PubSub Sandbox

Moderator - David Parmet

Panelists

Bob Wyman, CTO and co-founder, PubSub.
Peter Hirschberg, Executive Vice President, Technorati.
Pete Blackshaw, CMO, Co-Founder, WOMMA, Intelliseek.
Andrew Bernstein, President & CEO, Cymfony Inc.

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Run down of Services

Tech - Beginning of Time - 17 months ago
+ Journalists v. Bloggers - They are getting along just fine
+ Sometimes the bloggers are leading the story

The present day - PR, Bloggers, and Brands

+ I’m hearing voices in my brands
+ People are talking, nothing is new
+ Control is so 20th Century
+ 34% want to be experts in their field
+ 63% see blogs as trustworthy
+ Content & community
+ Let the influential fashion bloggers blog
+ Add hcard to your address book

Cymphony

+ See convergence - focus on MSM
+ Build enterprise solutions.
+ Convergence between MSM and consumer generate media

Intelliseek

+ Help fortune 500 companies prime their ears to consumers.
+ Big idea on the Internet is listening to consumers.
+ Quantify blogging data and analyze and study influencers.
+ Blogs are becoming mirrors for everyday life.
+ Knowing earlier saves money

Bob Wyman

+ The best things they said, that’s what I was going to say!
+ Drastically different world out there.
+ Today, you can’t wait a week to get your press package
+ You need to be able to hear about new stuff the minute they say it.
+ Not just the Internet, but the way we do things
+ “Tell me whenever something happens on the web”
+ Address the PR/Marketing problem as if it were conversational
+ Responding to events is very important.

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Q&A

1) Audience - “Aren’t you guys Competitors”?
- Tech - there is some degree of overlap, the industry is so new.

2) Should we pay attention to Bloggers?

Intelliseek - “The CGM and blogspace is being craved. The vast majority of consumers have read blogs, they just don’t know it” - “It takes a while for CEOs to get this until they type in their brand into these engines. The answer is a big Yes!”

Cymphony - “You need to look at the industries…Health care is number 1 as far as what consumers are researching online…Huge growth in the way people are changing their purchasing habits”

3) Do you think bloggers know their power?

Tech - “Yes, they see the feedback…Bloggers organize by community…connects the users worldwide.”

Cymphony - “You’re going to see a lot more structure in blog posts”

Tech - “46.2% of bloggers are tagging their posts…is this about an event, a calendar item…it’s not just blogging…it’s the leading edge of sharing and being connected…it’s a powershare.”

4) Do you see companies changing as far as the market and response?

Cymphony - “I see our companies changing slowly…I think it’s still early for them.”

Intelliseek - “People never talk about their brand in a vacuum…responding to some type of marketing event…We know that upwards of negative can be immediately traced to call centers…managers are not being held accountable for external CGM….99% of company feeback forms rarely ask questions about influence…”

5) Social Justice organizations using blogs?

Cynphony - “We have a gov’t business with the federal agencies…”

Tech - “Political blogosphere is very active…on the left and the right…The left have meetup and the right has ‘come and have a pie’…it’s very similar…Who are talking about the US in Iran…positive and negative.”

PubSub - “We have a set of canned searches for government arena…the right is much better at doing analysis than the left and it’s unfortunate because I put myself on the left. The tools are more likely to be used by right wing organizations than left…If you’re on the left, please use these tools!”

6) Do your companies profit from fear?

PubSub - “The people don’t talk about fear…it helps them make their job to better…Sometimes they talk about fear…the fear is gone.”

Intelliseek - “We need to catalyze the apprehension into better marketing…remarkable transformation in companies once they take the cold shower of reality that they are not in the drivers seat.”

Tech - “Dark side and light side of the force…we need to get over it.”

Cympony - “In PR, you get paid by what you do…you shouldn’t get paid if you got 50 mentions…you should get paid for getting the word out…everyone has ‘kryptonite’ stamped on their forehead.”

7) What about Int’l governments?

PubSub - “The Canadian Prime Minister came to PubSub asking us to track mentions of him…these tools had a role in saving a government…the same things apply.”

Tech - “The fastest growing blogging community is the Chinese”