Early Wired editor Kevin Kelly supported Anderson, but some commenters pointed out that Wired publicist and ad reps are no strangers to spam, while others just considered it bad form to retaliate by exposing flacks' e-mails to real spammers.

Today Anderson dissected the reactions, but he skipped one consequence of his action: Publicity-hungry bottom-feeders now have a list of (hopefully) low-rent flacks.

(Photo by Aaron Tang/designverb)

From: Jill Nash Sent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 11:53 AM To: [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; [REDACTED]@yahoo-inc.com; Marta Nichols; Samuel J Wolff; Matt Rhodes; Cathy La Rocca; Allen Olivo; Peter Daboll; Nick Chavez Subject: Team update

All:

After eight years on the Corporate Communications team, Joanna Stevens has decided to open the next chapter of her life. Her last day on the team will be October 30th.

Her contributions to Yahoo! have been immeasurable - from spearheading major announcements to managing countless crises to helping to grow our team. She's worked closely with three generations of Yahoo! executive teams, providing valuable guidance on corporate communications strategies, messaging, and positioning. She's helped the company navigate through crises that ranged from unprecedented lawsuits to adult content to market rumors. Jo has also driven financial communications, played a major role in countless earnings announcements, stockholder meetings, annual reports, and Analyst Days. Jo also led the team through pivotal announcements and acquisitions, overseeing the communications strategy and execution for major finanical transactions, including Overture, Flickr, RightMedia, and Alibaba to name just a few.

Jo also helped reinforce the Yahoo! brand externally and internally in her work. She conceived of the Yahoo! Yodel Challenge, leading the tour across the country and turning Wiley Gustafson, our litigious yodeler, into an enthusiastic emcee. She also led the cross-functional team that engineered a memorable 10th Anniversary for Yahoos and users around the world. And, of course, Jo is to be thanked for the countless stories that you've never read about Yahoo!.

May Petry, who is also VP of PR for Connected Life, will step in as interim leader until Jo's replacement is found. I'd like to thank Jo for nearly eight years of dedication to Yahoo!. Please join me in wishing her all the best.

Jill

I sent this to Rose and Adelson (both of whom I've met; I'm a friend of Rose).

Great to hear about your decision re: HD-DVD. Writing yet another history of the situation. Would love to hear from you today about how you plan to keep Digg from getting shut down by DMCA takedowns, and how you plan to defend against any lawsuits.

Here's what I got back:

My name is Marcus Tolero and I'm with K/F Communications, P.R. Firm to Digg.com, in San Francisco. We understand that you want to conduct an interview with Jay Adelson, CEO of Digg.com.

Of course, the boring responsible thing is to go talk to Jay. (And I tried but haven't heard back. They must've discovered it was just a blogger.) That's also the rather pointless thing — Kevin was always the site's front man before, so why is Jay suddenly the best source?

Because Jay's the responsible one. Kevin's the one who posted an end-is-nigh blog entry saying "If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying." (Also, Kevin was in LA when this went down.) Apparently the PR firm decided Jay was the safer founder to front. And yes, he gave solid answers to all the outlets above. But there's something missing. Kevin Rose, who gives raw honest takes on Digg news every week on his show Diggnation, could give the same real, un-PR-approved answers here. And that's what Digg's handlers don't want.

And so everyone gets their interview with Jay. Of course, two hours after Fortune posted their interview, Wired posted their own and called it an "exclusive." Sorry Wired, but Jay's talking to everyone. Well, except me.

Remember, don't drink and drive. Drink and get a ride with the first PR cutie you find.

