If you’re writing a blog or social media post and have received free product, services or enjoy a business relationship, you need to disclose it to your readers. Face it; you write for them and they deserve to know. It’s also the law, as the Federal Trade Commission has issued clear instructions on what constitutes […]
Social media ethics resources
This is the handout from the Sept. 14 meeting of the Chicago chapter of the Public Relations Society of America meeting. View more documents from David Kamerer.
Social media: manage the risk, but don’t miss the opportunity
Social media use at work is not a technology problem; it’s a management problem. And it’s also a management opportunity. Smart companies like IBM and the Mayo Clinic acknowledge social media and embrace it. In fact, there’s growing evidence that socially-empowered employees outperform their peers. Connected employees use social tools to get things done. Sure, […]
Facebook: privacy settings change again
In our hectic, public social lives, there’s always Facebook, a gated community where you can let it all hang out with your friends. What you say or show on Facebook is safe from those outside forces that might otherwise ruin the experience: your parents, your students, your ex, and yes, search engines. But Facebook is […]
Location-based services about to blossom
So what’s hot in social media today? Location, location, location! That’s right, location-based services appear to be gaining critical mass. This trend is driven by the proliferation of handsets with built-in GPS receivers, including the iPhone, Android devices such as the Droid, and the BlackBerry, as well as the proliferation of social networks. I often […]
Mash up and share feeds with Wiffiti
Wiffiti is a tool for capturing a feed and displaying it in a dynamic screen, which can be published in a variety of places. The National Communication Association is currently meeting in Chicago. Attendees are using the Twitter hashtag #NCA09. A screen based on this tag could be pushed to flat panels throughout the venue […]
Google Dashboard and online privacy
The Russian comic Yakov Smirnoff famously said, “In Soviet Russia, TV watches you.” Today, he might say, “on Internet, Google watches you.” Indeed, Google is like Santa Claus: it sees you when you’re sleeping. It knows when you’re awake. It knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake. But you […]
More criticism of the FTC disclosure ruling
Here’s a hilarious video review – with disclosures aplenty – of the book “Inbound Marketing,” by Steve Garfield. Meanwhile, Ron Hogan at MediaBistro takes the ruling apart in equally funny fashion (courtesy of Maggie Bronny, student at Loyola University Chicago). No humor here: The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) makes the case that the ruling is unconsitutional. […]
Lessons from the Netflix $1 million prize
This week Netflix announced a winner in its contest to improve its movie rating software. A team of seven computer engineers, statisticians and machine learning experts, Bellkor’s Pragmatic Chaos, won $1 million for creating an algorithm that improves the current software by more than 10 percent. Some context: Netflix wants happy customers who see the […]
Respecting copyright on your blog or social media page
It’s a new semester, and that means students everywhere are jumping in to digital publishing, either for fun, self-expression or as part of a classroom assignment. While student work may seem to have limited scope, at some level it’s no different from a page at nytimes.com. If it’s published online, it is a public document […]