SAVVIS (or is it Savvis?), the St. Louis company that got hit with a lawsuit by American Express after the CEO refused to pay a $241,000 tab at the New York strip-club Scores, issued a statement in the form of a letter today.

Here's my 10-minute critique: The missive says little and will be ignored. It's framed as an apology, but doesn't actually include an apology. It's also too long by at least a third.

I was taught never to criticize without suggesting, so here's a rewrite, free of charge:

To Our Customers, Employees and Shareholders:

This is a difficult time for SAVVIS. I know that you share my dismay over the details of our current litigation with American Express. While SAVVIS believes it will prevail in this lawsuit, we recognize that our CEO's personal conduct has caused embarrassment.

On behalf of SAVVIS' Board of Directors and management team, I apologize.

In the week since the Board asked me to serve as Acting Chief Executive Officer, I have talked individually and in small groups with hundreds of company employees, customers and shareholders. I have asked them how this incident has affected their perception of SAVVIS, and what I can do to set things right.

Virtually everyone I've talked to has given me the same marching orders: Be honest, be direct, and put this distraction behind SAVVIS as quickly as possible.

That's exactly what we intend to do.

I have been encouraged by the heartfelt support I have received from all quarters -- particularly from our employees. This company's people, at all levels, have a passionate desire to reaffirm the true character -- the good character -- of SAVVIS to our customers and other stakeholders.

We will come back stronger from this; after talking with you over the past week, I have no doubt about that.

Sincerely,

Jack Finlayson

As a longtime Dallasite, lifelong NBA fan and Mavericks season ticket holder, I have great respect for Mark Cuban. Now Mark has turned to my preferred medium -- the blogosphere -- to solve a Mavs marketing quandary. As he described the challenge on Blog Maverick:

Finding a replacement to "RockNRoll Part 2" by Gary Glitter to play at the Mavs games. You know the song. The "hey" song. The song that everyone in sports stole from the NHL, who stole it from who knows who. This isn't a cure for world peace issue. But it's one of those things that drive me crazy ...

Maybe the blogosphere can help ... I need at least one song that is simple, has few or no words, is short and will automatically cause 20k people to stand, clap and shout in unison.

Thanks to Pierce Mattie Public Relations for this fun bit of Photoshop magic.

As a general rule, Media Orchard attempts to be as nonpartisan as possible, because we believe that labels like "Republican" and "Democrat," "Red State" and "Blue State" are a lazy shorthard that often hinders reasoned discussion of important issues.

But because we're history buffs, this Fox News Channel parody was just too funny not to post.

If it makes FNC loyalists feel any better, Media Orchard has criticized CNN using a similar approach in the past.

Is this picture a duck or a rabbit?

Trick question: it's both.

Thomas Kuhn used the illusion to help explain his concept of the paradigm shift in his 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Since then, a bunch of MBAs have dragged this catchy phrase in front of every venture capitalist and across every nook and cranny of Wall Street -- working very hard to render it meaningless.

I had hoped, after the 2000-2001 crash of so many "paradigm-shifting" business models, the legacy of poor Thomas Kuhn might be cut some slack.

But no...

From a story in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, "Creating buzz, one peer at a time" --

In an age when the college demographic is no longer easily reached by television, radio or newspapers -- as TiVo, satellite radio, iPods and the Internet crowd out the traditional advertising venues -- a microindustry of campus marketing has emerged. Niche firms have sprung up to act as recruiters of students, who then market products on campus for companies such as Microsoft, JetBlue Airways, The Cartoon Network and Victoria's Secret.

"There is a paradigm shift in the way that corporations are marketing to college students," said Matt Britton, a managing partner of Mr. Youth, a New York-based firm that specializes in college student marketing. "The student ambassador tactic embraces all the elements that corporations find most effective: It's peer-to-peer, it's word of mouth, it's flexible and it breaks through the clutter of other media. For all that, it's growing very quickly."

By the estimate of leading youth marketing firms, tens of thousands of students work as campus ambassadors nationwide.

