1. C'mon Jason -- so when AOL ask me to cover them and has a PR team help out, do I ignore that because AOL didn't contact me personally? And if it's the AOL PR team, do I discount that because the AOL product manager didn't contact me directly? If you're doing something, do you personally oversee every single aspect of your marketing?

I don't care who asks me for coverage -- which is what the person above asked you for, not a link -- as long as the request is relevant.

If you think being alerted to this show is off-topic, fair game to ding for a PR message you didn't want. The "Hi, Jason" has a feel of you getting hit off a list rather than a personal request, so I could see some concern there. But then again, maybe you and your readers are interested in it. Don't dismiss the message because of who delivered it. Judge the message based on what it's telling you.

Posted at 2:31PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Danny Sullivan

2. I don't know Danny... as a blogger when PR people come begging for links I find it -icky/strange. This is my personal blog... I write about what I'm interested in.

If someone wants to show me something they write on their blog: "I wonder what calacanis.com thinks of this?" or they email me directly and ask.

I have no problem with someone sending me a link with something they've done... I like that. When a PR person writes a message like this I automatically discount it thinking the person who they represent is too lame to contact me directly.

90% of the time PR people are good at three things:

1. Annoying busy journalists
2. Confusing simple messages
3. Trying to get smart/cynical journalist to believe some crazy spin (which results in the bulk of the tension between the PR and press)

Don't get me wrong, I've met some great PR people in my day... in fact I work with a group now. However, good PR people are the exception, not the rule.

I've never sucribed to this tired old process where they make quasi-personal form letters to large groups of writers begging for coverage.

In terms of getting contacted by product managers directly from my company, AOL, I've been telling these folks that is the direction we need to go in.

If (when?) I'm running this place every product manager will have a blog and will communicate directly and honestly with the press, our users, and our partners. cut out the middleman.

Posted at 3:22PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Jason

3. Hi Jason, I am one of the owners of RedBoots. First, my apologies for offending you. Second, rest assured we will not contact you again, regardless of the news we are breaking for any client. I respectfully disagree with you that Marketing/PR folks should never reach out to Bloggers and I'm frankly a little shocked by that opinion. We've been doing this a long time and we've never had a Blogger ask us to stop contacting them. We take great pains to be transparent and to contact only when we think content is relevant (in fact, we reviewed our contact list just this morning and removed several Bloggers we weren't sure about). We do not "blast" cookie cutter messages, but we also don't try to feign more knowledge than we actually have about a Blogger's potential interest in the content we are working with. In short, we try very hard to do things right and I like to think that the lack of complaints thus far is a good sign. I guess there is a first time for everything. Again, my apologies for offending you.

Posted at 3:46PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Nan Dawkins

4. Jason, you claim that PR people are only good for "annoying busy journalists," among other things, but, I ask, what would prompt a seasoned journalist such as Jeff Jarvis to say:

"Remember that reporters do not tell you every story idea that came from a flack ? and so stories do start with PR pitches that I?ve often said if I ran a paper, I?d have flack-free days: Every story in today?s paper came from actual reporting! (It?d probably be a thin Saturday.)"

But, as a PR person, frankly, I would prefer a journalist or blogger research the information provided in my release and craft his or her own message.

And, finally, why so easily bothered by this?

Posted at 4:04PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Voice of Reason

5. Nan: It's not a disaster... it just feels fake when a PR sends stuff around. Your client should send these messages on a more personal basis, and you should teach them how.

Blogging is very personal and PR is very corporate--it's a bad combination.

If the person who made the video read my blog, emailed or IMed me and said "check out my vlog," and told me why they made the thing I might very well blog it.

PR folks should just start slamming the Techorati 100/500/etc... they should help their clients get in touch with like minded people.

Posted at 4:09PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Jason

6. It's funny because if you comment here, your link is added. If people are so desperate for links, why don't they just add a comment. I guess they are so busy email people that they never slow down to read the sites that they are emailing...

Posted at 4:13PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Sports Bettor

7. Sports, you hit it. Blogs are about participation, not message blasting. Now I'm going to go divulge my email so I can play that quiz!

urgh.

Posted at 4:41PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Victor Agreda, Jr.

8. Hmmm...I have to disagree, although I've been nagged to distraction by various PR folks, I do appreciate them taking the time to alert me to something that perhaps I wouldn't have caught wind of otherwise. They're just doing their job, is what I figure. That being said, I did want to drop-kick a pesky PR person last year from a certain UK job search engine...she emailed me FIVE TIMES A DAY. Then when I finally checked out the site, it was down. Ironic,poetic justice....

Posted at 6:06PM on Apr 7th 2006 by Wendy

9. The PR folks are not understanding blogging. I think for this issue in question, its an issue of authenticity and having that personal touch, especially when you reach out to fellow bloggers. Having the marketing team reach out to bloggers as part of a corporate process in a PR firm lacks the ethos of blogging. THe last thing we need is for the blogging concept to be polluted by old-school PR firms and manipulated for their conventional command-and-control communication techniques aimed to hoodwink the audiences of their messages.

