How to use Google News and Blog Alerts to Build Your Populist Media Empire

When I was employed by big-corporate PR, I used Google News Alerts religiously. Still do. It’s a fantastic service, constantly filtering the Google index for current news relevant to my search query and delivering it to my inbox every day. At Apollo, I was interested in news about our company, and news about our competitors, partners, and vendors. Every day I’d get slogs of data to pile through, press releases to scan, and punditry to parse.

And after the list of headlines came the list of mentions in the blogosphere; post after post of opinionated bloggers and students, some slamming the organization for one reason or another, largely for things we could do little to rectify (I lost my financial aid money, I can’t drive, the school hates me, my lemonade monkey peed in my hair, etc.). But most of the blog commentary came from conscientious, diligent writers, passionate about their cause, and eager to share that passion with the world.

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Meeting at 2Plural/evive, and the Curse of Flash Websites

Had a meeting at a new agency today — 2Plural/evive. I don’t know what their name is, actually. The letterhead says evive, and looks cool as a palindrome, but the website is 2plural, as is the moniker on their cards. A bit of identity crisis there, about which I’m sure there is a good story.

On the flip side, Joe Klegseth (pres), Courtney LeBoeuf (account manager), and Stasia Brownell (project manager), appear to be quality people in a budding quality agency. If I was looking for agency marketing and branding assistance, this is a company looking to build and extend an already impressive reputation; I’d certainly give them a holler on the short list.

Check ‘em out. And thanks for the coffee and snacks!

Massive Friggin’ Annoyance Factor: All the niceties aside, why does every single marketing and branding agency have to lead with a completely bombastic Flash website? It’s heavy, ostentatious, pretentious, and it completely gets in the way of the message you’re trying to tell. 2Plural/evive is certainly not alone in this, they just come as the latest example of agentius adobus flashititus, an overwhelming need to prove to potential clients that you can deliver content in a medium that completely hides the fact that you have nothing of substance to say.

That, and if you try to visit the site in your iPhone, you’re plum out of luck.