RSC Partners, Inc.

This afternoon, I met with one of Karl Rove’s advisors in the White House and towards the end of the coversation, got the chance to ask an open-ended question about where the White House’s bias was on bloggers’ first amendment rights and whether there was a distinction between bloggers and journalists.

The case of Jeff Gannon notwithstanding, I was told, there are practical, policy and constitutional implications to how you answer the question. After all, anyone who gets a White House press pass gets access to the building, so there have to be limits. The White House does, however, strongly support free speech rights for bloggers as a First Amendment matter. He said he could not, however, tell where, whether or how you could say a blog is “media” or not.

So it seems that the White House is as conflicted on this issue as every panel on Blogging and Media. However, as the FEC considers regulating blogs and the Apple case moves ahead in the courts, it would be nice to see a clear position coming from the Administration.

Today it became official at the Board of Directors meeting of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association.  RSC Partners will be coming on board to help VICA’s new President, Brendan Huffman, with the transition–providing Public Affairs and Government Relations services.

While in many ways, I (Scott) will be doing my old job on a consulting basis–helping manage the organization’s numerous committees and working with their volunteer leaders to identify issues and develop positions–we’re also bringing some new ideas to the table.

One way we hope to add to the organization’s advocacy efforts is by creating a new issues tracking system–an idea put forward by the new VICA Chairman Bob Scott.  By using an online user interface for an issues database, we hope to be able to identify issues that are relevant to San Fernando Valley Businesses, put ideas in the pipeline for the development of positions for the organization and then follow up on what’s being done.  This will all be in one place on the internet and will be searchable by those who have access. 

If it sounds like a weblog to you, well, that’s because the software to do this will be remarkably the same–we’re just being creative in how that software is put to use to facilitate a discussion among VICA’s volunteer and professional leadership.

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that two massive consumer products companies, General Mills and Kraft, are embracing Internet advertising and doubling their commitment to online media. While some would argue that they are late to the party, this news is significant for two reasons:

1. “Packaged-goods” companies like General Mills and Kraft have literally spent decades designing and fine-tuning their advertising models, and any deviation from those tried and true models is rare to unheard of. This fundamental shift in their approach is a strong validation of the claim New Media can make on today’s consumers.

2. The products these companies make and sell– paper towels and toothpaste, for example– are not well suited for e-commerce. People don’t tend to Google “paper towels” and they don’t typically buy tubes of Crest online. Therefore, to make this investment in online media now, makes a clear statement: “This is where they eyeballs are and this is where we need to advertise our products.”

John Galloway, a PepsiCo, Inc. Vice President bluntly told the Journal: “Our job is to invest where consumers are engaging with media.”

Kevin George, a brand manager for Unilever, echoed this sentiment: “Ultimately it comes down to where the consumer is.”

According to Menlo Park consulting firm Knowledge Networks, 15% of the time US consumers spend with all media, is spent online. Whether you are selling paper towels or advancing a corporate or public affairs agenda, that is a market that is just too big to ignore.

Once-Wary Industry Giants Embrace Internet Advertising [Wall Street Journal]

The Los Angeles Times compares the media markets in New York and L.A. today, and finds the City of Angels lacking when it comes to Gossip columns.

While the number of publicists per capita in Los Angeles is among the highest in the world and gossip mongering ranks near the top of the city’s list of high-profile exports, there is no local equivalent to Page Six. In fact, the closest thing Hollywood has to Page Six is Page Six itself; the Post is available for home delivery here, and the column regularly covers and skewers the Southland’s rich and infamous.

But it’s not like Los Angeles lacks a media machine covering our own gossip. The Times cites no less than three bloggers–Deadline Hollywood, Defamer and Kausfiles–to talk about the local media obsession with celebrity. (Likewise, for non-Hollywood “gossip”, we like Mayor Sam and L.A. Observed.)

There’s a lesson there for the myriad publicists who haunt the streets of Hollywood–ignore the Blogosphere at your own peril.

L.A. to Page Six scandal: ho-hum [LAT]

Starwood Hotels has a new blog aimed at its preferred guests: www.thelobby.com. Unlike most corporate blogs TheLobby isn’t just an awkard restatement of corporate press releases. It tries– and mostly succeeds– to be engaging and conversational in a manner that will build a sustained readership. But that hasn’t stopped the critics.

Commenting in a Wall Street Journal article, Todd Copilevitz, a “digital marketing consultant,” laments the lack of reader comments on the site: “Blogs are not an environment where you just hold forth an opinion and don’t accept feedback… You have to have your wits about you to understand it’s not the same old PR machine.”

Mr. Copilevitz is right that a blog is not “the same old PR machine” but there are other ways to establish a relationship with readers than through comments.

TheLobby has a conversational tone that resonates with readers. Its authors have distinct voices and they create a discussion by linking to other blogs (unlike some blogs like the Huffington Post).

On the whole, we think TheLobby isn’t a bad corporate blog and we’d like to see more companies use the medium to communicate with their customers.