From The New York Times:

For Bloggers Seeking Name Recognition, Nothing Beats a Good Scandal

It's a fair bet that, given a political scandal of a certain scale, the usual blogs - DailyKos, AmericaBlog, Instapundit and Wonkette - will draw traffic and links. Make it a media scandal, like Dan Rather's "60 Minutes" fiasco or Jayson Blair's fabrications at The New York Times, and other sites might bubble to the top: Romenesko or perhaps Gawker for a snideways view of things. And why not? As in any other medium, branding matters, and these sites have proven their mettle in scandals past.

But the blogosphere is expanding at a rate of 70,000 sites a day, according to Technorati, the blog search portal, which now tracks activity on more than 20 million blogs in real time - and the right bit of news can always catapult new sites into the limelight.

Ariana Huffington's relentless drubbing of Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter, drove the relatively new HuffingtonPost.com high into Technorati's rankings. Her site's popularity continued right through Friday's indictment of I. Lewis Libby, the White House staff member accused of making false statements during an investigation into the leak of a Central Intelligence Agency operative's name. At day's end, roughly 20 new links per hour were being made to HuffingtonPost.com.

"I would say that's a pretty significant blogometric pressure," said David L. Sifry, the chief executive of Technorati.

The White House leak scandal has put some other sites on the map even though they lack Ms. Huffington's name recognition. Steven C. Clemons, a fellow at the New America Foundation, drew a fair amount of cross-linking to his blog, the Washington Note (thewashingtonnote.com), with reliable coverage throughout the affair. So too did the group blog FireDogLake (firedoglake.blogspot.com), which drew nearly 200 comments in just 90 minutes after a post about the news conference held by the special prosecutor in the leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, Friday afternoon.

And with some original reporting on the affair last week, the JustOneMinute blog, run by Tom Maguire (justoneminute.typepad.com), was identified by Technorati as an "aggregation point" for chatter on the topic.

"This is kind of like a look into the global subconscious," Mr. Sifry said, "when you can expose what people are looking for."

In the wake of the controversial Forbes cover story, "Attack of the Blogs," here's the transcript of an Oct. 27 segment of CNBC's On the Money , featuring Daniel Lyons of Forbes, Micro Persuasion's Steve Rubel, Mike Kaltschnee of Hacking Netflix.com, and Neil Hunt of Netflix:

DYLAN RATIGAN (HOST): Corporate secrets, some facts and many lies. They're all spilling out onto computer screens worldwide these days, costing many companies a pretty penny. Forbes magazine calls the Internet rumor-mongers an online lynch mob in this new article, "Attack of the Blogs," which details the lives and businesses ruined by Weblogs.

With us tonight: Dan Lyons, senior member of Forbes magazine, author of the article; public relations strategist Steve Rubel from CooperKatz; Mike Kaltschnee, the blogger behind Hacking Netflix.com; and Neil Hunt from Netflix -- he is their chief product officer.

Dan, in brief, what's the problem?

DAN: The problem is, most of the blogosphere's fantastic, and there are lots of great things to say about it. But there's a small amount of the blogosphere invested in attacking companies, sometimes with intentionally false information, and ruining people's lives. It's very, very hard to deal with them. Some companies now really live in fear of the blogosphere; they spend a lot of time and money monitoring the blogs to try to stay ahead of it and try to respond to these things when they happen.

DYLAN: Steve, you're the PR guy here. You say, "Don't live in fear of the blogosphere. Manipulate it."

STEVE: It's human nature; you have positives and negatives in every society. You have people who want to do good and people who want to do bad. Mike Kaltschnee from Hacking Netflix is somebody who wants to do good. The bloggers we have blogging for Vespa, under the auspices of Vespa at VespaBlogs.com, are doing good.

DYLAN: That's good but this conversation is about those who are the evil-doers, the liars, the hackers of this world.

STEVE: Blown out of proportion, Dylan. Blown out of proportion.

DYLAN: That's fair, but let's talk to Mike. He is a blogger out there. Mike, what inspires you to do a complimentary blog about a company like Netflix?

