Calumny the Bunny

La La La, I can't hear you.

Shitty Watch Repair Shop Threatens Lawsuit Over Two-Star Yelp Review (Gawker)

This is yet another case of PR as Policy. Online retailers (or, in this case, physical retailers) have now had about 20 years to get used to this whole "internet" thing. And the one thing that might be a valuable lesson learned is that this internet thing is fairly unruly. Which makes sense since it's um, designed to be that way.

I've written often about how online marketing is some type of dystopian fantasy land where everything is great! I call it the PR Syndrome. Which sounds like it's gastrointestinal, but it's not.

My New Obsession

Shingy, the AOL freak previously mentioned here has spawned a fan video! It's too good not to watch his outrageously banal "statements" set to digital emo-tunes.

Congrats, Jonathan Mann!

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Sometimes, bad ideas need to be pointed out.

I am the first to stare when companies -- especially tech companies -- are caught publicly masturbating.

PR and Tech seem to have one of those long-term, romantic comedy film-like relationships. PR keeps telling Tech how wonderful it is and Tech just keeps believing it and then they go off on goofy shenanigans only to fall into each others arm come the night.

One of the first rules of PR is to "not believe your own bullshit." It's necessary to have a critical eye and to differentiate between boasts of "world-class game changers" and actual, fact-based journalism. Technology writing (I will not call it journalism) has this slightly insecure feel about it, seeing as it's been around in its current form for less than two decades. So, like any good PR whore, it resorts to elaborate schemes to garner serious attention that is otherwise undue.

Which is why I like ValleyWag so much.

In today's must-read post, they quote icky-geeky kinda-author/VC/schill MG Siegler as saying:

Stupid Robot

"I wouldn't rub Pace Picante-brand salsa on my asshole if my turds came out on fire."

I’m pretty sure that the agency handling the social media account for Campbell Soup Company didn’t expect that by automating their work that the result would be quite as hilarious.

I truly hate the words “social” and “media,” particularly when they are combined. It reminds me of the silly 90s when we called online communication “new media.” That phrase also made me frown. Did RCA call their new television sets “new media?” No. No, they didn’t.

You Need to Hire a Writer. Trust Me: Part II

in which our selfless protagonist explores meaning, deception and redemption.

Let’s just take a look at this:

Are you a “forward facing professional [sic]?” Sometimes during the day, I look forward, as in facing forward. Other times, especially when anxious, I might be backward-looking or “recursively-optimized.”

Let’s just break this down:

PR. O, Lord. PR.

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man

Thanks to Gawker, we've learned of a new high bar for PR scum. Evidently, Sarah Lockard blogger on "CEO" of AroundMainLine.com has pretty much declared that she is a PR whore and has no problem with that.

PR whore blogger, CEO, beggar Sarah Lockard

In exchange for feeding her family on Christmas Eve for free, she will actually write a blog post that 560 people will see. Damn.

I kind of admire her brazen self-promotion. It's a question, though, of who is really getting the PR value. Public Relations as a concept is pretty shaky on any normal day. Throw open the faucet on bloggers who have no concept of best practices and it goes to hell pretty damn quickly.

PR is Dead! Long Live PR!

We all know how little cred online review sites yield. New York has taken the issue up with a substantive investigation. Going undercover, agents posed as a local merchant who wanted to boost his online review ratings:

“The investigation revealed a web of deceit in which reviewers in Bangladesh, the Philippines and Eastern Europe produced, for as little as a dollar a rave, buckets of praise for places they had never seen in countries where they had never been.”

Deception has many facets, including denial: