I’m starting to get fatigued from all the Michael Jackson coverage, but couldn’t resist being impressed by this post on the Loosewire blog about the online timing of MJ’s death reports and the gap between online media such as TMZ (who broke the news), and the mainstream media, who appeared flatfooted and trailed online news sources by over an hour in announcing Jackson’s death. The chronology of how the news broke online is fascinating, and he notes the difference in approach between online news sources and mainstream media:

It’s a strange new world where information travels this quickly. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing that traditional media tries to confirm stories the old fashioned way.

But the problem is the gap it leaves.

Jeremy further wrote that Twitter is the last piece of the puzzle, offering real time search for information that feeds the public’s need for information in a way that search engines (which still need to crawl the web) and traditional news sources cannot. This is a point my colleague David Patton (formerly of WSJ.Com) also made in this post, entitled “Search Engines Need to Get Into Real Time.”

Of course in spite of all the celebration of how online media is scooping mainstream media, there are instances when the web gets it wrong, sometimes deliberately.  Witness the number of reports about the supposed death of Jeff Goldblum, Harrison Ford and Natalie Portman, and most remarkably, the number of gullible people who believe them.

On the flip side of the coin there are the cynical ones such as celebrity blogger Perez Hilton who caught a firestorm when he thought Jackson faked his death. (“Perez Hilton’s Despicable Coverage of Michael Jackson’s Death”)

Strange new world indeed.

Many major newspapers, especially in the US, are closing down, going online exclusively, or entering Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The reasons for this challenging state of affairs are fairly well known, including:

• High Internet penetration and freely available news content online is causing a decline in overall print readership.
• Online is a more prevalent environment to break news than print, diverting valuable eyeballs.
• Drastic decline in advertising revenues since the economic downturn began.
• Many publishers are struggling with large debt loads they took on before the downturn. They can’t invest in talent or resources to improve their product as much as they used to.

A Twitter conversation with ex-colleague @r_c led me to ponder: could newspapers have done things differently to avoid what is happening now? Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher doesn’t think so:

I was asked recently, "what could the newspapers have done to survive this disruption?"

I answered: "nothing." Even if newspapers had done everything right: started blogging five years ago, offered free classified online advertising as Craigslist, etc. It would not have been enough to avoid the continued disruption of their business models.

This is an important point. What's happening to newspapers, and other media companies, is not a business cycle. It's not their fault. When an industry faces a disruptive trend there is nothing that can be done -- except a complete reinvention of your business. You can't just tweak a few things here or there.

I agree that if newspapers did nothing they would be “toast”, but many news organizations are transforming themselves in ways that may yet allow them to survive and even thrive.  In other words, a “complete reinvention” of their business is already ongoing.  But at the end of the process, whether they could still be defined as news organizations might be up for debate.

Then there are the news organizations that have modified their business model, but retained their original identity and modus operandi.

The Wall Street Journal Online’s success is an example.  In this guest post on Alan Mutter’s blog, Bill Grueskin, former managing editor of WSJ.Com, describes the paper’s (now prescient) insistence on charging for content and the payoff of 1.1 million paying subscribers today.  He also disputes some myths about how WSJ.Com achieved its unique success, such as expense accounts paying for subscriptions, high cost of acquisition, and business content slant. I found his ideas about what readers of a news site would pay for, especially intriguing:

How about a daily email that told them what traffic spots to avoid, or an authoritative reader-generated guide to the best and worst public schoolteachers? Or a regularly updated site that told readers how much and why local real estate listings had dropped or risen in the last few weeks, along with examples of how certain homeowners got appraisals lowered? Or innovative coverage of local government, providing sample bills every time property taxes go up and video clips of commission meetings intertwined with analysis and context? In other words, content that is truly of online, not just posted there.

So what can news organizations do to reinvent? 