• The Big Flip You sold for $30 million! Take some of your $2 million cut and buy a round for everyone. Ingredients: 1 oz Absolut Mandrin, juice of 1/2 lime, 1/2 oz Triple Sec, 1/4 cup fruit punch
• The Bubble 2007 is the Year of the Pig. That's you, baby. Hey, pigs are intelligent animals. Ingredients: Champagne and Sterno. Add bitters.
• The Flack This one goes out to my pal Steve Kerns at Thursty Thursdays, the weekly roving PR drinkfest in San Francisco. It's the weekend starter for anyone tired of press releases and gladhanding — drink up, 'cause there's an industry mixer on Saturday. Ingredients: Blue Skyy vodka, Chartreuse, mint, more vodka, just the tiniest hint of bitters
• The Hack For the journalist who's just met deadline, snared a book deal, or met the Flack Ingredients: Same as the Flack, but exactly twice each proportion. Leave the check with the Flack.
• The Stirr Looks boozy, but it'll only make you more alert as you cruise your more sauced-up colleagues at an industry mixer. Ingredients: Coffee and whipped foam — it's an Irish coffee without the Irish
• The Series A Round The opposite of a Stirr. Frankly, this is an investor roofie, and it'll take plenty of work for poor little you to buy an investor a drink. You can only drink half of it before going back for a Round B. Ingredients: Soju and a splash of Sprite. If the mark complains, subtly imply he or she is a sissy. Unless you're just a guy in a stripey trying to get a chick drunk on Friday, in which case be liberal with the Sprite, dude. You've got all night.
• The Business Lunch There are places we drink during lunch. Those places are mostly on the East Coast. Ingredients: Martinelli's
• The C-level A chief executive deserves the favorite whisky of writer Robert Louis Stevenson. Ingredients: Talisker, neat.
• The Yahoo Oh hell, just throw everything you've got at the problem and maybe it'll work. Ingredients: Rum, vodka, Kahlua, Coke, gin, Yoohoo, peanut butter
• The Sysadmin An all-nighter for those rare all-night server-rescuing sessions. Ingredients: Costco Vodka; Bawls Guarana from the free case you got at LISA
• The Code Monkey Ingredients: Costco Tequila, Coke (not chilled).*

  *Also, this drink interestingly has exactly 40mg of ketamine in it, which is actually ok if you take a B12 booster shot six to twelve hours ahead of time and remembered to synchronize your Perforce archive before FUCK! FUCK FUCK FUCK! THE PERFORCE ARCHIVE!

This is an installation of Diggbait, a daily column by Nick Douglas, who also writes for Eat the Press. He likes robots, words, and White Russians. Photo by Fred Armitage.

Email to journalists from a software company too small and probably too nice to pick on:

> We would like to offer you a free evaluation license for ____. We,
> of course, hope that you write something about it, and we believe
> that it will be interesting and relevant to your client base.

What this basically says is: "We also sent this mail to a bunch of professional analysts, consultants, and ghost writers who get paid a lot more than you."

This company needs a separate email list for starving freelance writers like me. Then they can email us the edited version of this pitch that ends with, "We, of course, hope that you write something about it, because we believe it could score you a book deal! Maybe even a TV show!"

• Is it just me or does CNET's president look like a younger, hipper Mark Foley? If that guy IMed you, would he make you a little horny? [CNET]
• The owner of UTube.com bitches that visitors looking for YouTube are costing him tons of bandwidth — then refuses a million-dollar offer for the site. Says he's holding out for 2 or 3 million. I think I speak for all of us when I say "fuck you." [Mashable]
• Someone's stalking my boss, Curbed blog publisher and Gawker Media managing editor Lockhart Steele. (I found out because I stalk him too.) [NY Observer]
• Flacks will have to pay press release distributor PRWeb to get their glorified spam out to journalists. The system's still broken until they have to pay the journalists. [Online Marketing Blog]

From: blast PR <[redacted]@blastPR-News.com>
Reply-To: blast PR <[redacted]@blastpr.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 13:49:07 -0400 (EDT)
To: [redacted]
Subject: TEST****************TEST BlastPR

test




If you would like to unsubscribe from this list, please send a blank email to this address: unsub-nhnuuurpzpqzrhouu@blastPR-News.com

OR send a postal mail to:
blast! Public Relations
128 E.Hargett Street,Suite 201
Raleigh, NC 27601

"Family 2.0 isn't the Cleavers of the 1950s or the futuristic Jetsons. Today's men cook, women work, and kids often are very tech-savvy," said Michele Madansky, vice president of sales research, Yahoo!. "Father doesn't always know best. He may not have a clue about what MP3 player is the best value, but daughter can be the expert because she has spent time online comparison shopping prices and features."

So some classic family values are still in place — according to Yahoo, shopping is still wimmin's business.