MIKE: I think people blog about what they are passionate about. People are interested in Netflix. I get about 100,000 people every month coming to my site, looking for news, information, customer support issues, basically anything they can find about the company. They are very passionate and very loyal about Netflix.

DYLAN: And Neil, as a principal at Netflix, how do you feel about someone out there who is obviously very well-informed about your company ... but you have no actual control over what he says or does?

NEIL: He's extremely well-informed; in fact, we find that the comments posted on Mike's blog and other similar blogs are extremely useful for us to help keep a pulse on what people are saying and thinking out there. And like any other communications channel that brings in a lot of customer input, there's going to be a lot of good stuff and there's going to be some fringe stuff ... You have to figure out which is which, and which to ignore. But in general we find it a great channel.

STEVE: Dylan, part of the problem here is the companies aren't listening and responding to the people who have complaints. So maybe if they actually used it as a customer service channel, listened to what is actually being said in the blogosphere and then didn't just sit on the information but did something with it, then maybe there wouldn't be this backlash.

DYLAN: Is that what you found, Dan? Maybe the problem is the companies are unresponsive and so they set themselves up for it?

DAN: Actually, that's a really good point, because what we've found is that a lot of companies are almost asleep at the switch. I spent some time talking with one of the top PR guys at Microsoft, and he said, "Look, we've been very aware of the risks of the blogosphere for a long time. We spend every day, all of the PR people get up and monitor the blogosphere in addition to the mainstream media now, to make sure nothing bad or nothing false is being spread about us. The potential for brand damage from the blogosphere is really, really high, and most companies are focusing only on how to exploit the blogosphere to spread their PR message, to get their marketing hype out, which is great and the blogosphere is a great vehicle for that. His argument is, you also have to be aware of the potential for brand damage and try to be on top of that. He calls it the four-hour rule; when something gets out in the blogosphere, he says he's got four hours to get on that and address it and put the truth out ahead of it.

STEVE: You know what, I actually think that people are not taking the steps to be proactive here and empowering the bloggers. No one here is thinking, "What are the blogger's motivations? Why is Mike Kaltschnee spending his free time blogging about Netflix, because he loves it? Why are people complaining? What's their motivation and how do we address those motivations?" We've got to treat these people like people.

DYLAN: Thank you all.

Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Forbes

It's OK to be cynical; it's just difficult to be cynical toward others and generous toward others at the same time.

Does anyone believe the rock-charity send-up "Do They Know It's Hallowe'en?" -- featuring performances by Beck and other top artists -- was conceived to help people?

I don't.

I think it was created to project the hipper-than-thou cleverness of the artists involved, as this New York Times article makes amply clear. The fact that proceeds go to Unicef is an afterthought.

One of the most important things that good public relations practitioners do is work with clients to determine their goals and what they are trying to accomplish. If this project had come from a sincere place to begin with, and if the objective had truly been to help people, the stars involved could have produced a song that raised far more than the $10,000 to $20,000 expected here.

Maybe I'll write a more honest charity song for these artists: "How Can I Help Dying Children and Still Look Cool?"

I love Beck, btw; I just find this an unfortunate use of his talents. Here's the video, if you'd like to watch it.

From the Los Angeles Times:

Paramount Pictures has begun removing billboards promoting 50 Cent's upcoming film "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " near schools after community activists complained that the signs promoted gun violence.

The billboards for the semiautobiographical film show the rap star -- whose real name is Curtis Jackson -- with his back to the viewer, holding a gun in one hand and a microphone in the other. The film, which opens Nov. 9, tells the story of a gangster drug dealer who abandons crime to become a musician.

But both message and the messenger were unwelcome when the billboards went up too close to area schools...

Paramount was mum on the subject Friday, but one studio official, who asked not to be named, said: "We reevaluated those signs. Some of them came down Wednesday, some on Thursday and some [Friday]."

Asked how many of the signs were coming down, he said, "We're not going into specifics."

"I do appreciate it," the rapper told Reuters in an interview on Friday. "They are talking about it on media outlets I didn't have plans to market the movie to. They are helping me out."