• Go where the readers go. Readers went online because of the Internet, so newspapers went online too (but didn’t charge for content.) Today’s consumers are untethered and access the Internet on mobile platforms, so news must go mobile too.  But let’s not forget that nearly half of US adults still read at least one newspaper daily, so print is not going away soon. 
• Create new content to charge for and gradually lower investment in content you used to offer for free. Don’t ask readers to pay for content that was previously free. 
• Create content that cannot be easily disintermediated or devalued. (see above)
• Adapt to lower margins and reinvent the business accordingly. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was recently quoted as saying advertising revenues will not bounce back to pre-downturn levels, and that the global advertising economy has been “reset.” (Disclosure: MS is a client.) Food for thought: paying a roomful of editors and reporters is more expensive than managing a network of freelance journalists, or an amorphous community of citizen journalists.  Do you need an office building, or can you run a newspaper completely virtually?
• If it makes sense, going online exclusively is an option. When does it make sense? Questions to ask include: Are your content and readership global or local? How large is your print readership base, is it going away soon and can you successfully shift their access online? Can you open up and reach new audiences online? Going online can also make a lot of business sense from a finance perspective. According to this USA Today article:

Digital media evangelists say the future will be much different. About 85% of a newspaper's costs go to things such as presses, paper, ink and trucks. Without those costs, even modest ad sales could support lots of people to provide local news and information without charge.

Reinvention means actively tearing down existing practices and experimenting with new business models. We require nothing short of Innovation in Audience, Business, Content, and Delivery.

I also believe, in spite of the hand-wringing over how newspapers should reinvent their business in the face of disruptive technologies, that quality content will win out eventually.  The Economist’s rise in advertising revenue and readership, in spite of its perceived lack of digital savvy, is a great example. Read this excellent article in the Atlantic about why The Economist is succeeding. In particular the writer says:

The Economist has never had much digital savvy. It offered a complex mix of free and paid content (rarely a winning strategy) until two years ago and was so unprepared for the Internet that it couldn’t even secure theeconomist.com as its Web domain. (It later tried, unsuccessfully, to claim the URL.) Today, access to the site is free of charge, excepting deep archival material, but while editors have made some desultory efforts at adding social-networking features, most of the magazine’s readers seem to have no idea the site exists. While other publications whore themselves to Google, The Huffington Post, and the Drudge Report, almost no one links to The Economist. It sits primly apart from the orgy of link love elsewhere on the Web.

If the Economist, as a global “weekly newspaper”, can thrive and see advertising revenues rise by 25% in 2008, and if WSJ.Com can build a paying online subscriber base of 1.1 Million, then clearly there are ways to survive the disruption.  It would be a shame if the current decline continues, since newspapers are an essential part of modern society, especially as watchdogs. There’s even talk of government bailouts, which would certainly compromise the watchdog role. 

Thanks to WE colleague Tac Anderson who pointed to this John Dvorak piece about how Twitter is fundamentally flawed as a news source. Dvorak listed seven flaws with Twitter as a provider of news, including incompleteness, inaccuracy, vulnerability to hoaxers, lack of analysis, skewed priorities, and so on. 

I agree with Dvorak’s views because they refute the oft-held position that Twitter is an emerging news source. Most culpable are the media pundits who breathlessly trumpet Twitter as some form of new journalism.  Most Twitter content about current events is biased, immediate, partial, opinionated.  Sometimes they are firsthand or on-location, especially at the onset of an occurrence.  Its content creators are not vested in ensuring the accuracy of facts and usually do not fact-check.  Their personal opinions matter most and they are not shy about leading with them.  In other words, Twitter is as far away from time-honored journalistic principles as you can get. 

When it comes to conventional journalism a dose of healthy skepticism and broader understanding of the writer’s context and slant is important, whether you’re reading the New York Times or the Straits Times. I doubt many intelligent consumers of reputable news sources regard every word as absolute truth.  Why should we expect the same of Twitter?

If taken for what it is—personal, in-the-moment impressions of an event that convey sense and color—Twitter has its place. 

There is an added bonus.

Due to the sheer number of personal opinions shared, sentiment measurement on Twitter is becoming a rising business nowadays. Twendz is a great tool in that regard. [Disclosure: Twendz was developed by my employer Waggener Edstrom.] I fully expect more such tools to be launched in the coming months.

