In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the journalists report on the yet-to-be-released book making appearances on places like YouTube and Flickr. It turned out that these appearances were indeed excerpts from the new book, ruining a $20 million security campaign to protect against just that.

In the age of ultra-transparency, where the Internet is both a friend and a foe – how do we as PR professionals protect this kind of news from breaking before we intend it? As PR strategist Jon Greer points out, “Will bloggers who never spent a day in journalism school, who never spent a day in a media newsroom, yet who command audiences and attention online, subject themselves to these [embargo date] guidelines? And if not, what is PR’s obligation to adhere to these guidelines if influential new media ‘journalists’ do not?”

I think the answer to that question is to know the bloggers that cover your news and be smart about when to send them information. Do your research and ask them how they prefer to work and when they want to receive important information. Most of all, you have to be a part of the dialogue to do PR in the new media world, keeping it at arms length is hardly an option these days. I also think a good disaster-recovery plan should be in place for when your news accidentally breaks, especially for instances like what happened with Harry Potter.

Just some food for thought, er should I say spells to make you conjure…

Matt

Just yesterday, TIME magazine announced the 50 Best Websites 2007, and I am proud to say that 10 Sparkpr companies made appearances in the article!

Congratulations to Technorati, Yahoo!, Bix, Last.fm, and former Spark client Nowpublic, as well as Index Ventures portfolio companies Joost and Netvibes for making it to the 50 Best Websites 2007 list. Three other companies in the Spark family, Farecast, TheFind and former client Flickr did not make the list, but received honorable mention in the article.

Special acclaim goes to Technorati and Yahoo! which were both included in the Top 25 Sites We Can’t Live Without!

Woo Hoo! Congrats, guys!

-Jeff

One thing I’ve noticed since moving to London about three weeks ago, other than the fact that it rains EVERY day, is that there is a tangible excitement in the air among techies and entrepreneurs. It is a city poised for explosive growth and many would argue that growth is already well underway.

You’ve all heard that Europe had more IPOs than the US last year and is now producing some high profile exits (the most well-known being Last.fm and Skype), but what you may not know is how hard people on the ground here are working to spur this on. They feel that one of Silicon Valley’s strengths is in its tight network and in London, the beginnings of this network are just now forming. To ignite this process, ensure the entrepreneurial community continues to expand, and support the development of creative ideas in places other than Silicon Valley, an amazing group of people have gotten together to start Seedcamp.

At a high level, Seedcamp is a way for entrepreneurs and developers to meet a top-tier network of people who help start successful businesses (VCs, marketers, lawyers, HR people, etc). They can also receive funding, but that’s a secondary benefit compared with the caliber of people they will be in front of. A few details:

Submissions are accepted until Aug 12 on the Seedcamp website
The top 20 teams will be selected and invited to London for a week of intensive mentoring and networking with the industry top experts in fields like HR, law, marketing, product development, etc
At the end of that week (Sept 3-7), the top 5 teams will be announced and they’ll receive 50,000 euros in funding and an additional 3 months of mentorship

Please spread the word about this great event. Donna and I will be attending the Seedcamp week as PR mentors, and we’re really excited to meet Europe’s next generation of entrepreneurs. Thanks to Saul and team for getting this going.

-Rachel