationships (public relations) Reputation (attributes of a person or brand) and brand (a distinguishing device or token) is very unclear in the rules and regulations. Today, we find that these elements are converging and re-forming because of the power of the digital environments. The, now blurred, distinction between organisations and its paid and unpaid ambassadors is, frankly, becoming hard to see, never mind control. Transparency, Porosity and Internet Agency are well established developments affecting the online environment (as described by the joint CIPR/PRCA Internet Commission in 1999)

In addition, the attributes, values, descriptions, branding and even traded artefacts of organisations, products, services and other activities is becoming very hard to distinguish in this very disruptive world. One simple example serves to explain such a point. It is not unusual for a brand ambassador to copy the logo of a brand to his or her website, Facebook page or mobile device. Internet Agency plays its part like this and in many other ways.

Finally, the distinction in the mind of the consumer between corporate content and advertising and community word of mouth is almost none existent.

This will, inevitably bring ASA into online debate and criticism for being toothless or incompetent or both to the detriment of the advertising industry, the marketer and, innocently though it be, Public Relations.

The Advertising Standards Authority aims to ensure that consumers do not just enjoy the ads they see, but they can trust them too.

Their web site claims that “We build that trust by enforcing the Advertising Codes written by the Committee of Advertising Practice and acting swiftly when marketing communications break the rules.

‘Every week, the ASA’s decisions send out clear signals about what is and is not acceptable in advertising across a wide range of sectors. As a result of its work – and the UK industry’s commitment to advertising responsibly - the vast majority of ads that people see are legal, decent, honest and truthful.’

The Committee of Advertising Practice, (CAP )is a tripartite body made up of the representatives of advertisers, agencies, media owners and other industry groups, all of which “are committed to upholding the highest standards in advertising”.

The Committees of Advertising Practice are the industry bodies responsible for the UK’s Advertising Codes. They also do not include web or social media representative bodies .

What does the announcement really amount to? The relevant parts of the code say that from 1 March 2011, the CAP Code will apply to:

Advertisements and other marketing communications by or from companies, organisations or sole traders on their own websites, or in other non-paid-for space online under their control, that are directly connected with the supply or transfer of goods, services, opportunities and gifts, or which consist of direct solicitations of donations as part of their own fund-raising activities.

The drafting of the new remit is framed so as to focus specifically upon material which can be properly accepted as constituting an advertisement or other marketing communication.  This responds to a particular challenge of regulating websites and other non-paid-for space online under an advertiser’s control.  Websites can include marketing communications and other types of communication including,  for example, editorial, public relations e.g. press releases and investor relations material that must properly remain outside the remit of the CAP Code and, therefore, outside the jurisdiction of the ASA.

Were it that simple:

The code

The drafting of the extended digital remit are intended to assist stakeholders, including the ASA, to identify marketing communications coming within the extended digital remit.

Here are the relevant elements (The PDF can be downloaded from the ASA site here) for the practitioner:

3.5.   Three important factors arise from the drafting of the extended digital remit:

I.   ‘directly connected with supply or transfer of goods, services’ etc: this phrase is intended to identify and bring within the extended digital remit material which can be properly accepted as constituting an advertisement or other marketing communication.  It is intended to help distinguish material that will fall within the extended digital remit from other types of communication that will remain outside the CAP Code.

The phrase conveys the primary intent of marketing communications coming within the extended digital remit: to sell something.  It is understood that a marketing communication may set out to sell something in a myriad of different ways.  It need not necessarily include a price or seek overtly an immediate or short-term financial transaction or include or otherwise refer to a transactional facility.  In judging the intent of a communication to sell something, the ASA may call upon one of CAP’s advisory bodies, the General Media Panel, for example, which consists of advertising industry practitioners and acts as a forum to advise the ASA and CAP in its core functions.

II.    Marketing communications promoting causes or ideas: the current offline and online remit covers marketing communications promoting causes or ideas.  CAP is not aware of any significant call for regulatory action in the area of websites that promote causes or ideas, either by complainants to the ASA, by industry, government or the third sector, to which the advertising self-regulatory system would be an appropriate response.  The extended digital remit does not, therefore, cover marketing communications promoting causes or ideas but it                                   does explicitly apply to marketing communications which consist of direct solicitations of donations as part of fund-raising activities.  CAP notes the potential for consumer detriment, especially financial loss, arising from these marketing communications.  For example, consumer detriment could arise from misleading information about the purpose of the charity or donation being sought.

‘Non-paid-for space online under [the advertiser’s] control’: this phrase covers, although not exclusively, advertisements and other marketing communications on advertiser-controlled pages on social networking websites.  Social networking websites have a significant consumer reach, are popular with children and young people and play an increasing role in public policy debates.