After the coming wave of sentiment measurement tools such as Twendz abates, we will begin to see tools that predict future sentiment, or even outcomes, of events.  Twitter is a perfect incubator for experiments in the wisdom of crowds.  I can’t wait to see where this leads.

Received this in email today:

Hi David

Just a quick not to acknowledge you comments on Langham Hotels International ‘Big Deal’ campaign.

In case you haven’t seen our apology interview, you may want to take a look at the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzbXeMZ7kVY

The videos were wrong.  You were right to tell us so, and we’re sorry.

Best regards

Katie
KATIE MALONE
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
LANGHAM PLACE, MONGKOK, HONG KONG

GM Shawn Campbell portrayed the incident as  “disconnect”.  It was great to hear him say his company remains committed to using social media.  The timing of the Youtube apology is a bit late, but as the first step in a long term rehabilitation of Langham Hotel’s image it’s a solid start.

Last week I came across this post in the Dark Side Hong Kong blog about a Langham Hotel online video that I felt painted the city in a bad light.  It depicted a tourist leaving the Langham Hotel and roaming Kowloon in search of a meal, struggling to order at a local daipaidong (street food stall), being served rice porridge with a large chicken foot, and finally retreating to the hotel to munch on spring rolls in the comfort of the hotel’s restaurant. 

View the video on Youtube.

As a longtime Hong Kong resident I was disturbed by the depiction of my city as a backwards Chinese city, so I retweeted:

RT @TheDarkSideHK @ewc21 Langham Hotel viral video proves parodying street food not the way to promote a hotel. http://bit.ly/43csb
11:35 PM May 25th from web

Subsequently the videos were withdrawn as a result of the negative Twitter response from various people:

RT @TheDarkSideHK: A pretty ‘Big Deal’ indeed! Langham vids removed: http://bit.ly/8oHaM
3:46 PM May 26th from web

An article in Marketing Magazine quoted Langham Hotel explaining their reasons for pulling the campaign:

"While we're pleased that we've generated discussion in the forums with the videos we've created, we were disappointed that the satirical tone of the videos was misunderstood in some circles. As a result of the potential to magnify the tone in a direction that was not intended, we have decided not to continue with this campaign.”

I was displeased with the perceived lack of remorse, so I tweeted a response to Marketing Magazine:

@MarketingEds "Satirical nature?" I don't think Langham gets why their viral video is alienating people. http://bit.ly/Ok3MQ
9:12 PM May 26th from web

But here the story takes a bit of a personal turn.  Last night I had drinks with Douglas White, a business associate and friend who runs Prosperity Research and is fairly active in Hong Kong’s social media scene.  To my chagrin I found out that his company was behind Langham’s campaign.  A long conversation ensued, where I discovered that:

• The video I saw was the third in a series, and the fourth video was to be the payoff, where the tourist ventures out again and truly enjoys Hong Kong after her initial bout of xenophobia.
• Doug was clearly angered and hurt by the negative response, with some of the attacks becoming fairly personal.  In one Dark Side HK post the word “douchebag” was used. He was painted as a foreigner living in Hong Kong who did not appreciate or understand it.
• Doug wanted to respond online with a lot more detail, but was not allowed to do so by his client. 

There are some lessons here about social media campaigns that I think we can all learn from:

• The bulk of the work in a social media campaign occurs after you release your content into the wild.  Persistent listening and vigilant responding will help steer the message.  I liken it to floating a paper boat down a river; the real work starts when you release it, you have to follow along and make sure it gets to its desired destination.  Many marketers sit back and relax once their viral video, mini-site, DM, etc. is released.
• You cannot assume social media consumers have context.  They log in and out, catch discrete pieces of information and respond in kind.  Think first about creating viral content that is self-contained and includes all the context required, don’t break up the message for an eventual payoff.
• First impressions count.  Anticipate the fast twitch response and design your content as if that is the only reaction you will get. 
• Satire and humor are dangerous playmates.  Always test your content with a sample of the intended audience, not just the closed box of marketing team plus vendor.

In time we will forget about this.  I applaud Langham Hotel for their foray into digital marketing and hope this incident doesn’t scare them off future campaigns.  And I apologized to Doug.

Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending my colleague Melvin Yuan’s wedding in Singapore.  This was billed as Singapore’s first twedding, and there was even an article written about it in the Straits Times, the country’s main paper. 

Go here to view the actual Twitter feed of the wedding.  The most recent tweets are about the coverage itself, but if you scroll down far enough you’ll see the realtime tweets during the wedding.

Other pics are here, care of Calvin Siew, another colleague.

As a frequent flier with Cathay Pacific, and a shareholder, I’ve always been interested in Cathay Pacific’s management.  The entire aviation industry is going through a period of turmoil, but of course it is also these interesting times that prove the mettle of leaders. 

I recently attended a breakfast where the key speaker was Tony Tyler, Cathay’s CEO.  I enjoyed his presentation, significantly enhanced by his candor and willingness to be transparent about the challenges that Cathay Pacific is facing today.

Afterwards I wrote him a simple email expressing my appreciation, and to my surprise received a reply. This impressed because CEOs usually delegate such correspondence to their customer service or PR department.  The fact that Mr. Tyler took the time to personally reply speaks volumes about Cathay’s commitment and attention to customer satisfaction.

Cathay Pacific and its subsidiaries employ over 27,000 staff worldwide.

Here is another example of his personal attention to customers.

The email is here, posted with Tony’s permission.

---

From: Tony Tyler
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2009 3:00 PM
To: David Ko

Hi David,

Sorry for the slow reply, and many thanks for your kind comments.

As far as future fuel hedging strategy is concerned, here are some bullet points:

• We WILL continue to hedge!
• We'll attempt to manage both volatility (smoothing out the ups and downs) and sustainability (making sure we always have at least some supply at around our breakeven price or lower).
• We'll take care in future to limit our exposure to unexpected and extreme changes in prices by implementing "stop loss" provisions.

So that's the plan - but of course there's a cost to this, which looks high at the moment!

As far as the B787 goes, it will be a very good aircraft but possibly a bit small for CX.  It's really a replacement (greatly improved) for the B767, which we don't have.  Another very interesting aircraft for us will be the A350, which uses similar technology but is larger. 

We are also very unwilling to be early customers of ANY aircraft type, for various good reasons.  So far, experience of early customers of A380s and B787s has validated this view!

Best wishes

Tony

>>> David Ko <dko@waggeneredstrom.com> 08-05-2009 09:31 AM >>>

Mr. Tyler,

I wanted to drop you a quick note to let you know how much I enjoyed your presentation yesterday.

As a Diamond member and a shareholder, I had been pondering the future of Cathay Pacific recently and thus was gratified to hear your confidence in an eventual complete recovery, even if the timing is fuzzy (as it is for all of us.)

I was also hoping to hear more details about your future fuel hedging strategy, and your thoughts on purchase of fuel-efficient aircraft such as the Boeing 787.  We didn't get to that, but you covered a lot of other measures in place which is terrific.  While acquisition of other airlines is tough as you mentioned, I did wonder if you would consider acquisitions that relate to technology on board aircraft that improve the experience, for example companies that implement wireless broadband. 

There is no doubt that Cathay is one of the best-managed airlines in the world, owing in no small part to you, both in your current role as CEO, and previously as COO. 

I look forward to cheering you on as you continue in your current role and also as chairman of IATA.

Take care

Update (20 May):

Met a business associate for lunch today who read this post and automatically assumed I was making a business approach to Cathay Pacific.  Turns out I can't send emails to companies and blog about it afterwards without people thinking I’m trying to win a client.  Folks I do occasionally send emails to complete strangers because I like them, not because I want their business.  :-)

Yesterday’s Southern City Daily (南方都市報) carried an exposé on a rising segment of China’s booming digital PR industry, deletion of negative articles and postings.  According to the article (Chinese-only online version here), organizations or individuals claiming to be PR companies are offering to delete such negative content on request, asking for fees ranging from RMB10,000 ($1280) for major portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com, to RMB1,000 ($128) for local web sites. 

A reporter posing as a food company approached one of these firms and was able to have negative news specific to that company deleted within a day.  The entire transaction was done over the web, with upfront cash deposited into a bank account.  The article also said that the only kind of news these companies won’t touch is anything government-related.