Well, kind of. Check out a brilliant ad and the story behind it here. It makes the creative teams behind most beer commercials look like chimps.

Don't look now, but CNN thinks "miered" may be the new "borked." (Via Nicole Stockdale.)

Technorati tags: Journalism, Harriet Miers

The Seattle Times editorial page today bashed the New Times-Village Voice merger as the next step in "the dangerous march toward monolithic media."

This shouldn't come as too much of a surprise, since the Times is a holdout from the days of family-owned, single-property newspaper companies -- companies that, with few exceptions, have been snapped up by conglomerates in the past 25 years (or become conglomerates themselves).

What I found interesting is the peg the Times used for condemning the merger: the wording of the announcement news release, which touted the combined companies' " portfolio of newspapers and online assets."

Sniffed the Times: "Readers are ill-served when newspapers cease to be viewed as newspapers but as assets in a portfolio."

As I've advised before, in today's transparent, Web-enabled world, news releases now have to be written with the assumption that everyone will read them -- not just the financial and business media.

Slowly but surely, companies are learning this. Before the late '90s, CEOs routinely communicated to their Wall Street investors (through news releases as well as conference calls) in a very different way than they spoke to employees and customers. A layoff, for example, is often a positive for a company's stock price, while it's obviously anything but positive for employees. And investors love to hear that a company's products are earning higher margins than those of the competition; but a customer might see or hear the same message and think, "I'm getting ripped off!"

Corporate communicators have worked to close this gap. But mistakes still happen.

In this case, given concerns that the New Times-Village Voice merger ran counter to the anti-establishment legacy of alternative journalism, less corporatespeak would have been a plus.

The blogosphere is vast and unwieldy. Humans, as a rule, hate vast and unwieldy -- which is why we attempt to neatly order and explain everything we do. Whether you're a scientist using a telescope or a preacher using the Good Book, it's the same impulse.

Naturally, then, the measurement of the blogosphere is a huge priority for the universe of bloggers. People want to know their place ... where they fit in ... what it all means.

Just as humans desire to know whether their prayers are truly heard, they also wonder if all this typing, linking and jacking around with Blogger and TypePad is truly worth it.

And so they turn to either the science or religion -- depending on your perspective -- of Technorati.

What exactly is Technorati, and what does it do?

According to the San Francisco-based company, it is "the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs." It is "currently tracking 20.2 million sites and 1.6 billion links." It is "a real-time search engine that keeps track of what is going on in the blogosphere."

But, according to Sacred Cow Dung, it is "a blind man" -- as in the Buddhist parable, The Blind Men and the Elephant. Just as a blind man may touch the trunk of an elephant and believe it is a plough, so Technorati may provide accurate data but not a true picture of the blogosphere.

In the SCD blog's meta-analysis, "Measuring The ACTUAL Blogosphere Part 1," Chris Mayaud offers a comprehensive breakdown of Technorati's strengths and weaknesses. Among his conclusions:

If we use Technorati's current estimate ... 95% of the total number of blogs out there HAVE NO LINKS LINKING BACK TO THEM. Therefore, Technorati Link Analysis only works for the top 5% that actually have links and is rendered useless to measure 95% of the blogosphere.

If you are just starting out and want your blog to move into the top 5% of the blogosphere (according to Technorati Rankings) -- just go to blogger.com and create one "dummy" blog with one link to your blog and that single link is worth over 18 million in rank and drives you into the top 5% of all blogs.

As of 10/7/05,the total number of blogs "measured" by Technorati = 18,900,000

- Less than 450 blogs have over 1000 blogs linking to them = 0.002 %
- Less than 15,000 blogs have over 100 blogs linking to them = 0.08 %
- Less than 180,000 blogs have over 10 blogs linking to them = 1 %
- Less than 800,000 blogs have at least 1 blog linking to them = 4 %
- Over 18,000,000 blogs have 0 blogs linking to them = 95%

In other words, using link analysis, Technorati can only "rank" among the top 5% of all blogs and -- judging from their data -- their methodology starts to fall apart pretty quickly after the top 0.1%. This makes sense since the relative value of a link depends on where you are in the curve.

