Are bloggers “authoritative” sources of information for a company?

The Hobson and Holtz Report, the podcast from forimmediaterelease.biz, has a great conversation on the challenge for public relations professionals on authority. Are bloggers "authoritative" sources of information for a company? If something is "material" then is denial from employee bloggers enough? Robert Scoble, not your average blogger to begin with, is an official voice of the company from my perspective. Who knows what the street thinks. Here is the related blurb with links from the H&H podcast.

16:10 Microsoft and employee bloggers: the delay in the launch of Windows Vista, allegations of code rewrites, blogger denials, weekend blog discussions, and the regulatory and financial framework
- are Microsoft employee bloggers official spokepeople? They may have
credibility but do they speak with authority on behalf of the company
to represent official views? And how ready is blogging to assume a
primary role in organizational communication?

Robert’s original post on the non-event of vista code rewrites is here.

Google and Accoona for “Perception of Public Relations” – Accoona no match!

I received an email that made me curious about the difference between Accoona (which I had not
heard of) and Google (ya, someone told me about google once) on understanding the context of a search. From the Accoona site:

Accoona Artificial Intelligence is a Search Technology that understands
the meaning of search queries beyond the conventional method of
matching keywords.

and

Accoona’s Artificial Intelligence uses the meaning of words to get you better searches.

The email was from a PR agency so of course I searched on "perception of public relations" in both search engines.

Everyone loves an underdog, particularly an underdog victory. But alas, such is not the case with Accoona. Google pretty much trounced them in my very unscientific comparison. This is one search, one test, yada yada and I look forward to checking back with Accoona.

One thing Accoona can do immediately to improve results is kill all of the advertising at the top. Obviously the ad engine is not as advanced as the search engine part. As a user advertising at the top IS search results. Right hand ads are extra stuff to me. But note that even without the top 3 ad served results, google still produced more of what I was specifically looking for.

Perhaps pay some turkers to evaluate a larger quantity of results, hopefully in a double blind test? But I don’t think PR alone, perception or not, is going to raise Accoona above Google in my perception any time soon.

Quote of the Day – Brought to you by Youth and MySpace

"I challenge all Latino and Hispanic-descent people to come out with us tomorrow, to miss one day of work, because that will show the city of Houston, and everyone in the nation, how badly this (proposed immigration restriction) will affect the country,"

Jesse Quintero, a senior at Eisenhower High School from the Chronicle article.  The vehicle to organize? Myspace. Cool use of social software technology. The article continues.

Quintero posted a note on MySpace.com, an Internet site where some high
school students socialize, to recruit participants. His message quickly
spread to other area schools: about 200 students at Cypress Ridge High
School in Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District walked out
after first period, but were coaxed back into an auditorium by the
principal and headed back to class by third period, said Cy-Fair
spokeswoman Kelli Durham.

Whatever your position on immigration, I am personally glad to have innovative kids like Qintero as citizens. Innovation is key and technology applied to social issues is powerful. Danah would be proud.

Sold 3 at the Fotofest and the Bayou City Art Festival

Fotofest and the Bayou City Art Festival all in one. Ironic that the best piece of art I saw was "sold".

The New PR – Sex and the City Sleeping with the Boss

Strumpette – A Naked Journal of the PR Business made one sexy post.  Sex still sells. A sexy photo and an allusion leads to Media Orchard calling her the new PR vixen on the block which leads to AdRants leads to a heated interchange including:

But seriously, what do you think we do for a living.  Think about it.  At least I am being honest about it.

- Amanda Chapel

The comments and replies are just fun. I would HOPE pr was focused on strategy beyond Lewinski.

Ms. Chapel goes on with

– Rubel has two masters and is sure to betray one. The day he makes an
honest independent critique of Richard… he’s history. Bottom line:
that’s just a matter of time. Rubel’s true master is blogging and he
will ultimately have to make that choice. He will betray Richard.

My predictions – having met Steve he is one stubborn dude. Don’t place bets on his departure unless you can afford to lose. Never met Richard but he has been a blogger far longer than newbies like me and I’d bet he is a smart chap. I recommend skipping the office pool.

I predict Vixen 1 gets her 15 minutes without running anyone over. Maybe she graduates to RocketBoom type reporting with agency approval?

Perhaps the biggest change in PR is the progression and the speed of today’s timeline.
As far as I can tell the original post was TODAY. Sunday, March 26th.
The responses similarly are also today, mostly this Sunday evening. You PR people need to get a life. Thank God I am not in PR.