How do they do it?

While some firms claim they employ hackers, practitioners of this dark craft say it’s just media relations.  Portals such as Sina.com and Sohu.com commonly carry news from mainstream news sources, so these PR firms simply ask their journalist friends in the media outlets to contact the portals and request the news items be taken down.  It’s that simple.  What’s unusual is the speed and efficiency that these firms can promise.

The article first appeared in “Legal Evening Daily” (法制晚報).

I recently wrote a letter to the editors of Media Magazine, a trade publication for the marketing industry owned by Haymarket.  This was in response to their 2008 PR Agency Report, which I felt portrayed Waggener Edstrom’s progress in Asia as somewhat lukewarm.  To be honest, I know for a fact, since the days when I owned and operated my own PR agency, that self-promotion did not come naturally to me, thus the fault for Media’ less-than-complete picture of WE in Asia is probably mine.

The letter they printed only included the factual parts, but I thought it would be interesting to show the original version I wrote. So here it is in its entirety:

Dear Editors,

Thank you for your inclusion of Waggener Edstrom in your 2008 PR Report. Your report highlighted a need for me to apologize personally, hence this letter.

First, a clarification on a few points you reported on:

• In 2008, as you rightly reported, we grew revenues by over 20% over 2007. 
• We grew our headcount by almost 30% during that time, including investments in our burgeoning China presence, as well as Studio D, our in-house digital communications division.
• We branched out beyond our technology roots, adding major retainer clients in the Corporate, Consumer and Healthcare practices. These range from DHL, The Jebsen Group, and Monster.com, to pure consumer plays such as Skagen Designs and Genki Sushi, and mixed consumer/B2B clients such as HP and National Geographic Channel. Many of these clients have come in during Q1 of 2009, in spite of the economic challenges.
• Within the short space of a year, we doubled the size of Studio D in Asia, and in the process winning major retainers and projects from the likes of HP.
• Despite client budget cuts of 15 to 20%, based on our new biz pipeline we expect to grow revenues in 2009 by 20% or more.
• In spite of the downturn we continue to hire aggressively, with vacancies today across the region ranging from account coordinator all the way up to account director and VP.

So what am I apologizing for? That we did not do a good enough job of telling our success story in 2008.  Quite frankly that has led to an inaccurate description of Waggener Edstrom in the report.

While our track record has been stellar last year, your comments led us to the realization that we need to be more active in sharing our vision as an agency.

While we've certainly been diligent in making announcements about our new business wins and major executive appointments, we have not done a thorough job of sharing our overall strategy with the market through prestigious trade media outlets such as Media Magazine.

Part of that is our culture; we've always been an agency that values telling our clients' stories over our own.

Our strategy in 2009 remains unchanged: we will continue to invest in our presence across Asia, develop our digital capabilities, focus on emerging markets, and broaden our client portfolio.  Our vision is to innovate the craft of PR, through creating our own intellectual property and investing in training and education for our people.  Digital communication is a major pillar of that.  In fact within Waggener Edstrom we have a broadly stated belief that digital will lead the way for our industry and only through constant innovation can we hope to stay ahead.

I would like to conclude with a commitment to you that we will spend more time and attention in 2009 to engage with trade media such as Media Magazine to tell our story better, and hope that you will continue to lend us your support within your pages. We may be young in Asia, having started only in 2001, but we are very bullish about our future here.

I would love the opportunity to sit down with you over lunch and deepen our engagement.

Respectfully yours

David

Here is Media’s printed version.

This doesn’t have anything to do with PR, it just made me realize what cynical people we’ve all become.  It’s rare to get a wake up call like this.

Watch Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent by clicking here.

UPDATE:

In the 12 hours since the post above Susan Boyle has become an Internet sensation, with over 10 million views on YouTube, and right this moment she is the top trending topic on Twitter. I have watched the video a few more times since last night and it never fails to touch me.

Here’s an eloquent post about the Susan Boyle phenomenon from the Seattle PI blog.