Press release with obnoxiously long title [Yahoo PR]

1. Don't follow up e-mail pitches ("I was wondering if you had the chance to read this material," said the SS PR message. Oh, I had the chance. I also had the chance to watch Ron Popeil infomercials). The journalist you pitched probably gets ten to a hundred of pitches a day and deleted yours. This time you're marked as spam.
2. Life is not LinkedIn. Do not try to "make contact" with every nearby human being. There's a reason that "making contact" sounds like something you do with aliens.
3. There is such a thing as bad PR. Don't try to prove it.
4. Tech writers are cranky. (They're surrounded by geeks and suits who make twice their income right out of college but can't put a sentence together.) Ply them with drink.
5. Before you send an irrelevant press release, count to 10. If you still feel like sending it, count to 20.

Still worried you'll come off as a flack? Below, other PR-plagued writers share their horror stories.

Ex-writer Kourosh Karimkhany ("Identify me as 'burnt-out former wire service reporter'") has some anti-flack anger to work out with his therapist:

From my days at Bloomberg/Reuters/Wired, sure. Got plenty.

1. Don't send postal mail. 2. Don't send a fax. 3. If you call make sure you keep the pitch to 10 seconds. If you don't have me in 10 seconds, you're never gonna get me. 4. Spell and pronounce my name right.

5. Embargoes are satan spawn. Please realize that we as journalists know exactly why there are embargoes: to meet the deadlines and timelines of the marketing department. No self-respecting journalist — even sleazy ones like the ones at [gaming blog] Kotaku — would EVER want to go along with your marketing department's plans.

One writer says, "Don't call around deadline time [4-6 PM Eastern]. Actually, don't call, period. E-mail is just fine, unless we already know you."

Valleywag owner Nick Denton wrote about Silicon Valley for the Financial Times. He adds, "Don't ask for information that you can find on the website, e.g., 'Could you tell me the name of the editor?'" Also, "If you're taking an exec round for a demo, keep them wanting more. Nothing worse than being forced to sit through an hour-long demo that should have taken 10 minutes."

Publicist Paula Gould says she gets along with journalists because she doesn't "tackle them at conferences or stalk them. I hate those kinds of publicists. They expend a tremendous amount of energy on very little return."

At the very least, don't be creepy. "One time," says CNET writer Nicole Lee, "at this big trade show, a PR guy tried to set up an appointment with me. And i figured, last day of show, sure. I figured he had a booth or whatever.

"But no. he just had this hotel room. And it was a small company i hardly heard of. And he wanted me to show up in the hotel. And I'm like, 'Ummmmmm.... can we meet at the trade show?' And he's all 'no... it's too much trouble.'"

She didn't go.

Spammers don't send follow-up mail.

S & S Public Relations already earned a Flacky Award nomination for asking a company to review a competing client's product. So I shouldn't be surprised that after an SSPR rep sent me a press release about recycling phones in Venezuela (not exactly Valleywag's beat), she followed up to see if I was still interested.

The average journalist (according to an above-average journalist) gets carpet-bombed with press pitches daily. Writer Paul Boutin has joked that Esther Dyson's idea of $5 e-mail charges should apply to pitches of all kinds. 'Til then, it's just spam.

A few writers (and many bloggers) ask for press pitches; readers can guess what that means about the quality of these outlets' material. Hell, I don't mind getting a few, since they're fun to mock.

But if someone's following up with Valleywag, they must be following up with every recipient. That's why SSPR gets re-nominated for a Flacky Award for spamming journalists.

Earlier: Good PR is bad PR is good PR [Valleywag]

"We would like to verify your appropriate PR contact for the submission of relevant press releases," Texture Media rep Jessica Estes wrote to one business magazine's "letters to the editor" e-mail address. "If you could also identify the contact for potential article submissions, that would be most appreciated." The full release is after the jump.

If a PR agency has asked your publication to do their job, send the story to tips@valleywag.com.

