What’s hot in the blogosphere!!

Yahoo! Saga

What a crazy year it has been for Yahoo! It’s almost like a drama… and for the PR in Sunnyvale, this must be a bloody nightmare… First we had Steve laying a siege at Yahoo!’s doors with a $44.6 billion take over in Feb, which Yahoo! declined. It was all over the news for 3 months (poor PR folks….) until Microsoft made a final offer with an ultimatum of a hostile takeover. Yahoo!’s response was still a no… and the response from Yahoo!’s blog was amazingly extreme… At the same time, the rumors of a Google partnership was adrift

Then Carl comes bawling like a baby about how Yahoo! doesn’t have the best interest in their shareholders. Luckily, this time, Carl was seen to be the bad guy on the Yahoo!’s blog response. (Hell, that kicked ass!) But throw in that with the lawsuit of the severance program, man, talk about being in the limelight for the wrong reasons… Managing company rep like this is a nightmare…

Now Microsoft and Yahoo! opened up talks again with Yahoo! in my opinion throwing a red herring to Microsoft saying

we remain open to pursuing any transaction which is in the best interest of our stockholders

And Yahoo! shocks the world by saying it has partnered rival Google for online advertising. Man, and what a bunch of mixed responses on the Yahoo! blog, although not as extreme as the rejection of the Microsoft deal… Of course, this is still with the legal side breathing down their necks…

You can read more about it here, here, and here…. (Many more but i’m kindda lazy… lol… )

It’s crazy the amount of media attnetion this saga has generated. How does a PR handle this? Not just with the anaylyst, media and other partners. How do you handle the bloggers? It’ll be interesting to see how this develops.

Although some might think this is the start of the end for Yahoo!, i gotta admit their internal comms has been fantastic. Don’t know if I’m allowed to say much about it but i think in this day and age, to rally a battle cry based on trust is hard. But if Yahoo! can get through this, it’s gonna make an awesome case study for managing rep! (I’m so gonna do that course next sem!)

Social networking sites

Facebook has surpassed MySpace!!! Well, most ppl seem excited about it, and it just shows how fast Facebook is growing…

I think Sarah presents a good look into the future of social networking sites. The important takeaway is that social networking sites provide another medium. Although the nice market is gone and making way for the masses as more ppl join social networking sites, this medium is a good consideration for spreading your message should you do a integrated media campaign.

However, as more ppl join social networking sites, masses will demand niches again. What do i mean? It seems to be a vicious cycle. When a niche turns mass, masses will break out and go into niches again. Facebook was for college students, now its for the masses. Throw in the Google’s open social, (which i think that post didn’t take into consideration) and social networking sites aren’t just going to be popular cause of fancy widgets and apps. It’ll boil back down to the ppl and the ‘long tail’ theory will prevail… who knows though where we’ll go…

Anyways, these 2 topics just kept coming up in my blog and i tot i share m y2 cents worth of what i tot about them…. Have a good weekend! Citizen journalism is interesting!! Stay tuned!!

JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY!!

Previously on JUST FOR FUN TUESDAY…. Mark commented on his music preference, what new and exciting things will he be sharing this week to reveal a more personal side you didn’t know?

Man, if i ever do a video post, that’s how I’ll start it, lol…. Heros style!

But today isn’t about explosive action, it’s gonna be about….

No, not my baby boy (Cute huh at 2 months)

Even cuter at 3 years, lol…. But yes, today I’ll be talking about dogs. No, not about saving dogs and social welfare courses for the likes of SPCA and ASD. I’m not saying it’s not important to save them, hell, it is! Damn abandon rate is increasing and AVA’s increase in license ownership fees isn’t helping.. Not to mention the damn fines… Wake up AVA!!

As a proud member of SMU’s PAW (Yes, i ran for the exco too…), I believe its important for people to understand what dogs mean to humans before you go about preaching saving them… It hasn’t always been about us saving them, they’ve saved us countless times…

My middle name is Rock… Yeah, as in St Rocco of Montpellier, patron saint of pestilence.

See his story, it’s a good one. As a roman catholic, i never knew my saint when i was gonna receive my confirmation… Even till junior college, i never really went to find out.. (Don’t doubt my firm religious beliefs!) But what a coincidence when after i bought Remzy that i decided to read up and found out my saint always had a picture of a dog with him and how the dog did save his life.

There’re many stories where dogs do save people’s life, brining them back from the brink of despair… For the life of me, I cant remember the titles of the shows… But some of the storylines goes…

There was a story of how an abandoned labardor who gave a blind man hope in life by being his guide dog, a japanesse show…

There was also the story of how a faithful labador went to find his owner who abandoned him cause the owner blamed the dog for his sister’s death…

Then there’s the all time classic story of Hachikō… The tale of the faithful dog… Japanese really know how to bring out the true side to how dogs feel about us and how we feel about them…

Why are the Japanese so good at this? They have a crazy affection for pets, I don’t blame them,I do too… They know what its like to have a dog, to know how to receive a dog’s unaffectionate loyalty and love, while giving it back at the same time.

It’ll be great to do a social media study on the pets industry there… They have social networking sites for pets… Amazing huh? I mean we have dog Facebook groups here, but nothing compared to theirs!

Europe is a great place for dogs too, a walk in Venice or Switzerland and you’ll see how much access the dogs can get! (Ok… I gotta control myself or I’ll start swearing at AVA again…)

America is a great place too, and the shows they make on dogs usually are of a comedy or action genre.. Here’s one of my favourite dog shows… See Spot Run, notice the dog is extremely good looking… Go Bull Mastiffs!

Marley and Me the movie is gonna change all that. Josh really got it down to expressing what dogs can do for us…. (I know, this is the what time I’ve linked the blog? See, power of social media and its free branding efforts, I’m a classic example)

So before i end, I hope you are able to take away that dogs are not just pets (And no, i’ m not preaching a “Don’t abandon your dogs” campaign)

They can be your lifelong friend even after they are gone… The memories they give us and the lesson they can teach us… What lessons are those? I’ll end it off with one of Josh Grogan’s quote…

I have this theory, and writing the book sharpened it, that people can learn a lot from their dogs. Lessons on how to lead happier, more fulfilling lives. Lessons for successful relationships. Think about it. Many of the qualities that come so effortlessly to dogs – loyalty, devotion, selflessness, unflagging optimism, unqualified love – can be elusive to humans. My hunch is that people who act more like dogs have happier marriages. That’s assuming, of course, you don’t marry someone who emulates cats. Then you’re in trouble. Cats will outsmart dogs every time.

There’s so much more I wanna say and I’m sure dog owners all have the same willingness to share their dogs stories, so do share some with me!

What’s everyone’s take on the pets community? Are we more powerful than some loyal brands fan base? Hell we are, we cross demographics, cultural, language and geographical boundries… Social media just made us so much more powerful…. We now share like never before and reaching out to us through our dogs with a note worthy message is reaching us on an emotional level…

Till next week, all those with dogs, give them a good tummy rub or a snack for me! Remzy and I signing out!