Starwood’s Web Log Caters To Loyalty [Wall Street Journal]

For awhile now, CNN has featured blogs as part of The Situation Room, but this week, the cable network went a step further in using blogs as a primary source.

When CNN.com ran its story on the arrest of a Homeland Security official, they took their picture straight from the pages of Joshua Michah Marshall’s Talking Points Memo.

While it’s just further evidence of the blogs’ influence over mainstream media, I have to wonder if at some point, the bloggers will rise up and ask that their work be credited. After all, don’t bloggers have rights, too?

What a difference a month makes. A few weeks ago, the New York Times sounded alarm bells over Wal-Mart’s effective use of the blogosphere to repair its image, claiming the strategy “raises questions”. This weekend, the Times hailed blogs as a transforming force in American politics.

The Times appears to have awakened to the fact that, unlike television advertising– the longtime backbone of political campaign outreach– blogs allow candidates to target segmented voter blocs directly and to reach geometrically larger audiences via peer-to-peer email distribution.

This is more than just an academic observation– candidates are, in fact, blogging. Specifically, the Times points out that John Kerry, John Edwards, and Mark Warner are scoring early points in the 2008 election through the blogosphere (the New York Times probably doesn’t know any Republicans, but rest assured, they are blogging too).

But this “new” medium is not for the faint of heart. One issue that candidates will have to get comfortable with is the interactive nature of blogging. Unlike a television commercial where a tightly scripted sound bite is delivered with no opportunity for rebuttal, blog readers give as good as they get. So candidates better be prepared to take a few punches in defending their platforms.

Blogs also could deal a potentially serious blow to the time-honored advantage of incumbency. With the efficiencies of the Internet, blogging is a cost-effective way for the cash-strapped challenger to reach voters on a scale similar to that of the deep-pocketed incumbent.

So, ultimately this is a win-wn. Campaigns have a new avenue by which to reach the electorate, and voters have a medum that will allow them to get beyond the spin and the sound bites into a serious discussion of the issues.

Let the games begin!

Politics Faces Sweeping Change Via the Web [New York Times]

While bloggers are gaining the respect and attention of everyone from politicians to businesses to sports franchises, the mainstream media is still struggling to come to grips with the phenomenon.

When Yost at the Michigan Football site The M Zone heard a segment on ESPN Radio Colin Cowherd’s show that seemed a little familiar, he pointed out that, well, the item was plagiarized from his site. Cowherd responds that he didn’t know, the item was emailed to him before making a big mistake: blowing the blogger off and telling him to get over it.

Cowherd may have been innocent enough in his using material that was emailed to him, but as a journalist he should know what it feels like to have his material stolen. In the world of a cut-and-paste internet, a little due diligence on Google could tell you whether credit is due. Telling the author of material to bugger off will only turn the blogs–and public opinion–against you.

As bloggers gain a larger audience, situations like this will continue to arise–and as much as anybody wants to talk about blogger responsibilities and ethics, a debate about blogger rights should be in the works as well.

This afternoon, I attended a panel at the University of Southern California asking the question, “Have Blogs Replaced Newspapers and Should We Care?” The speakers were Kevin Roderick of LA Observed, Kevin Drum of Political Animal and Ana Marie Cox, ex of Wonkette.

Chatting it up with the two Kevins beforehand, I said that I thought it was really a silly question to ask. Blogs do not aspire to replace newspapers, they add to the conversation.

What came out during the discussion in Doheny Library was that there is an Interdependence between all forms of media–print, broadcast and online media–that if you removed one of the parts would totally change the system. Were there no print newspapers, Roderick noted, something would have to fill the void.

One major newspaper understand this interdependence, and it is the Washington Post. On each of the paper’s articles, they use Technorati to link back to the most recent blog posts linking to that article. This encourages bloggers to link to their versions of a story by creating a win-win scenario for both blogger and paper publisher.

So yes we should care about newspapers. Major daily newspapers set the agenda for reporters and assignment editors on radio, television and online media–but blogs can report more quickly and the collective intelligence of the blogosphere serves to add specific knowledge that cannot be expected of a beat reporter. Blogs can also serve as an outlet to provide news to smaller communities where no local media exists or as an outlet for persons or companies who do not get a fair shake from their local mainstream media outlets. This interdependence is why RSC Partners sees a role for outreach to New Media as a supplement to traditional public relations campaigns–to give voice to those who would otherwise not be heard.

Most of the mainstream financial media were nonplussed by Google’s launch of its Finance page yesterday. It looks too much like other financial sites, they said, while pointing out the kinks in the system.

But buried in the far right-hand corner, at the bottom of each page is something you won’t find on other financial sites. Let’s say you are looking for information on Kinross Gold Corporation. Well look down there and you will find the three most recent blog posts about KGC…about as many as there have been in the last five months!

For small and mid-cap companies about which there is little blog chatter, this can be either an opportunity or a curse, depending on how they approach the growing influence of blogs. Embrace the blogs and reach out to them, and it is more likely to become an opportunity. Ignore them at your own peril…because Google Finance will not ignore them.