The thing most PR people have dreaded, but knew was inevitable, has happened. Chris Anderson, editor in chief at Wired Magazine, got fed up with foolish, misdirected pitches from PR people and up and posted a long list of email addresses of the offenders. Unfortunately, someone from Sparkpr made the list. Me.

And of course, this angry post has been ricocheting across the blogosphere for two days now, like he knew it would. And other journalists have, naturally, joined in on the rant. Mark Frauenfelder at BoingBoing really went off. Ryan Block at Engadget is much more measured in his reaction. And yes, I have gotten emails from friends in the business about it and, yes, I have been spammed. I have even gotten LinkedIn invitations, as people are seeing this as another way to build their networks.

I totally understand where the frustration comes from. Most of the time those of us at Sparkpr work really hard to research past articles a journo has written to tailor a specific pitch before sending. But when it comes to news announcements, sometime it makes sense to send batch emails to reporters who cover a certain, often very wide, industry like, say, the Internet. I don’t think this is the same as spam. It’s a judgment call.

I own that I made a mistake. I don’t know Chris, and I sent him a pitch that he clearly wasn’t interested in, despite my hopes. Mea culpa, and if he wants to block me from sending him any more pitches, that is his right. My real problem with Chris Anderson’s rant is that he says he will totally block the whole agency because of one offender. If that were the case a year ago, Chris would have missed the opportunity to keynote at a client’s PHP industry conference, an activity that he actually benefited from. It just seems like overkill, and it sells short the value of PR people to the media. Despite the current cycle of frustration, most reporters will tell you that they have profited from interaction with their PR counterparts. There is a mutual benefit and as the media landscape continues to contract I imagine it will become more so.

Sparkpr puts a big emphasis on taking the time to MEET people, get to know their tastes and preferences from real conversation, so that this can serve as a basis for future online dialogue. But it takes years and years of opportunities to make such connections. Is our awareness heightened? You bet. In an industry where our reputation is what we are measured on, this is impactful, and what this discussion means to me personally has yet to be determined. The result of this brash posting is that we will all strive to be better in our approaches to journalists, it’s true. Me, especially. But the public flogging will likely have additional consequences, as it plays out over time. Let’s hope they are not out of proportion to the offense.

[Update: Chris Anderson contacted Spark PR to clarify his position on blocking PR contacts. Though his post states that “The following is just the last month's list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list,” I am relieved to hear that he is only blocking the specific offenders. Thanks for clarifying the policy, Chris.]

- Syreeta

So this was my 9th CTIA event and it is starting to feel like a homecoming. I know I will see Jon Pepper at Mobile Focus, the big press event, and he will offer to “buy” me a martini at his icy bar. Surely Brad Smith, the tall, deep voiced journo from Wireless Week, will be seen up and down the halls hustling from meeting to meeting. The folks at Qualcomm will have all the cool pods showcasing new mobile technologies, like EA Mobile’s games on their BREW devices. And Nokia and Motorola will have the plushest carpet and best lighting to lure everyone in with flashy new devices.

I think Apple and Google have quickly changed the conversation, though. It is all about how to deal with the carriers, or not. They really are just dumb pipes like we have been saying all along, right? Walt Mossberg’s recent column really summarized the thoughts and feelings many of us in the mobile world have had for a long, long time.

Here is where I have to plug our client Trolltech. They shipped the first real open phone to stimulate experimentation with new mobile applications on a working GSM Smartphone from the developer community and did so about 18 months ago. It was called Greenphone. They just ended the project because all the phones sold out. This whole open phone trend is really getting interesting, and with the convergence of WiMax, Skype, mobile widget, and the rumoured GPhone, it will stay that way for a while.

-Candace

Sparkpr is celebrating the company’s milestones on going global! Come party (just because) with the Sparkpr network of clients and press on October 25, 2007 at our new office!

WHEN: Thursday, October 25 from 5:30 to 9 p.m.
WHERE: 2 Bryant Street, Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94105

Please RSVP to matt@sparkpr.com, or by signing up at http://going.com/sparkpr.

It’s true. I’ve been guilty of making the comparison in the past that the 00s are like the 60s – a comparison that at times has been met with some amount of ridicule as I was never really there (thanks, Lydon).

But there are a lot of similarities that still call out to me. In the 60s we were fighting communists in Vietnam; today we’re fighting terrorists in Iraq. Back then, major strides were made for American civil liberties, particularly in the realm of feminism and gay rights; today that torch is still being carried, but more so for gay civil liberties like marriage and the right to serve. Also in the 60s was the popular rise against “the establishment” and protests for the masses to voice their opinions against the government. Today, those voices have moved off the streets and on to websites, and the establishment is no longer just the government, but also the corporations that govern our daily lives. Online distribution platforms like blogs and videos have helped to elevate the attention of many political issues, including the recent struggles of Burmese monks in China.

One of the ideas I came up with while working with Technorati earlier this year utilized tagging as a platform to aggregate the masses. My idea was to have a Blog-in, a day where everyone in the world could blog on any topic or subject, so long as they tagged it with the same tag. The idea was to create an online phenomenon so massive that it would garner media attention somewhat like the Human Be-Ins of the 60s, but only online.

Well, it’s sad to say that my idea eventually got cut out of the final plan, but I’m happy to note that someone else eventually came up with a similar idea: The United Nations. As it turns out, on October 15, 2007, the UN planned a global “Blog Action Day” which they announced two months ago on August 15th.

It’s interesting to see what tactics the UN used because they were very successful. Rather than allow bloggers to write about anything, they narrowed down on a topic. For 2007, that topic was the environment. They also relied on bloggers signing up to count numbers rather than using tags to aggregate the masses. It’s also interesting to see that the event was billed as a fundraiser as bloggers could also donate their profits for the day to a charity. Most intriguing is the amount of participation they garnered from the community. With their press release out only two months before the assigned Blog Action Day, they managed to drum up nearly 20,000 subscribed bloggers pledging to blog about the environment or donate their day’s profits.

It’s hard to say just how many people did wind up donating or blogging about the environment. A small amount of research reveals that not everyone did wind up posting, but a Google Search as of October 16 reports about 75 news stories and nearly 3 million websites, so the impact has been significant. Significant enough to amount to the large scale social action of the 60s? Perhaps, but I’ll leave that up to the eye of the blogger.

Peace out, man.

Jeff

FON announced some super exciting news today! FON partnered with British Telecom (BT) to launch the largest WiFi community in the world: the BT FON Community. After today, the U.K. will be covered with hundreds of thousands of BT FON hotspots and now more than 3 million BT customers can join the enormous global community of people sharing their WiFi. Anyone joining in will be able to use all FON hotspots across the world and the new BT FON hotspots free of charge.

This is a pivotal turning point for the communications industry and a shift from the traditional view on sharing broadband connections. BT in the UK, Time Warner Cable in the U.S., Neuf in France, and Sistema in Russia support FON’s revolutionary model for a massive Wi-Fi community. Now these ISPs endorse the idea of safely sharing broadband connections and no longer impose regulations against it.

Check out Spencer Ante’s story on BusinessWeek or FON founder, Martin’s Varsavsky’s blog on the deal. You can also check out what FON can do for Muni WiFi in the San Francisco Chronicle.

- Alicia