- For the Technorati 10, it takes thousands of links to move one place in rank.
- For the Technorati 100, it take hundreds of links to move one place in rank
- At 50,000, one link is worth over 2,000
- and your first link is worth over 18 million.

Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog writes:

A manager at Sun asked me this question in a recent con call: "If you could change only one thing about our courses, what would make the biggest difference?" That's just cruel. One?

My answer was, "cut the content in half but keep the course duration the same."

In that spirit, I tried to force myself to come up with more "someone is holding a gun to your head and telling you to pick just one thing to make a difference" answers.

From MediaPost:

MSN HAS BECOME THE LATEST large Internet player to attempt to make the contents of books searchable online. The company this week announced that it had joined the Open Content Alliance in preparation for the launch of its own book search next year.

Rival company Yahoo! earlier this month said it had embarked on a similar initiative. Both are following in the footsteps of Google, which started scanning in books from libraries and universities last year.

The Google initiative proved controversial with publishers, who claim that scanning and posting portions of books potentially violates copyright law. Google allows copyright holders to opt-out of the index, which prevents the books from being searchable--and this summer, Google suspended a portion of its book scanning program until November. Still, Google currently faces copyright infringement lawsuits by the Author's Guild and the Association of American Publishers.

MSN is hoping to avoid similar problems by only targeting works in the public domain or uncopyrighted material. The company said in a statement that it would respect all copyrights and work with rights holders to agree upon protections for copyrights.

Mike Manuel of Media Guerrilla notes that journalists nearly always blame PR departments/agencies when their employers/clients get embarrassed by the blogosphere. It should be an obvious point by now, but it's worth repeating: we own this space.

There's even a name for it, folks: Blog Relations. Get on top of it -- or get buried by it.

Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing

Media Orchard stumbled upon an interesting site called Top 10 Sources, which ranks and publishes what it considers the top newsfeeds in various categories.

Here's the site's Top 10 in the "media" category:

New Media Musings
Joi Ito's Moblog
Romenesko
E-Media Tidbits
Micro Persuasion
BuzzMachine
CyberJournalist.net
I Want Media
The New York Times
paidContent.org

(Media Orchard would like to point out that we do occasionally publish rankings that don't actually include Media Orchard. But we're bitter about it.)

I'm not big on conspiracy theories (I live in Dallas and still believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone), but this one's fun so I thought I'd share it.

Conservative blog-goddess Michelle Malkin and others suspect that USA Today intentionally altered an AP photo of Condoleezza Rice to make her look demonic.

See the original AP photo at top, and what USA Today published beneath it.

After the blogger uproar, USA Today removed the image from its Web site. "USAToday.com, like other news organizations, often adjusts photos for sharpness and brightness to optimize appearance," a spokesman told Editor & Publisher.

Personally, I think it was unintentional. And I say this even though I can offer the following relevant anecdote:

In college, a friend of mine ran for student council. During the campaign, he coaxed a photographer at the school paper into running an unflattering picture of his opponent. He ended up winning the race.

So I know shenanigans can happen; I just don't think they happened here.

(Via Romenesko.)

Labels: Michelle Malkin

Perhaps someone can illuminate.

According to the Yahoo! Buzz Index, the top search among musical acts is Britney Spears, followed by Black Eyed Peas, Green Day and other well-known performers.

But according to Technorati -- which bills itself as "the authority on what's going on in the world of weblogs" and now tracks more than 20 million blogs -- interests are a little different in the blog world.

Britney rarely, if ever, ranks in the top Technorati searches. In fact, Technorati's consistent winner among musical acts, at least for the past several days, is a duo most people have never heard of: Prussian Blue.

Prussian Blue -- the Olsen-twin lookalikes who have a new album out, and also happen to espouse "racialist" views. Prussian Blue was the topic of a segment on ABC's Primetime recently, but otherwise has been a blip on the musical radar.

I guess the simple explanation is that blogs are more political and opinionated in nature, and people have stronger views on Prussian Blue than Britney Spears. (As you would expect, most blogs condemn the pair, as you can read here, here, here and here.)