And a comment under that post that sheds more light on Susan’s life:

Hello My name is Ann and I come from just a few miles from Susans home. I'm in Edinburgh and she is in Blackburn which is a teeny wee village on the outskirts of Bathgate. Susan lived with her parents until she sadly lost her Mum 2 years ago. they never allowed her to have boyfriends and she was a good girl and listened to them whilst others, including me, would have rebelled.
She is the talk of EVERYWHERE right now. i hope she can handle her fame and that she has plenty people looking after her and her cat Pebbles.
Go Susan!!
Do it for us plain Jane Scots lassies :)

Received the Hudson Report for Q1 2009 in my inbox while I was on leave last week.  (Hudson is a recruiting agency.)

Across the region China continues to have the most positive business sentiment, but Hong Kong has become worse, with more employers planning to reduce headcount than increase it:

[Quoting from report summary]

• Hiring expectations have fallen again this quarter. In this survey of 612 executives across key business sectors, 14% plan to increase hiring in Quarter Two (Q2) 2009, compared with 18% in Q1 2009. The proportion forecasting reduced headcount has doubled, from 11% to 22% this quarter;
• Hiring expectations in Hong Kong are lower than in the other markets surveyed in Asia and are at their lowest since The Hudson Report started tracking the market in Q4 1998;
• Across all sectors, 51% of respondents have implemented initiatives to cut HR-related costs in the last six months;
• Headcount reduction and lower bonus payments are the most widely adopted cost-cutting measures;
• Employers are still using a range of channels to find candidates, with direct recruitment and recruitment consultancies being the most popular;
• Companies see open communication and CEO messages as the most effective ways of maintaining staff morale in tough economic conditions.

That last point is particularly critical; in tough times, communication from senior leadership needs to increase rather than decrease. 

I had the privilege recently of attending this year’s first annual committee meeting of CIPRA (China International Public Relations Association) on behalf of Waggener Edstrom.  In attendance were the leaders of almost all the major PR agencies in China, which also made it an opportunity to reconnect with a few old friends.

One of the most interesting parts of the proceedings was listening to the results of the 2008 PR agency survey, comprising responses from 90 agencies operating in China.  While the actual results will be announced later by CIPRA, I found some tidbits quite interesting, for example:

Business

• 61 agencies out of 90 have offices in two cities or more.  Beijing remains most dominant, with Shanghai second, and Guangzhou and Chengdu at third and fourth.
• The two largest sectors by market share were Automobile and Technology, at 15% and 14% respectively. Other sectors include FMCG (13%), Healthcare (8%), and Manufacturing (7%).
• Emerging sectors were Digital, PA, CSR/Corporate, and Event Marketing.  Olympics-related PR also accounted for a large slice of the market in 2008, understandably.

Staffing

• Women outnumber men in the industry, at around 70%. 
• Local agencies are by far the most numerous, as well as the largest.  The average number of staff in local agencies is 254, versus 125 for international firms. 

Digital

• Out of 90 agencies surveyed, 66 have established digital teams.  Since 2005, every year over 10 agencies report establishing a digital practice.
• Most common digital deliverables include: Strategic counsel, forum seeding, online news distribution, online features, blogger relations, online promotion, sentiment monitoring, SEO.

Outlook for 2009

• Only 37% of agencies surveyed rated 2009 prospects as “good”, versus 71% in the previous year’s survey.  Of the remainder, 38% say “average”, 20% say “not very good”, 2% say “bad”. 

Obviously digital is on everyone’s minds, with the emergence of mobile computing (3G etc.) being closely watched for how that can be used as a PR channel.

Remember the “Make Money Fast” spam that used to clutter your inbox? We’ve sniggered at the gullibility of Internet neophytes that believe you can make money at home doing nothing but sit in front of your computer.  In China, however, being an online “pusher” or a “hitter” can indeed bring in a steady income. 

According to an 26 March article in the Southern Weekend, “forum seeding”, or “BBS flooding” (“guan xui” in Mandarin) is big business nowadays. 