> —————
> From: Jessica Estes
> Sent: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 1:59 PM
> To: [redacted]
> Subject: Please verify your PR submissions contact.
>
> Editor of [redacted]:
> I work for an interactive marketing agency in Boulder, Colorado. Our
> award-winning interactive and marketing is newsworthy in and of itself, and
> several members of our client roster—such as Fidelity—are appropriate to
> your magazine's content. We would like to verify your appropriate PR contact
> for the submission of relevant press releases. If you could also identify
> the contact for potential article submissions, that would be most
> appreciated.
>
> Thank you for your time!
> —
> Jessica Estes - [redacted]@texturemedia.com
> pr coordinator
> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> [phone redacted] desk | [phone redacted] main
> ——————————————————————
> 1801 13th street | suite 130 | Boulder, CO 80302
> :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
> www.texturemedia.com

Every blogger who got the awkward video pitch from Stickam must be afraid to mock it. ("But I'll just be playing into their hands!") But this video proves that yes, some publicity is bad publicity. After ten seconds of this, even Rocketboom seems suave by comparison. So here it is.

5W Public Relations, as the agency responsible for this painful experience, you get nominated for the Flacky Awards.

Stickam Video Pitch [Stickam]

My favorite part is this: "Anderson's voice can be easily heard and he can interact, in a meaningful way..." It sounds like she's pitching an interview with Terry Schiavo.

Whole release is after the jump.

MEDIA ALERT...MEDIA ALERT...MEDIA ALERT

CHRIS ANDERSON, AUTHOR OF THE LONG TAIL,

WILL SPEAK TO 100 PEOPLE IN A FREE, IN-DEPTH,

CONVERSATION VIA SKYPECAST

WHO: Chris Anderson, Editor in Chief of Wired magazine and author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More.

WHAT: Will participate in an intimate conversation, moderated by Michael Sippey, General Manager of Typepad, the hosted blogging service. The conversation is free and open to 100 attendees. These attendees are invited to join in via Skypecast.

WHERE: People can attend Andersons' conversation by accessing the following link: https://skypecasts.skype.com. The conversation is open to 100 attendees. These attendees will be welcomed on a first come/first serve basis.

WHY: Since publishing his essay in Wired in October, 2004, on what he called "The Long Tail," and then following it up with his book in May, 2006, Chris Anderson has been in high demand. By conducting a Skypecast—a live, moderated conversation for a group of 100 people from anywhere in the world—Anderson's voice can be easily heard and he can interact, in a meaningful way, with those interested in his perspectives on business and culture.

WHEN: Monday, July 24, at 4:30 PM EDT

CONTACT: For more information, contact, Leslie Koren at Kaplow Communications, [info redacted]

Photo by Ben Hammersley

"Communications firm": "PR firm with pretensions"
"Strategic communications firm": "PR firm with even greater pretensions"
"Media relations consultancy": "I just schmooze journalists, get some strategic communications firm to write your damn press release"

By the way, the sender is PR god Sean Garrett, not the other Sean Garrett, creator of such lyrics as "Conversation got heavy, she had me feelin like she's ready to blow!"

————— From: Sean Garrett Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 1:44 PM Cc: rsvpto463@gmail.com Subject: 463 Communications party next Tuesday night

When George Clooney drank that shot of Fernet off of Condoleeza Rice's stomach, we knew we had to bring the 463 Communications Happy Hour from Washington, DC to our other home of San Francisco.

More than the antics of VIPs and world leaders, you can look forward to a party that has nothing to do with a widgets, tags and mash-ups. You only may need to endure chatter about net neutrality, H-1B Visas, and, our favorite, the analog hole.

So please join the entire 463 gang in a celebration of all-things-tech-policy-geeky as we thank our clients, partners and friends for giving so much work that we're just getting around to having our first Bay Area bash.

Deets are below.

The Details:

Tuesday, July 25
6:30 p.m. — 9:00 p.m.
The Gallery Lounge
510 Brannan Street (Cross 5th Street)
(http://maps.google.com/maps?oi=map&q=510+Brannan+Street,+San+Francisco)

RSVPs Requested: RSVPto463@gmail.com

Free Drinks. Heavy hors d'oeuvres. Good Music.

It will be just like being in DC, but without the sticky weather, bad ties and interns.

Hope to see you there.

Friday Night
Two googletards meet for Battlestar Galactica marathon on UPN but end up calculating their worth as the weekend stock price hovers around $415; after two epicurean Mike's Hard Lemonades, a message is sent to an internal developer list with an idea for (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface.