Still, I'm fascinated by the disparity.

Technorati tags: Prussian Blue, SEO, Marketing

Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek's Blogspotting discusses how Edelman has helped Wal-Mart use blogs and blog relations to improve its public image, beginning with the storyline it placed with conservative bloggers after Hurricane Katrina that later hit the mainstream media: "Government doesn't work, Wal-Mart does."

The Wal-Mart revelation may make some bloggers and blog readers feel manipulated. But, like professional journalists, bloggers have ultimate control over what they publish.

As I've pointed out again and again, the "news" is not some pure, objective truth on stone tablets. It is an imperfect product created through imperfect processes, where often the loudest voice -- inside or outside the news organization -- gets disproportionate attention.

The media (and that now includes blogs) have always been a "squeaky wheel gets the grease" business, and PR firms like Edelman -- and Idea Grove -- squeak for a living. That's our job.

I do have one question about Stephen's report; it mentions that conservative blogger Mike Krempasky is now on Edelman's payroll, and that he helped promote the Wal-Mart story. I don't read Mike's blog(s), so I'll assume he's been transparent with his readers and fellow bloggers.

The blogosphere does not need its own Armstrong Williams scandal.

(Unsurprisingly, some Democrats are not fans of Mike, btw.)

Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Wal-Mart

Perhaps you are aware that People made a boo-boo with an alleged photo of Jen and Vince that actually featured Jen's stand-in.

The New York Daily News' coverage of the snafu annoyed People's managing editor, who complained to the News' editorial director.

Which is where today's story, reported gloatingly in the New York Post, picks up:

"Lloyd Grove is a [bleep]ing idiot. His page is stupid." Those were the stinging words in an e-mail sent Friday by the Daily News columnist's boss, deputy publisher and editorial director Martin Dunn, who was replying to a complaint from People magazine managing editor Larry Hackett.

Hackett, who worked at the News for many years and is good friends with Dunn, was ticked over a report in Grove's column that People had to stop the presses last week because a cover photo supposedly of Jennifer Aniston was really her stand-in. A source told us: "In a management faux pas, Dunn, who wanted to forward Hackett's original e-mail [complaint] to Grove, forwarded his unpleasant response as well. Imagine reading those words about yourself from your boss."

Dunn denied he copied Grove by accident, but claimed he didn't really mean what he said about him. "I was trying to convince Larry I was really mad at Lloyd. It was duplicitous diplomacy," he says. Hackett declined to comment. Grove told us: "We all have our bad days. I consider Martin to be a friend of mine and he has expressed his regret to me over the whole thing."

Yes, I know SAVVIS has bigger problems at the moment. But since the company is all over the news, I've noticed it has a brand-identity issue as well.

Specifically, the company's style for its name in text is "SAVVIS," which is consistent with its all-caps logo treatment. But journalists refer to the company as "Savvis" -- because according to AP style, all-caps is used only if each letter is pronounced as a separate letter (e.g., IBM).

As I've advised before (see "Where Journalists and Marketers Collide, #324: Capitalization of Brand Names"), companies generally are better off with a straightforward approach to capitalization in branding -- one that is consistent across the board and that jibes with AP style.

The value in this approach is that it makes it much easier to uphold brand standards -- not only with the media, but with employees, business partners, and customers as well.

Inconsistencies, by contrast, can diminish a brand's impact.

SAVVIS provides a perfect example. The company signed a $70 million deal with the owner of the St. Louis Blues for naming rights to the Blues' arena. But the Blues' Web site and all its materials refer to the arena as the "Savvis Center."

If I'm paying that much money for naming rights, don't I want the treatment of the name to be consistent? Answer: Yes.

On a secondary note, I noticed the company is sometimes referred to as SAVVIS and sometimes as SAVVIS Communications. Turns out the name was changed from the latter to the former in May -- another reason to keep things simple in the first place.

