Posts by Alastair Thompson
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That's a quotable quote Russell. It was great being on the show. About to watch it. Hope the cameras worked well :)
This evening Alison McCulloch, David Robie, Stephen Olsen and the inaugural AUT Pacific Scoop Intern Scholarship winner Daniel Drageset had a lovely Korean Grill dinner in
You can find out more here:
And there's my speech at the launch event here:
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Hard News: My Food Bag: is it any good?, in reply to Lilith __,
I think the short version of what I was trying to say is this.
People doing stuff for gifts probably doesn't need to be #hashtagged - but if you are in the business of organising/solicting twitter traffic and are being paid to do so then maybe this fact ought to be flagged as a matter of best practice.
That said, as long as this debate continues to have some currency, not doing so will also remain a valid (and possibly effective) strategy.
As for leaving Twitter to sort out Twitter's social niceities - isn't that what we are in the process of doing?
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Hard News: My Food Bag: is it any good?, in reply to Russell Brown,
Aha so now I think I am about to join this debate :) First point I will make is that #ad usage or not is a more complicated question than it appears at first glance. The following are top of the head thoughts. And not yet fully structured. I suspect true view on this is that I am yet to fully form a view.
With those disclaimers in place. Here goes.
Yes @scooptechlab is different and is definitely caught that is why we used it - and included disclaimers.
That said, with #myfoodbag what Deborah and her team did was execute an online social media marketing campaign using inducements in the form of food. It was an advertising campaign and I am sure Pead PR was paid - so on that basis at least it counts as advertising.
I think one of the questions you need to answer when using #ad is who is the publisher? In Techlab's case that is Scoop and so me (as editor) and @scoopNZ are definitely caught.
That said not all Techlab are paid beyond receiving a free device. Nevertheless we will still encourage all of them to use #ad when talking about the specific pieces of content that they are "contracted" to supply if there is a marketing purpose behind the existence of the content - i.e. it is part of a paid advertising campaign.
In this case Pead PR are publishers of their own tweets, but not of the giftees.
And for this reason I think some #ad tags might have been helpful in the #myfoodbag campaign. Perhaps on some of the tweets posted by Pead PR, and Deborah Pead herself.
But at that point it then gets very complicated.
Firstly it is not practical to expect #ad tag use to be mandatory on participants in gift driven editorial campaigns (certainly not very easily) and I do not think that is what the ASA had in mind with the #ad tag. And so on that basis the non use of #ad by Russell, Damien etc. is all good.
The second difference between @techlab and #myfoodbag is that the former does involve contracted obligations of a sort whereas the latter did not.
Is this a bright-line rule though. Does it depend on the value of the gift? What if though there is no contract there is an "understanding" that in the absence of a favourable blog + favourable social media comment no further "gifts" will be forthcoming from this brand, or this advertising agency, or this PR agency?
Should arrangements like these be disclaimed?
Does the fact that gift-giving has become so commonplace in terms of editorial placement organisation make a difference? Personally I think that this increasingly pervasive practice is a way that PR agencies are bypassing the need to purchase media exposure. This might be something that publications ought to be concerned about.
And finally some remarks on book and gig reviews - which I think are different - but which raise some other tricky issues regarding #ad.
Back in the day (and at some publications still) some book editors and arts editors paid for the books and tickets that they reviewed. I think some editorial organisations still have bans on junkets in place even now.
OTOH with Book Reviews there is a contract of a sort - you get book so you write about book - so perhaps an #ad tag ought to apply. Ditto free reviewer tickets to gigs. However I don't think it should be in these instances and it certainly isn't standard practice to do so. Reviews are legitimate editorial not advertorial.And I think the main difference between this and blogger gifts is that there is an intermediary - the media publisher.
The implicit contract in these arrangements is that the reviewer gets to say whatever they want. The gifting relationship is between the media publisher and the reviewer - not the book publisher and the reviewer,
Al
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I just posted this wee note on Dylan's blog which I found fascinating. Now to catch up with the rest of this thread.
Hi Dylan,
FWIW I think twitter is a glorious place to have a debate. And a place where doing so works remarkably well. I expect John Drinnan also thinks that, but don't know. Its an interesting question.
I disagree with Deborah Pead and Stop Press and Russell Brown that #ad tag should not have been used in this case. An inducement is an inducement - gift or not. That said I don't feel that inclined to debate it ATM. Too much else to write about :)
At Scoop we started using #ad with our @scooptechlab activity before Christmas and we intend to continue to do so. At times you do forget however and it would be very hard and a bit stultifying to make contributors do so. Deborah Pead herself possibly ought to have used it on some of her MFB tweets and may have done so.
One thing for certain the debate on this question is far from over.
I have taken to using #notanad tags for tweets that look like #ads but which aren't.
And either way the cookie crumbles at the ASA in the long run - the "Tweetnami" incident which you have usefully reported on in this series of blogs has given us a very nice working example to debate the next time the issue arises.
Alastair Thompson
Editor
ScoopP.S. What TV program do you work for? Read your lengthy response to Cate Owen.
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Phew..... by a nose.
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Just wanted to get in quick and make the first page of the Party thread!
Now to read the post.
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Very serious congratulations Mr Brown and everybody else.....
Public Address is a seriously amazing community of intelligent articulation.
It has been a pleasure working with you over the years and here's to 10 more years!
Yes we can!
Alastair Thompson
Scoop.co.nz -
To be fair to Farrar he drives a lot of traffic to the stories he "extracts" from. He mostly links to items he considers worthy of being discussed and he also does original work of his own relatively frequently. I think Felix is being a little precious in alleging that when bloggersc quote they are claiming to provide insight. Cameron S possibly thinks he is being insightful when he does the same thing however.
However where this parasitic thing really goes wrong is in the mistaken view that by linking to news articles bloggers are somehow subtracting from the original . In network terms all links reinforce the authority of the original post.
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to linger,
I wonder if for this reason the Romney tape may not be quite as damaging as it looks. If the disgruntled look at the number 47% then they will be offended and patronised, but if they look at the description of "dependence" and "idleness" they will be back to feeling resentful and angry.
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Hard News: "Because we can", in reply to Ben McNicoll,
If Bennett is using Taylor Fry numbers calculated in this manner then the word continuous is being interpreted in a peculiar fashion.