Tag Archives: Web 3.0

What’s in store for PR’s future, and how does it relate to Digital Advertising?

At the AdRevenue08 Conference on Friday November 14, I was able to catch up with PR executives from Horn Group. The following is my interview with Ben Billingsley, Managing Director (New York), and Martha Feingold, Vice President and Media Director (San Francisco).

Corbis

Marissa Louie: At the first conference panel, I asked the leading ad network executives what they thought was in store over the next 5-10 years for the online advertising industry. The consensus was that there would be a trend towards media becoming more addressable and efficient. In that light, what do you think is the future of PR as it relates to digital advertising?

Martha Feingold: If you look at it from a micro perspective, the PR landscape changes every 6 to 12 months. Over the next 5-10 years, we’ll tackle how to blend into the conversation. We’ll tackle how to help companies communicate.

Ben Billingsley: As all media becomes social, we’re going to have to change from being information gatekeepers to becoming information brokers. As more media becomes digital, media becomes more quantifiable.

ML: How have you seen PR change recently?

BB: PR no longer stands for Public Relations. It now stands for Public Relationships. Still, the objective is the influence opinions and engage in conversations.

ML: How do you capitalize on the Web 3.0 (Semantic Web / Intelligent Web), and tie it into your PR efforts? As PR is so much about communication.

BB: This is a question we’ll tackle and stay on top of as the new technology is rolled out.

MF: Everything has evolved so much over the past 2 years that we’re really just keeping up with that.

ML: At the conference, I pointed out that data collection and management is essential for digital advertising strategies. How do you take advantage of data collection and management in PR?

MF: PR 2.0 is about managing customer relationships and data trends. PR is continuing to find ways to manage those two modalities. I agree that data collection and management is becoming increasingly important.

ML: Why are data collection and management important to you?

BB: It gives you a share of voice. In a digital world, the ability to think analytically is very important.

ML: Which tools do you use for data tracking?

BB: We use Omniture and Google Analytics as our basic tools to measure influence, plus a few other additional niche tools for data collection. We’re also using various different tools to manage.

ML: Which metrics do you use? What matters most?

MF: It’s much easier to figure out the reach of traditional media than the reach of social media. Essentially, the formula for calculating reach is:
Reach = (how many times you were mentioned) * (audience reach of the media, i.e. subscription base)

BB: It’s about thinking about your business strategy and mapping it back to your PR strategy. Develop communications to map between them.

ML: What do you think of the AdRevenue08 conference today? What objectives did it accomplish?

BB: It helped create thought leadership, incorporated the ad optimization category, and helped define the current online advertising ecosystem.

MF: I think there was a lot of concern in the economy with online advertising and what’s going to happen in the first half of next year. It clarified the difference between different players in the online ad industry. Overall, I think the industry is going to continue to head in a positive direction after a few bumps in the road.

ML: Thanks, guys!

NOTE: For more on the future of PR and communications, I also recommend reading PR 2.0 by Brian Solis of FutureWorks PR. Check out his innovative formula that calculates the allocation of resources (time, personnel, budget) to conversations in The Essential Guide to Social Media. He also defines action items for leading companies into future of integrated communications in The Social Media Manifesto.

Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of AD Village (http://ad-village.com) which helps bloggers monetize and advertisers optimize. Her previous entries include The Wheels of Viral Marketing, 10 Types of Ad Targeting, and 10+ Funniest Angel and VC Blog Posts. She also announces Entrepreneur 2 Entrepreneur office hours via Twitter.

by Michelle Lentz

Without a press release in hand, I’m feeling slightly cautious about this. But VentureBeat – and just about everyone else – is reporting that Microsoft is purchasing semantic search engine Powerset for $100M+ in a deal that will be announced next month. TechCrunch, cautious after all the Yahoo!/ Microsoft waffling, I suppose, makes a point that the deal is not yet set in stone and could still fall through.

I wrote about PowerSet back in early May and I rather liked it. At the time, I called it the evolution of search and not a Google Killer. I still hesitate to call anything a Google Killer, but I do believe that Google needs to invest some more time and money into evolving their own search past keywords and into semantics. As the Web evolves, Google needs to come with it.

I think the possible purchase of PowerSet is a smart move for Microsoft. If you recall, PowerSet currently only searches Wikipedia with a detailed, contextual search. It takes a fair amount of microcomputing power for PowerSet to index a page. With Microsoft behind them, coming by that power might just get a little easier. If this deal goes through, I imagine one of two things could happen: PowerSet could get swallowed up and lost in the Microsoft behemoth. Alternatively, Microsoft could really work with PowerSet and use it to vastly improve Microsoft’s own search engine, which currently leaves a lot to be desired.

7/1/08 UPDATE: The deal was officially announced today. According to Powerset:

Powerset will continue to operate much as we currently do, working in the same building, with the same organizational structure, and with the same uniquely talented and growing team. We’ll continue to tackle the hardest problems in parsing, semantics, ranking, indexing, scalable computing, user experience and all of our other specialties. But now we’ll do it with the support of Microsoft and the vast resources of the entire Live Search team.

Now Powerset will have the money and resources and only have to fight the red tape and politics that come with a big company.

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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.