What's the Future of Brand Journalism? Collision Content: There is no denying the radical shift from companies and brands controlling their messages to consumers controlling them. From blogs to YouTube to social networking, consumers have a bigger, louder voice than ever. And they're being heard, Advertising Age

Pay for Play: Examiner Newspapers to Reward Bloggers -- Clarity Media is adopting a pay-per-page view strategy for Examiner newspaper blogs, Editor And Publisher 

Reaching Baby Boomers Online, MediaPost

Woman to Woman, Online: The rapid growth in advertising and traffic to Web sites aimed primarily at women has attracted the attention of major media companies and venture capitalists, New York Times

Exxon requests control of fake Twitter account: Exxon Mobil media adviser Alan Jeffries told PRWeek that the company asked Twitter to give it control over accounts associated with its brand, after a person calling herself “Janet” created an account in the oil company's name and gained hundreds of followers, PR Week US 

After a weeklong family reunion, it's great to get back refreshed and renewed. That doesn't mean the world has stopped evolving though...I hope you were able to keep up with what's news in advertising/PR without me.

Here's what's new and interesting today...

Marketers Love Conversation, Unless the Consumer Starts It: Listening Gets You More Than Complaints -- You Get Positive Brand Association and Word of Mouth, Advertising Age

Magazine Sales Fall 6.3% at Newsstands: Newsstand sales of magazines fell 6.3 percent in the first half of 2008, an industry group said Monday, as rising gas and food costs led consumers to cut back on nonessential spending, Associated Press

Yes, Companies Are Responsible for Charity: It's Wrongheaded to Think Businesses' Social Awareness Doesn't Matter to Employees, Consumers, Investors, Advertising Age

It's Not the Ad; It's Getting the Bill: A majority of people say they are averse to having advertisements sent to their cellphones. But nearly a quarter of people say they have responded to such ads, New York Times

Killing the cash cow and other acts of media indecency: You can find any number of similar stories about how the Internet forced media to fragment and change. So why does The Philadelphia Inquirer think it can defy history?, CNet.com

Between filling in on KROC-AM, working with clients, and helping my son sort through football recruiting information, I can't believe a whole week has passed! See how hard it is to keep up with all the news and trends in our business! Here's a quick recap of some of the more interesting items of the past week.

Corporations' Duty Is Transparency, not Charity: I'd like to challenge conventional wisdom and suggest that corporations are not supposed to be "good citizens", Advertising Age

Learn to tell story about yourself—but be quick [Constructing an elevator pitch], Chicago Tribune

Lawsuit Threatens Sarbanes-Oxley Act: Just when you thought that the drive toward better financial accounting couldn't be stopped, a stick may be shoved into the spokes. A decision expected soon from a federal court might throw the Sarbanes-Oxley Act into limbo, Washington Post

Facebook Unveils New Ad Placements, New Look, Online Media Daily

Report: Facebook growing faster than MySpace, CNET News.com

Leading in Turbulent Times: How fast, and how treacherous, are the currents sweeping over The New York Times? This September, its home page -- some of the most valuable real estate on the web -- will start automatically displaying links to competitors' takes on big news. That's not your traditional paper of record, Advertising Age

After Layoffs: Newspapers Get Smaller, Pew Study Finds: U.S. daily newspapers aren't shrinking just their newsrooms, an extensive study released Monday finds. Stories, page count, sections, international and national news are all smaller, too -- and only a minority of editors think online journalism will save their papers, Editor & Publisher

Direct Mail Tries to Go Green. No, Really, New York Times

Social media rules create a political battle, PR Week US

The Need for Partnership at a Time of Fragmentation : The exponential growth of media channels, platforms and audience segments has made brand marketing much too complex to approach without the collective strengths of communications partners, Advertising Age

Blogs in print : Bloggers and print journalists… their tense relationship has been discussed (and discussed and discussed), but, in fact, according to Cision's latest research , print journalists at the top 20 national publications are turning to bloggers for material more and more, PR Week US

Here's some interesting information...

YouTube partners with TiVo: Web content to be streamed through set-top boxes, Hollywood Reporter 

Anythinggoes? The Impact Of New ICANN Vanity Top-Level Domains, MediaPost

Outlets in mid-sized markets grow online, PR Week US 

Here is some interesting reading for today!

Better ROI or Your Money Back, Says Buzz Agency: BzzAgent Wants to Prove Word of Mouth Performs Better Than Any Other Medium, Advertising Age

Why Brands Need a New Kind of Leader: As conversations with customer matter more, brands seek social-media evangelists, Adweek

One Bridge for Sale. Cheap [If an offer like this truly appeals to those making key decisions regarding marketing measurement and metrics, I've got just one thing to say: Our industry is toast], Brandweek

Affluent in Spanish: From tennis to tequila, Latinos are going upscale, Marketing y Medios

Interesting us today...

FTC Wants Electronic Measurement For Radio: The Federal Trade Commission supports electronic measurement of radio as a way to combat inappropriate placement of alcohol ads during programs and time slots likely to reach young people, MediaPost

Senate Grapples With Web Privacy Issues: At Hearing, More Questions Than Answers, Washington Post

Filling in on afternoon news on KROC-AM...a little behind on reading...

The Changing Face of the U.S. Consumer: What We Can Learn from Census Data, and Why It Matters for Brands, Advertising Age

For Marketers, Viruses Just Won't Cooperate: Viral marketing is much harder to generate than negative buzz [Table: Which will be the most important site for social marketing campaigns in 2008?], New York Times

Whichever Screen, People Are Watching: The first in a series of new “three-screen” reports by the Nielsen Company shows an emerging shift toward a more video-centric use of the Internet, but not at the expense of television viewing,
International Herald Tribune  

I was lucky enough to spend a beautiful 4th of July evening with my family down at my mother's in Des Moines. From her deck we were able to watch the fireworks displays from 3 different cities. It's a great reminder that there are always several ways to do something, and as long as you get the results you want, every path to success is the right one!

Here are a couple news items of note...

Study: E-Mail is The Most Effective Form of Direct Response, July 2, 2008, Steve Miller. Brandweek

Web Marketing Grows, but How Much? A look behind the numbers, July 3, 2008. eMarketer

Here's what we're reading today...

Is Talk Cheap? How Cheap? The word-of-mouth marketing industry is attempting to come up with a measurement standard. In the meantime, 50 cents per conversation seems a fair price. But measuring sales can be tricky, especially if a W-O-M campaign isn't national, Brandweek

Brands Adjust to Media Fragmentation, eMarketer

Need Press?...Strategic word selection can catapult an announcement about a product or a “breakthrough” onto the evening news instead of to the spam folder or circular file, International Herald Tribune