The PR advice in the New York Times I read really is horrid. - Robert Scoble

It's amazing how bad most tech companies do when it comes to PR. By the way, I laid out the best advice I ever gave on this topic back in 2003: http://scoble.weblogs.com/2003... what did I say there? Talk to the grassroots first. That is why I use Twitter and FriendFeed. That's where the grassroots are. - Robert Scoble

I deal with this every day when I talk to NY firms. It's frustrating that they think they only way to get through to people is either cute videos or TV ads. Why don't we just ASK our customers what they want? - Tyler Hurst

Great write-up. Surprised that you mentioned Techcrunch over Mashable. In fact, you didn't mention Mashable at all..! Any particular reasons for that? - K N Ajit Narayan

KN Mashable isn't nearly as influential as Techcrunch is, most of my friends don't mention it. Mashable is switching to a Twitter news network, too, which makes them influential on Twitter, but not overall. Mike really has owned the tech news space and continues to do so. - Robert Scoble

K N: also, note, I was riffing off of the New York Times article that mentioned TechCrunch and not Mashable. There's a reason for that. - Robert Scoble

Robert, also keep in mind that most of your friends are in Silicon Valley. Mashable is very talked about on the East Coast. I think it's definitely worth considering, personally. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: exactly. Notice that Brooke Hammerling lives in New York. Even SHE doesn't talk about Mashable. - Robert Scoble

Robert, good point - regardless, people always end up looking to Silicon Valley for their news. - Jesse Stay

Isn't this more general than PR? The main point, as I got it, was about cynicism. Isn't any communication of opinion, whether cynical or not, contributing to the multi-faceted picture that people get of ... well, anything that we want to hear about? - John W Lewis

Jesse: I thought Pete Cashmore even moved to SF to cover Silly Valley more. - Robert Scoble

Robert, I agree that TechCrunch is more influential but Mashable has been coming on strong. Look at this comparison on Compete.com http://siteanalytics.compete.com/mashabl... - Mike Doeff

John: yes. - Robert Scoble

BTW Robert, welcome to the UK! Hope to see you tomorrow. - John W Lewis

Mike: traffic does NOT equal influence. I can have more influence than you have by having just one reader. Think about it. If Obama read me and you had 1000 "normal" readers, who has more influence? - Robert Scoble

Robert, is he in Silicon Valley now? Interesting. Sounds like he needs to be networking more then. - Jesse Stay

Jesse: I've watched both work. Mike digs for news more and is more tied into the VC infrastructure here, which gets him more news. - Robert Scoble

I know when I tried to talk to him I was practically ignored, even though it was about a common client. Not that it would have had any effect on influence. I've just had a better impression of Arrington, personally. - Jesse Stay

Robert, I agree that TC still has more influence but still, Arrington can't be happy about that trend line on Compete.com. - Mike Doeff

Mike: Mashable is outplaying Techcrunch on Twitter and Mashable is better at writing articles that get Google page rank, like reviews of lots of products. That doesn't equal news influence, but does get traffic. I also think Arrington also made a huge mistake deleting his FriendFeed account (FriendFeed is a top three traffic driver for me already). - Robert Scoble

Robert, why did Arrington delete his FriendFeed account? You are right about Mashable. On Twitter, one gets the impression that Mashable is more popular than Techcrunch. But that may not hold true elsewhere. - K N Ajit Narayan

K N: He got mad at the "mob" that formed here after his fight with Leo Laporte and deleted his account. Repeat after me, popularity does NOT equal influence. - Robert Scoble

Arrington like like a nice guy. Yes, popularity does NOT equal influence. LoL - K N Ajit Narayan

The chance that an individual will be sufficiently interested in something to pass it on and, thereby, create a mob effect depends on many factors (and, surely, these have been well studied?). Presumably, something must be significant, remarkable (literally), relevant, and so on. The source of the thing has an effect, I guess, in terms of credibility, reach, etc.. And for the original source, this is important in getting something started, rather than fizzling out. But once a PR story is "going" and has been confirmed or denied by a few well-known sources, the original source is likely to be less of a factor and those factors relating to content will dominate. Being cynical makes something more likely to be original and remarkable, but that is to be balanced against it possibly being insignificant and/pr irrelevant. - John W Lewis

Yeah, I always used to tell people they could get more great PR by going to parties at conferences (or better yet, throwing them) than they could get with a big expensive PR firm. When I was a big fancy magazine editor I would habitually filter out any incoming messages from big PR firms, since they were usually content-free at best, and BS-laden at worst. People who I met at parties had way better stories, rumors, and other intell for me than PR flacks! - Fred Davis

I used to work for a technology consulting firm. Many new client relationships originated from conversations with people in neighbouring seats on flights. We often suggested dropping the advertising and giving everyone a free trip once a month! - John W Lewis

John & Fred - yes and more yes. Talking to people is remarkably effective. Who knew? - Tyler Hurst

well I commented here http://scobleizer.com/2009... - Darren Stuart

The NY Times story was terribly unflattering. I can't blame Ms. Miller - some of the voices quoted were the antithesis of what I've aspired to be. If that's what she's experienced, we as a profession need to take a serious step back and re-evaluate our purpose. I was so peeved I spent my 4th trying to craft a reasonable response. (http://bit.ly/113wnu). So much for BBQs. - AllisonWagda

Hacks continue to paint flacks as they are. But that these flacks represent what is going on in the industry and the sea change afoot couldn't be farther from the truth. - andy

Robert - really didn't like how you generalized PR people in your article. Further, the reality is there are very few people in Silicon Valley at all who actually know anything about taking products to the real mainstream. Very, very few. - Jeremy Toeman

Let's not overgeneralize about Valley PR people then. There are plenty that know lots about taking products to the mainstream (Margit at Outcast being one of them). - andy from email

Outcast was the sole voice of reason quoted in that story. - AllisonWagda

Damn right. - andy

That article was PR for Brew and looks like it worked. It wasn't about PR. - Shahin Khan

Classic NY article on the goings-on in CA, completely missing the boat. Btw did anyone notice that most of the NYT Sunday was about California? Happy coincidence or something else? - anna sauce

Great article, Robert. - anna sauce

I disagree. Was definitely about Brew but also pretended to understand the new art and science of PR. - andy from email

You are right but it was Brew's agenda. No different than other pieces that cover a topic but sell a product. And who's to say that wasn't part of the strategy? (To be that bad.) That's giving too much credit probably. Of course it should have been a tweet and save me a bunch of time (and still annoy me!) - Shahin Khan

Would have been much better to have spent time on War & Peace - andy from email

I read that NYT article along with the Arrington's article, my jaws dropped at first, but I do get some of the pt. not 2 original post link: http://ff.im/4SVFw... I forgot to note, sounds so tongue and cheeky, doesn't it? - polou/indigo_bow

There's an issue that's not covered here, in Arrington's piece or the original NYTimes story, namely that just as PR firms have to change the way they work, tech companies have to adjust their expectations as well. A lot of companies are stuck in the mindset of the "Big Bang" launch, where you put out your news and suddenly you get tons of attention all at once. That's just not how the world operates anymore. Media, influentials (like Robert) and just plain folks all have lots of things competing for their time and attention. Companies need to accept that sustained awareness takes time to build, through lots of channels, with a clear message that's delivered consistently. There are very few overnight successes these days... - Kevin Pedraja