Technorati tags: Journalism, PR, Public Relations, Marketing, Savvis, Branding

Every few days, I receive one of those "very official" direct mail letters that makes a credit card, loan or time-share pitch look like it's from the IRS or other government agency.

The Direct Marketing Association considers such pitches unethical. It asserts on its Web site that marketers should avoid "official-looking seals and logos (that) create the misimpression that the mailing is in reference to a matter concerning a government entity."

Nonetheless, it's a common tactic -- and a double-edged sword for those who use it. While the approach tricks people into opening the envelope, recipients are often turned off by the implicit deception.

I received one of these letters today and got a kick out of it. I especially liked the official-ese under the seal at the top of the correspondence:

"MAIN OFFICE FOR THE ISSUANCE OF ACTUAL DOCUMENTATION."

As an added boost of credibility, "ACTUAL DOCUMENTS" is stamped in the upper left-hand corner and "MATTER KNOWN" in the upper right-hand corner. (Not very specific -- would that "matter" be solid, liquid or gas?)

It's all pretty fancy for a car dealership.

I'm thinking about calling Media Orchard the "Main Office for the Issuance of Actual Main Office Issuances." What do you think?

Technorati tags: Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, Marketing

Hurricane Wilma caused the cancellation of the 2005 PRSA conference in Miami. Kevin Dugan has an interesting idea: instead of waiting till the 2006 conference in Salt Lake City to get together, why not have an online conference, a la Global PR Blog Week 2.0?

As someone who's managed large conferences before, I realize it's an apples-and-oranges alternative logistically -- but it merits consideration.

Technorati tags: PR, Public Relations, Marketing

Two people you probably don't want to be right now are Elizabeth Corse and Carter Cromley, who handle investor and media relations, respectively, for SAVVIS Communications.

You know, SAVVIS Communications -- the company that got hit with a lawsuit by American Express after the company's CEO refused to pay a $241,000 tab for one night at Scores, the New York strip club made famous by Howard Stern.

I'm no mathematician, but by my informal calculations, $241,000 is enough to get lap-danced to the moon and back.

On Monday, SAVVIS announced that CEO Robert McCormick would be placed on indefinite unpaid leave while the St. Louis-based company (NASDAQ: SVVS) investigated. Here's the SAVVIS news release and a New York Daily News story. Reports the Daily News:

McCormick, whose photo appeared on the front page of the Daily News next to the headline "Lap Dunce," insisted he and three business acquaintances spent a mere $20,000 at Scores on Oct. 22, 2003.

But the strip club's officials said he grossly miscalculated.

AmEx claimed in a lawsuit that it has documents signed by McCormick indicating the titillating tab was legitimate.

McCormick allegedly took over Scores' mirror-lined President's Club and ordered 10 exotic dancers at a time to lavish him with attention for $4,000 an hour, a club source said.

When the hour was up, McCormick demanded, "I need 10 more," the source said.

Kudos to Michael Levine, Los Angeles public relations exec and author of Broken Windows, Broken Business, for his L.A. Times op-ed criticizing the American Society of Magazine Editors. Levine writes:

Apparently, the American Society of Magazine Editors has a considerably lower opinion of magazine readers (and, for that matter, magazine editors) than one might expect.

The organization's latest guidelines, issued last week, are intended, in part, to dissuade magazines from printing advertising that could be confused with editorial content. It seems that too many Americans are dazzled by glossy ads and coerced into believing that they are, in fact, magazine copy...

The ASME acted after the Aug. 22 issue of the New Yorker included only ads for Target, with myriad artworks featuring the company's logo throughout the magazine. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the "ASME found the New Yorker was in technical violation of its guidelines" and required "that an issue sponsored by a single advertiser include a note from the publisher or editor saying as much."

If readers of the erudite New Yorker can't be counted on to recognize advertising when they see it, what hope is there for readers of Us Weekly, the National Enquirer or -- Lord help us! -- Teen People?

New Times, Phoenix-based owner of the Dallas Observer and a string of other alternative weeklies, has purchased Village Voice Media. Here's Howard Kurtz's take on the deal, headlined "The Village Voice's No-Alternative News: Corporate Takeover