Internet personalities, some using their real names but most adopting alternate personas, specialize in the black art of fomenting active, often heated discussions about any particular topic. Many initially did it for their personal enjoyment, but in recent years some have become guns-for-hire employed by companies with products or a viewpoint to push, hence the name “pushers” (“tui shou”).  With one-off fees ranging up to several hundreds of thousands in renminbi for the most well-known pushers, their success has given rise to the guan xui industry, where housewives or students with time on their hands are hired to masquerade as ordinary users and flood forums with postings with an agenda.  Over time, remunerating such work has evolved to a fine art, with each posting earning its owner one cent or more (down from five cents during the early days).  More prominent postings command more money, especially those that generate lots of follow-on discussions.  For folks with nothing better to do than linger in Internet cafes, a steady income of several hundred renminbi per month is nothing to sneeze at.

The latest fad is “hitters” (“da shou”)--hired guns that intentionally post negative comments about their client’s competitors.  While some companies draw the line at hiring hitters, restricting their BBS flooding activities to just pushers, at the end of the day the difference is purely academic.

Many PR agencies in China, especially local boutiques, have started to offer forum seeding as a part of their digital service offerings. While the ethics are questionable, the profits are clear. 

If you can read Chinese, this article is well worth a read. 

Attended an Amcham luncheon last Thursday where Hank Greenberg, former CEO of AIG, was speaking. I also took the opportunity to live-tweet an event for the first time, but quickly realized you can’t tweet and listen simultaneously very well, especially with a smart phone.

I had lunch in Beijing today with one of our clients, an industry veteran of phenomenal intelligence who shared some interesting facts about Huiyuan that made me recall one thing Greenberg said at the luncheon, that Protectionism was one of the greatest threats facing our world economy today.  Huiyuan, you will recall, is the Chinese juice giant that Coca-Cola tried unsuccessfully to acquire.  The acquisition was blocked by China’s Ministry of Commerce, citing infringement of anti-monopoly law.

My client found this odd, when you consider that Huiyuan, while founded in China, is registered in the Cayman Islands, and partly owned by, among others, investors based in Israel.  His point was that we need to look at how we define the nationality of companies these days, and whether these definitions are even relevant, when shares of many publicly traded companies operating internationally are owned by a smorgasbord of international shareholders.  If a supposedly foreign company operates in your country, abides by your local laws, employs your people, and is owned by a mix of international shareholders including your countrymen, how really foreign are they? And is it fair to your own country’s economy to block their development?

In today’s globalized world economy, protectionism or xenophobia is not just anachronistic, it’s shortsighted and self-limiting.

I often get questions from folks about what’s the point of Twitter, often with a snigger about the inanity of broadcasting what you had for lunch or what movie you’re watching right this moment.  I must admit it took me a while to actually appreciate Twitter.

Twitter appeals to me personally because of the 140-character limit.  Perhaps because I am Asian and English is my second language, I’ve always lacked the patience to wade through long verbose emails or blog posts.  Tweets that contain links to noteworthy content are great, but so are tweets that encapsulate a single idea elegantly within the confines of 140 characters.  Under this enforced brevity, Twitter itself fulfils many functions.  It’s email (direct messages), blog, and discussion forum, all in digestible bites that allow numerous streams to be tracked. I can’t follow the RSS feeds of hundreds of blogs and still have a life, but with Twitter it’s a cinch.

However, there is a problem if you want to build up a steady following on Twitter but have very broad interests: you have to be focused in your subject matter. On Twellow, the “yellow pages” of Twitter, you’re only allowed to enter your Twitter account in 10 categories.  Commonly, any spread of discrete subject matter over three topics would be regarded as too broad.  I’ve seen people experiment with more than one Twitter account, but then you run into problems with software such as Tweetdeck, as each instance of the software only works with one account. Plus you can only run one instance at a time anyway.

Perhaps what would make Twitter even better would be allowing users to have different “personas”, so that, for example, you could have one Twitter persona for discussing social media, and another one for Asian food, all managed with the same email account.  Or you could have one persona for work, and one for family and friends.  For example, Facebook does customization well, with granular control that allows you to segment different parts of your profile for different friend lists.  Still, you can only have one Facebook newsfeed and it’s still either on or off. 

I wonder if this is an oft-requested feature on Twitter?