• 78% of press release emails are received by Recipients to whom they are irrelevant

• 55% of Recipients have taken action to block a sender of news

Here’s an interesting campaign to reduce the billions of press release emails being sent each year by the PR Industry to journalists, bloggers and publishers for whom they are irrelevant. The following animation is about the damage being inflicted to the online environment by irrelevant press release emails and it is based on a very interesting report:

An Inconvenient PR Truth from RealWire on Vimeo.

Bill of rights

The following rights are for discussion as  a practical contract between the PR community and journalists + bloggers.

Right 1 – Permission required

Press releases should only be sent to Recipients who have given express or implied permission. Implied permission meaning the recipient has stated publicly that they are happy to receive press releases.

Right 2 – Timely unsubscribe

Should a Recipient be added to a distribution list either voluntarily or involuntarily he or she has the right to be removed from that list in a timely manner if they request it.

Right 3 – Don’t rely on media lists exclusively

The PR person should not wholly rely on purchased media lists to ensure accurate targeting.

Right 4 – Read publication first

Before any correspondence is entered into, the PR person will have first researched the Recipient’s subject focus and read the publication or articles they write or publish to ensure that the content is relevant.

Right 5 – Categorise interests in detail

The Recipient has the right to expect that PR people will categorise their interests in detail and not label them under a vague description such as ‘technology’.

Right 6 – Types of release

A Recipient has the right to receive press releases about ‘types’ of stories that they are likely to be interested in and not announcements of any kind just because of an industry categorisation.

Right 7 – Telephone chasing

After receiving a press release the Recipient should not expect a follow up call from the sender. Acts of such kind only waste time and have no bearing on whether a press release is used for a news story.

Right 8 – Succinct headlines

A Recipient has the right to receive press releases with succinctly written headlines so a decision of interest can be made quickly.

Right 9 – Use clear format

A Recipient has the right to receive press release emails that have been formatted to highlight the key information quickly to the reader, such as a summary of the story, who it is about, contact details and links to supporting information.

Right 10 – No attachments

A Recipient has the right not to receive any press release or related content as an attachment to the corresponding email.

Visit inconvenientprtruth.com to learn more.

• 90 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2009 (81% spam)
• 234 million – The number of websites as of December 2009.
• 47 million – Added websites in 2009.
• 81.8 million – .COM domain names at the end of 2009.
• 1.73 billion – Internet users worldwide (September 2009).
• 18% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
• 418,029,796 – Internet users in Europe.
• 126 million – The number of blogs on the Internet (as tracked by BlogPulse).
• 84% – Percent of social network sites with more women than men.
• 27.3 million – Number of tweets on Twitter per day (November, 2009)
• 1 billion – The total number of videos YouTube serves in one day

More interesting info here

Important observations (mentioning Romania too):

• Attack traffic originates from 207 unique countries around the world. Here’s the top 10:

• On a global basis, the average connection speed increased by approximately 18%, and more than 100 countries had average connection speeds under 1 Mbps. Romania ranks 4th in the top fastest countries!

• Overall, 35 countries around the world saw increased quarterly levels of high broadband connectivity, and 49 countries saw yearly growth. In contrast, 41 countries saw quarterly declines, while 27 countries saw levels of high broadband connectivity decline year-over-year.

Via

• Finland becomes the first country to make broadband a legal right

Finland is set to become the first country in the world to make broadband Internet a legal right, according to their Ministry of Transport and Communications. In July 2010, all Finland residents will have access to a one-megabit broadband connection, which is a first step towards a goal for the end of 2015- which will enable all Finns to have a one hundred megabit broadband connection.

Via PSFK

And..

• Laptop for every pupil in Uruguay

Uruguay has become the first country to provide a laptop for every child attending state primary school.

The Uruguay programme has cost the state $260 (£159) per child, including maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers and internet connection.

The total figure represents less than 5% of the country’s education budget.

Via Antonio Eram and BBC

Me = Digital Extrovert, taking  the internet for granted and revel in what it enables me to do.

Wich tribe are you? QUIZ

Every planner’s dream!

Here’s some random useful stuff that i found on Google Internet Stats:

20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute.

YouTube, May 2009

Although men and women follow a similar number of Twitter users, men have 15% more followers than women.

HarvardBusiness.org, June 2009

There are 1.5 million business searches daily on YouTube, making it the second-most-visited destination for business searches, behind Google.

Google, Forbes, BtoB, June 2009, June 2009

According to a study done by OTX, 33% of young people (12 – 24 year olds) globally (UK, US, Germany, India and Japan) are contactable at all times, even in their sleep.

OTX Research, March 2009

Users are 1.5 times more attentive when browsing YouTube than when watching TV.

Motorola (with Mindshare) and GM, partnered with YouTube, December 2008

5% of all time online is spent on Facebook.

Comscore, April 2009

Via

First Banner Ad:

First Item Sold on Ebay:

A broken laser pointer that went for $14

First Youtube Video:

Things haven’t changed too much, huh?

(For the other 7 firsts plus more info, go to 11points.com They also have the first tweet, the first email, the first spam email etc.)

About 100 people who took the survey describe themselves as digital planners. To the vast majority of them, they are simply taking similar skills and applying them to new media. The difference o’en is in who drives the overall brand strategy. That generally is the responsibility of the above the line agency. This also means less strategic research that the digital folks get to steer.
“As a digital planner, I like to think what I do in the digital space isn’t any different, at least in approach. I consider a planners job to understand the intersection of culture, business and creativity – and I strive for that across the board…
On a down note, not being AOR means not having full control over your client brands,
which has been a bit of a mental shi’ (and struggle) for me.”
Digital planners are also teaching their clients a lot about technology. But money is swinging their way as TV and print budgets are shi’ed to digital. This question prompted several people to identify themselves as integrated planners, confident that they are working across the spectrum.
“I’m not one, but I consider digital in every strategy I work on. I no longer see the point of uniquely ‘digital’ planners.”

Check-out the complete Twit-Ha set on Flickr