Saturday Night/Sunday Morning
Senior VP Marissa Mayer returns to her email client from a night of weeping in front of a vanity mirror, costumed in lingerie and stilettos no one knows she owns; realizes (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface is exactly what the company needs.

Monday Morning
CEO Eric Schmidt receives idea at a weekly staff meeting; pretends to understand it; in a halfhearted attempt to save face, makes offhand remark about how processors are much faster than when he was in grad school at Berkeley.

Two Weeks Later
Upstart, 20-something business development and/or marketing Googlies learn about it at the Googleplex cafeteria; confuse it with a competitor for Oracle's database solution and/or a product that will take down Boeing. Spread it casually at Marina bars to all their other dotcom friends.

45 Days Later
Om Malik receives phone call; does investigation; dispells rumors that an aircraft is involved but still poses question: is this an Ebay-Killer??

46 Days Later
Michael Arrington publishes "exclusive" screenshots on TechCrunch; says it lacks features which his Web 2.0 company Edgeio has; provides an irrelevant recommendation for Zooomr or Skobee.

47 Days Later
Zawodny blogs; laments that Yahoo had this idea in 1999; considers quitting; instead posts excel spread sheets cataloging (a) his weight loss (b) his Cessna's mileage.

48 Days Later
Chaos ensues at Microsoft, Yahoo, and/or Ebay; Fox buys Myspace anyway; Steve Ballmer throws a chair.

49 Days Later
John Battelle's intern discovers rumor, "breaks" story; Schmidt denies rumors to the New York Times; says Google is not out to displace any other company.

2 Months Later
Google blog announces a product which will displace some other company; Google engineers realize this is actually (a) Google Base or (b) an old Yahoo/Microsoft product with a new AJAX interface. Lose heart; but add it to their del.icio.us pages anyway.

2 Months and 1 week Later
Wall Street clods doubt Google after much inquiry; stock drops to $385; panic at the plex.

2 Months and 2 weeks later
Mayer holds damage control press event; research director Peter Norvig shows pictures of caseless servers last used in 1999; claims computers without cases are much more efficient; "70/20/10" is bandied about along with shrimp cocktail.

2 Months and 3 weeks later
CFO Reyes figures out math to make Google meet quarterly expectations; considers the follical implant surgery but in a late, lonely night at the office, rediscovers appreciation for the Jean Luc-Picard look.

3 months later
The math works; on a Friday the stock balloons to $415 in after hours; coincindentally, two googletards meet for another Battlestar Galactica marathon on UPN...

PR blogger Strumpette (aka Amanda Chapel) is known for playing nasty. Now she's crowing that she's bested the CEO of major PR agency Text 100 International. Amanda (if that's her real name) shares the entire exchange (she calls it a catfight) with Aedhmar Hynes, which she drove the CEO to end with this:

'Amanda', you chose not to comply with the rules of engagement I set in an earlier comment. As a result, this will mark the end of our conversation. I also won't allow you to make any further comments on this blog. You like to see yourself as the advocate of words, but the way YOU use words disqualifies you from an open dialogue. Your provocations on my blog are only minor examples of your vicious game. You have also attacked other respected individuals even though your attacks were baseless. I won't let something like that happen here. I am not the first to ban you from the dialogue, and I certainly won't be the last.

Hm. As in all catfights, looks like the real winners are the easily thrilled onlookers.

Text 100 CEO in Vicious Catfight with Strumpette [Strumpette]

Well, according to this tip, Eric could beat both of them to "I do."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt was spotted with his girlfriend Marcy Simon on Saturday on the beach in the French Riviera with Marcy sporting a huge yellow diamond engagement ring. I guess he actually is divorced and is readying for a long-term relationship.

Chances are, that's President Marcy Simon of PR and media consulting firm WCTV. Aha, Eric wasn't just looking for love. The efficient exec knows that now he can score free advice to prop up Google's flimsy PR arm. (And maybe throw in some private public speaking lessons.)

Earlier: Valleywag exclusive: Oh Schmidt! [Valleywag]
And: Larry Page ain't engaged [Valleywag]