Okay - so here's a great example of public relations at work. Tom Schmidt of the Philadelphia Daily News reports in his Extreme makeover: Hybrid SUV edition article that "a supervan rolled into Penn's Landing yesterday and unloaded two vehicles that their owners hope will revolutionize the auto and oil industries. Inside the van were two hybrid SUVs, called XH-150s, that their creator claims will outperform anything on the road so far."
Low and behold, the man in the van was no other than the organizer of the first Earth Day celebration in Philly in 1970, South Philadelphia Native, and past regional director of the Environmental Protection Agency -- Edward W. Furia. If the name sounds familiar, that's because my "Uncle Ed" is also an attorney. He and the rest of the team at AFS Trinity have much to be proud of!
Just think, in our home town of Philadelphia, we'll be celebrating the 28th Earth Day later this week. Hmmmm - see the PR connection?
According to AFS Trinity's website, "The XH-150 started a cross country tour on 4/8/08 to give Americans their first onroad look at what CNN and others suggested may be "the car of the future," as the XH-150 works its way to Earth Day on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, April 20, 2008. Halfway through the cross country trip, the XH-150 was demonstrated for Austin Energy, a large municipal utility as well as for the leadership of Plug-in Partners, an Austin headquartered consortium of electric utilities and others supporting new plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) technologies. AFS Trinity is making the XH150 available for selected test drives in several communities from coast to coast."
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Expand Your Web Site By Using a Content Management System
Craig McGuire of PR Week recently wrote an article titled “Expanding Web sites helps readership.” McGuire found that updating Web sites to offer easier and effective tools brings in a broader audience and I couldn’t agree more.
McGuire used FedEx’s Online Newsroom as an example of how an organization can take regular press release, news and company background content and turn it into an interactive, Web 2.0 hub for all Web site users from the press to shareholders. FedEx used a permission-based content management system to apply such effective and descriptive tools as videos, images, social bookmarking, multimedia flash video and many more. FedEx went from having 4,500 unique visitors per month to 65,000 per month.
The Furia Rubel site is also built on a content management system foundation and we completely stand by McGuire’s analysis. Your company’s Web site is your store front or as quoted in this article, “one centralized, 24-hour official company online newsroom.” You want your store front to look good and feel clean, offer the most recent and desired goods and entice customers to keep coming back. McGuire lists some key Web site guidelines that may help you expand your Web site.
Do
- Track audience interest and allow feedback
- Lean toward simple, clean navigation
- Offer a means to subscribe to news
Don’t
- Follow the herd
- Produce a variety of Web sites
- Let your content grow stale – timely content is vital
McGuire used FedEx’s Online Newsroom as an example of how an organization can take regular press release, news and company background content and turn it into an interactive, Web 2.0 hub for all Web site users from the press to shareholders. FedEx used a permission-based content management system to apply such effective and descriptive tools as videos, images, social bookmarking, multimedia flash video and many more. FedEx went from having 4,500 unique visitors per month to 65,000 per month.
The Furia Rubel site is also built on a content management system foundation and we completely stand by McGuire’s analysis. Your company’s Web site is your store front or as quoted in this article, “one centralized, 24-hour official company online newsroom.” You want your store front to look good and feel clean, offer the most recent and desired goods and entice customers to keep coming back. McGuire lists some key Web site guidelines that may help you expand your Web site.
Do
- Track audience interest and allow feedback
- Lean toward simple, clean navigation
- Offer a means to subscribe to news
Don’t
- Follow the herd
- Produce a variety of Web sites
- Let your content grow stale – timely content is vital
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Yellow Book Scores Big on Web Ranking Reports
comScore Media Metrix recently released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2008. The analysis named Yellow Book Network as the top-gaining site position for the month with a 54% gain to 13.5 million visitors. Again, stating that Yellow Book is strong and substantial company growing in leaps and bounds. See the complete comScore Media Metrix analysis below.
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comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings for March
(Yellow Book Network and MLB.com Lead Top-Gaining Properties)
RESTON, VA (April 14, 2008) – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. March saw traffic increase to online radio, gambling and retail-health care sites.
“American sports factored in prominently for the top gaining categories and properties in March,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “The NCAA tournament drove substantial traffic to online gambling sites during the month, while the start of spring training made MLB.com one of the top gaining properties. Both events also contributed to ESPN.com’s surge in the top properties rankings.”
Top-Gaining Sites for March: Yellow Book Network secured the top-gaining site position for the month, with a 54-percent gain to 13.5 million visitors due, at least in part, to a new partnership with addresses.com. Baseball spring training and fantasy team drafts prompted a flood of earnest fans to MLB.com, which jumped 50 percent to 9.8 million visitors. Bankrate.com Sites witnessed a 46-percent increase to 5 million visitors with the addition of the InsureMe.com entity in March.
Radio Sites See Surge in Visitation: Radio sites experienced a sharp increase in traffic in March with the category growing 27 percent to 61.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. AOL Music led the category with 21.9 million visitors (up 5 percent), following by Yahoo! Music with nearly 20.8 million visitors (up 4 percent) and Clear Channel Online with 11 million visitors (up 2 percent). Other significant increases were experienced by Pandora.com (up 9 percent), Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (up 11 percent), and Disney Music (up 17 percent).
Online Gambling Traffic Propelled by March Madness: The NCAA basketball tournament, also known as “March Madness,” attracted a flurry of online bettors, prompting a 14-percent gain to the online gambling category. Sportingbet PLC increased 35 percent to 975,000 visitors, UPICKEM.net jumped 174 percent to 396,000 visitors and SportsBetting.com rose 114 percent to 145,000 visitors.