Additional assessment criteria

3.6.   Determining whether material constitutes an advertisement or other marketing communication coming within the extended digital remit involves a careful assessment of its specific content and the context in which it appears.

3.7.   The assessment must consider, on a case-by-case basis, whether it can be reasonably assumed that the advertiser intended to sell something (the primary purpose of a marketing communication).  The following additional criteria may assist stakeholders in these assessments but they do not alone determine what can be properly accepted as constituting an advertisement or other marketing communication.  For example, depending on the context in which it appears, an advertisement or other marketing communication is likely to consist of commercial communication that:

•    has appeared in the same or very similar form as an advertisement in paid-for third party space, or

•    may include, or make easily accessible, an “invitation to purchase” as defined by the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (  “a commercial communication which indicates characteristics of the product and the price in a way appropriate to the means of that commercial communication and thereby enables the consumer to make a purchase.”)

User-generated content

3.9.   User-generated content (UGC) is content created by private individuals.  In establishing whether UGC should be regarded as a marketing communication, and consequently fall within the remit of advertising self-regulation, the primary and preliminary areas of enquiry to be considered are:

•    Did the website owner originally solicit the submission of UGC from private individuals, then adopt and incorporate it within their own marketing communications?

•    Did a private individual provide the website owner, on an unsolicited basis, with material which the website owner subsequently adopted and incorporated within their own marketing communications?

3.10.   If the answer to either question is yes, (and of course that the content of the material and the form in which it is re-used by the marketer does itself constitute an advertisement or marketing communication by the marketer) then prima facie the UGC under consideration will be regarded as a marketing communication.

Communications excluded from the extended ASA online digital remit

3.11.   Communications that do not constitute an advertisement or other marketing communication coming within the extended digital remit will obviously remain out of remit.  (As stated, the extended digital remit does not apply to marketing communications that promote causes or ideas.)

Existing exclusions

3.12.   The extended digital remit will not apply to the list of content already excluded by the CAP Code.  The most relevant exclusions include:

•    Classified private advertisements

•    Press releases and other public relations material

•    Editorial content

•    Political advertisements

•    Corporate reports

•    Natural listings on a search engine or a price comparison site

•    Marketing communications in foreign media

•    Claims in marketing communications in media addressed only to medical, dental, veterinary or allied practitioners, that relate to those practitioners expertise

•     From the preface to the CAP Code: ‘The Code is primarily concerned with the content of marketing communications and not with… products themselves’

I am still working on where all this leaves us. First of all, is this the right approach or, as websites become progressively more interactive, is there a case for a different and new approach.

Then we can invent scenarios and see where we stand.

A Facebook user who offers readers your products from their Facebook page may make outlandish statements to secure sales and your organisation would be caught (with the over enthusiastic online ambassador) by these regulations. The same applies in Twitter, YouTube and a thousand other sites which have trading platforms.

As content crosses the boundaries between PC, mobile and other channels does their marketing nature change (I can buy with my mobile phone but would look silly taking a PC into the same shop even though the software advertisement is the same for both devices).

Of course this all means that any advertisements in Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. must fall within the code. PR agencies will now be governed by these rules.

Then there are the facilities on offer.

If an agency were to offer a blogger who always simply re-produced the media content on offer, how close is this to commissioning an advatorial or advertisement on the blog?

In most cases bloggers, wikimedians, Tweeters and  the famous on Facebook are Sole Proprietors. They fall outside of the code.

For most practitioner, these new rules will have no effect in the short term but I think they are build on shifting sand and need to be considered by online professionals and with greater care.

Of course, there is a back stop sanction for miscreants in the UK through the Office of Fair Trading for action under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 or the Business Protection from Misleading Marketing Regulations 2008.

David Phillips

It made me think about what is involved. The level of commitment for the successful companies is almost painful to see but it really works for these companies. The banks are a case in point but much of what they have to do applies to other sectors too.

Some banks are beginning to get there. Citibank, which has a retail arm in the US, is taking to Twitter to respond to those snarky comments made by customers unhappy with the service they have received with the help of the man, Frank Eliason, who was behind @Comcastcares.

Bump is a fascinating integration of the online and offline worlds. Originally just for sharing contact information, Bump can now be used to share photos, music, calendar events and more. You can even send money between Bump users, via the company’s PayPal integration.

The banks are not alone and face the same issues others are grappling with. The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) said that despite high levels of growth in social, mobile and online media, 55 per cent of marketing executives struggle to integrate such channels into the mix.

Research shows that not only are budgets for social media marketing rising, but an increasing number of brands are prioritising this spend over other media.

The imperative to get involved is very significant. The sheer growth in online ecommerce is huge. Adapting to online growth, some being new business and some being a switch from traditional consumerism of the high street to online interaction is dramatic and growing very fast.