Good for you, Jason, to have stuck to your guns. Fully behind this controversial move of yours.

Posted at 5:20AM on Apr 8th 2006 by Bjorn

10. Danny - it's different what you do with search engine watch than what Jason does with this blog. Think you are making an unfair comparison here.

Recently I received what appeared like a genuine comment in my blog for a new, cutting edge HDTV-related system. It came with contact information, including the phone number so I called the number and spoke to the rep. Never did approve the comment though because it sounded more like advertising to me than a comment (but it was on topic).

Anyway, the rep seemed like a good guy with an interesting and innovative product. I checked over the website and the man's credentials and everything seemed on the up and up, so I invited him onto our weekly live radio show. We promoted his appearance for a week beforehand.

The day of the show he was supposed to call in at 2:30pm PST and no call. So we called him -- and got an answering machine. He claims he tried to call us and got a busy signal. Our call logs showed he called more than an hour later from his scheduled appearance.

I called after the show and asked him: hey, what's up? He said he got busy. LOL! I then told him that both he and his company look like idiots for blowing off the show and he should call back another week. Haven't heard from him yet.

Great marketing, eh?

After talking to the guy, I noticed the same identical comment appeared again from him on my blog on a different entr. He was a comment spammer!

Moral of the story: it is hard these days to trust unsolicited marketing. I can see why Jason is concerned here and agree with him wholeheartedly. Just because AOL owns Weblogsinc doesn't mean his personal blog and email should be used as the unsolicited mail trough.

We do cold calling in one of our business and I continue to find that the best way to do it is to keep it real. Seems like that's all Jason is asking for here.

Posted at 10:37AM on Apr 8th 2006 by TDavid

11. Oh lawd!

These things seem to come in waves although I am noticing that it mostly happens after 'hiring' season. It's like they get a new crop of bushy eyed junior "communications" assistants that think that telling me to link to a new awesome political movie I've never seen is totally hot and cool for me. WTF!?!?!

And there's the politicians. I wrote a letter to "Mr. Fundraiser" for very similar reasons. Don't get me started with political operatives.

To me it's easy. I am a writer. I've been a writer for over 20 years now. I've done from academic to corporate to technical and literary. As a writer i write about what I know. It's that simple. If I have not seen the movie, listened to the whole album or sat down with the candidate and followed their campaign, I just can't write about them like that! I don't come from the Nick Denton school of blogging. I ennjoy reading it at Defamer, but honestly, it's not what we are up to at my blogs.

I received an email today just like yours for a Fox film and a humoungously star-studded cast. We're not talking about indie filmmakers maxing out their credit cards while living on three-day old coffee and Goya beans. They know I hold a torch for them. We're talking about actors pulling in millions of buckos for just covering their doggy walters and pooper scooper expenses.

What does it take for a company like this to invite me to the critics screening? On my site you can find not only samples of my previous movie reviews (latest one being for A History of Violence) but, dang! I have my bio, my CV. Not doing it here in NYC? Then, duuuuude, if it's in Hell-A, just tell me and I can get a correspondent to report back.

I find it absolutely unprofessional from people in the movie and music business to ask me for a link without a screening or an advance album. When I have people in the publishing world contact me, they always say, here, have a book. If they are blog saavy they say, here, have a chapter and reblog it all you want PLUS read the book and review it. If they are gods they let me interview the author.

I have not gotten a PR god or goddess yet.

I had a PR person send me a link to 15 seconds of a Prince song. 15 SECONDS! They wanted me to give my impressions on a whole album based on 15 seconds of one song?

Say what?

My blogs have decent google rank. I assume that while doing their light research, they hit the first 100 sites and find me there.

I stress the word *light*.

They obviously know nothing about my qualifications, my blogging or my reviewing style. It's unprofessional and a complete turn-off.

So here's to you Jason. It seems like every once in a while these things bear repeating.

Cheers,
liza sabater
www.culturekitchen.com
www.dailygotham.com

Posted at 8:17PM on Apr 11th 2006 by Liza Sabater

12. Just to respond to TDavid: wouldn't it have been better for a PR 'pro' to have left the comment, provided the information and then worked as a conduit to facilitate a pre-interview and then the real thing - thus ensuring you got the interview you had been promised and were promoting so hard?

A 'flack's' job is to provide relevant information to influencers in a timely fashion. Does it matter who sends you the information or does getting the information matter more?

Surely you would rather have full disclosure, as in this case, than companies setting up ghost email accounts in the names of various product managers and pitching via these?

Posted at 4:06PM on Apr 17th 2006 by Ed Lee

13. I love this:

"Second, rest assured we will not contact you again, regardless of the news we are breaking for any client."

Posted at 5:08PM on Apr 17th 2006 by Sam Whitmore

14. Quite interesting words for PR

Posted at 11:25PM on May 30th 2006 by Viki

15. How would you recommend PR people communicate with you? This is a new world for us! We're used to the old days of sending a press release to the media but with bloggers, it's not always easy to find you guys or link with you in the way you would like.

Posted at 6:34PM on Nov 3rd 2007 by Mark Buzan