Walgreen Co. Leads Retail – Health Care Category: Retail – Health Care sites experienced a 12-percent increase in March to 26.3 million visitors, as Walgreen Co. led the category with 5.4 million visitors (up 10 percent). Drugstore.com, Inc. captured the second position with 3.7 million visitors, followed by CVS with nearly 3 million visitors.
Top 50 Properties: The top 10 properties maintained their positions from February with Yahoo! Sites continuing to lead as the top property with 139.5 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 137.5 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 121 million visitors. ESPN jumped 12 spots on the popularity of March Madness and anticipation of the 2008 Major League Baseball season. Gains were also experienced by AT&T (up 8 spots to #18 with 31.3 million visitors), Target Corporation (up 5 spots to #20 with nearly 30 million visitors), and CBS Corporation (up 6 spots to #24 with 28.6 million visitors).
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking: The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.
About comScore Media Metrix: comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About comScore: comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate.
_______________________________
comScore Media Metrix Releases Top 50 Web Rankings for March
(Yellow Book Network and MLB.com Lead Top-Gaining Properties)
RESTON, VA (April 14, 2008) – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released its monthly analysis of U.S. consumer activity at the top online properties for March 2008 based on data from the comScore Media Metrix service. March saw traffic increase to online radio, gambling and retail-health care sites.
“American sports factored in prominently for the top gaining categories and properties in March,” said Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of comScore Media Metrix. “The NCAA tournament drove substantial traffic to online gambling sites during the month, while the start of spring training made MLB.com one of the top gaining properties. Both events also contributed to ESPN.com’s surge in the top properties rankings.”
Top-Gaining Sites for March: Yellow Book Network secured the top-gaining site position for the month, with a 54-percent gain to 13.5 million visitors due, at least in part, to a new partnership with addresses.com. Baseball spring training and fantasy team drafts prompted a flood of earnest fans to MLB.com, which jumped 50 percent to 9.8 million visitors. Bankrate.com Sites witnessed a 46-percent increase to 5 million visitors with the addition of the InsureMe.com entity in March.
Radio Sites See Surge in Visitation: Radio sites experienced a sharp increase in traffic in March with the category growing 27 percent to 61.8 million visitors, making it the top-gaining category for the month. AOL Music led the category with 21.9 million visitors (up 5 percent), following by Yahoo! Music with nearly 20.8 million visitors (up 4 percent) and Clear Channel Online with 11 million visitors (up 2 percent). Other significant increases were experienced by Pandora.com (up 9 percent), Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (up 11 percent), and Disney Music (up 17 percent).
Online Gambling Traffic Propelled by March Madness: The NCAA basketball tournament, also known as “March Madness,” attracted a flurry of online bettors, prompting a 14-percent gain to the online gambling category. Sportingbet PLC increased 35 percent to 975,000 visitors, UPICKEM.net jumped 174 percent to 396,000 visitors and SportsBetting.com rose 114 percent to 145,000 visitors.
Walgreen Co. Leads Retail – Health Care Category: Retail – Health Care sites experienced a 12-percent increase in March to 26.3 million visitors, as Walgreen Co. led the category with 5.4 million visitors (up 10 percent). Drugstore.com, Inc. captured the second position with 3.7 million visitors, followed by CVS with nearly 3 million visitors.
Top 50 Properties: The top 10 properties maintained their positions from February with Yahoo! Sites continuing to lead as the top property with 139.5 million visitors, followed by Google Sites with 137.5 million visitors and Microsoft Sites with 121 million visitors. ESPN jumped 12 spots on the popularity of March Madness and anticipation of the 2008 Major League Baseball season. Gains were also experienced by AT&T (up 8 spots to #18 with 31.3 million visitors), Target Corporation (up 5 spots to #20 with nearly 30 million visitors), and CBS Corporation (up 6 spots to #24 with 28.6 million visitors).
Top 50 Ad Focus Ranking: The top 10 Ad Focus properties also maintained their February rankings with Platform-A, the ad network combining Advertising.com, Tacoda, AOL, and Quigo, leading the ranking in March, reaching 91 percent of Americans online. interCLICK gained 9 spots in the ranking to position 14, reaching 58 percent of the 188 million Americans online. Real Cities Network and YuMe Video Network both entered this month’s rankings in positions 38 and 43, respectively.
About comScore Media Metrix: comScore Media Metrix provides industry-leading Internet audience measurement services that report details of online media usage, visitor demographics and online buying power for the home, work and university audiences across local U.S. markets and across the globe. comScore Media Metrix reports are used by financial analysts, advertising agencies, publishers and marketers. comScore Media Metrix syndicated ratings are based on industry-sanctioned sampling methodologies.
About comScore: comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/boilerplate.
Friday, April 11, 2008
E-mail Productivity for Lawyers by Neen James
Neen James tells attorneys how to be more productive when using e-mail. First, she tells us to “avoid answering email first thing in the morning.” Ah – I need to follow her advice. She also says that if you apply these strategies, you will get back some of the time you are spending on e-mail each day.
Just some of the things Neen tells us to do are:
- Unsubscribe (I’m great at this one)
- Use the Out of Office Reply (Ah – this is a life saver)
- Filter SPAM (But please check your SPAM filter too)
- Be short and to the point (Yes, brevity is best)
- Use and e-mail signature (Not having one is my biggest pet peeve!)
- Be polite (Ever get one of those e-mails with all CAPS and !!!!!!!!!)
- Spell check (and re-read aloud)
- Remove distractions (and please turn off the backgrounds…)
- Delete (But as an attorney, I say, not always….)
- Avoid BCC (It’ll come back to haunt you)
- Avoid FYI (Okay – so I need to follow this one more too)
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