It is very easy to underestimate the impact of the online space. Advertising predictions  of online take up is an example. The actual versus predicted growth was 100% awry in the last 12 months. Last year, the New Media Age study predicted a 9% expansion for search and a 6% rise for display. The actual growth in the NMA’s 2009 poll showed these increases stood at 17% and 10% respectively.

The pressures to compete for a place in ecommerce are significant and must, by now, be compelling for banks.

• 44% of Britain’s online adult population upped their online spending this Christmas compared to 2009, pushing the total amount spent online to £2.8bn.
• 45% of those who shopped online encountered website problems while doing their Christmas shopping, and 32% abandoned purchases as a result.
• 86% of UK consumers logged onto the internet over Christmas Day and Boxing Day this year, an increase of over 10% when compared with figures from 2009.
• 22% of online users accessed the internet on their phones, confirming the importance of mobile commerce for retailers.
• 30% of online consumers used the internet to shop online on Boxing Day, while 62% of online consumers shopped for sale items and discounted products across the two days.

Indeed, there are pretty good predictions that not being involved will be difficult.

However, there is a long way to go and it goes to the heart of online relationships.

Part of the evolution will need to start internally. It makes a big difference.

Then, there is the big world outside.

“Communication between consumers is viral and immediate,” says Jill Puleri, worldwide retail industry leader for IBM Global Business Services. “They discuss your brands, products and services and boy, does everybody look at it. Some are good. Some are not so good. Millions of people around the world are reading them and being influenced by what they say.”

However, the need to move forward is compelling in the new world order.

Kevin Ertell, vice-president of retail strategy at ForeSee Results, is reported saying: “It looks like nearly two-thirds of all shoppers in the UK will soon be using their mobile phones for retail purposes, if they aren’t already.

“Any retailer not actively working to develop, measure, and refine its mobile experience is leaving money on the table for competitors.”

The cultural shift is going to be the biggest hurdle for banks.

With its current reputation in shreds, the banking industry has a big hill to clim to be trusted online. It is a sector that has to learn some hard lessons. Sometimes you make a mistake in the digital realm and you need to fix it. But once something is out on the Web and in social networks, you cannot erase it. Instead, you must apologize and move on.

In the open and transparent world of social media the whole culture of the social media is something that is going to be tough for the banks.

The conclusion was that it is in the nature of people to be technologically driven even in the arts and, more spcifically because of the internet, Public Relations.
This may come as a suprise to those in the industy who find geeks a complete mystery. This is a narrow view and challengable.
The ability of the PR practictioner to organise events and master the sequnce of actions behind successful campaigns is pretty good evidence that advanced project management and logistics are commonplace across the industry.
As social media becomes mainstream in PR, this ability to master technologies (project management and logistics require a form of visual and mathematical analysis and creative application that is pretty advanced whatever it may be called)  is becomming progressively more important.
Development of mobile apps, building a Twitter following and even blogging outreach use data. Most of us are getting used to the idea that we have to understand Boolean (a logical calculus of truth values, developed by mathematician and philosopher, George Boole in the 1840s) to be able to be effective at using Google. We have become really good at cryptography too. Passwords are used in dozens of daily activities. There are dozens of such common activities that deploy advanced technologies used by practitioners.

Soon, very soon, the practice of PR will have to embrace technologies at a more fundemental level.
In 2011, we will see the first superfast broadband services.  These fast services will change how people use streamed content (e.g. video, microbloging and games).

Last year we saw that on Boxing Day, UK visits to online retail websites were 12% higher than the pre-Christmas peak in traffic on December 5 and 26% higher than on Christmas Day.
Amazon, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer are among the online retailers receiving the highest satisfaction scores from UK consumers. Foresee, a consultancy, surveyed nearly 10,000 respondents, and found that “highly satisfied” shoppers registered a 57% improvement in their commitment to specific retailers when buying online. The propensity to make purchases via the web from sellers meeting their needs rose 59% in these cases, a figure hitting 33% for buying goods in a firm’s equivalent bricks-and-mortar stores.

Reputationally, the top 40 internet retailers posted an average satisfaction rating of 72 points, on a 100-point scale, in 2010, an increase from 71 points in 2009 and 67 points in 2008 and over 60% of internet users have now got into the habit of buying online.

51,442,100 people in the UK use the internet (82.5%) which means that over 30 million people now buy online.

Numbers, numbers

All these numbers are the numbers that mean most retailers have no option but to embrace the internet to be able to sell competitively (for both price and volume).
This means that the PR practitioner needs to be able to understand those complicated numbers about website visits, conversion ratios and reputational issues associated with website response times User Interface requirements, logistics, SEO, online communities and their associated data.

Like it or not we need to have these skills, or, of course, a consultant that can help.