Here's one to file under 'lessons we probably should have learned from writing stuff on the internet for over a decade': if you're planning to publish a couple of different perspectives on a contentious issue, either publish them together or lead with the one that reflects the prevailing consensus. Otherwise everyone calls you a c***!

As Oli Welsh points out in Always Online: What Diablo 3's Battle.net Does Right, Diablo 3 is an online game. There are definitely benefits to this approach, which Oli outlines - the links to other players are simple and appealing, griefing and loot-stealing are impossible, and trading looks like it could become hugely addictive - and, if you're playing Diablo 3 on a completely reliable internet connection, it's easy to focus on this stuff and make peace with whatever else is going on, because it makes the game more fun.

However, as anyone who has followed me on Twitter for any time will know, even people who pay over the odds for supposedly top-of-the-line fibre connections are just as vulnerable to the quirks and eccentricities of networking architecture as the people paying Observations, musings and insights on the future of media from Steve Rubel, EVP/Global Strategy and Insights for Edelman.

The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media

In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated.

Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. As part of this effort, I spend a lot of time with not only the social platforms but journalists and media execs.

Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. The site, now called The Clip Report, is a virtual scrapbook about the emerging future of media. It will be visual in nature with more frequent postings in the form of scrapbook pages. These pages will feature a mash-up of text and images, just like a real scrapbook.

It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report. The photo set above includes the introduction. The full PDF version is available here or on Slideshare. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media

In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated.

Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. As part of this effort, I spend a lot of time with not only the social platforms but journalists and media execs.

Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. The site, now called The Clip Report, is a virtual scrapbook about the emerging future of media. It will be visual in nature with more frequent postings in the form of scrapbook pages. These pages will feature a mash-up of text and images, just like a real scrapbook.

It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report. The photo set above includes the introduction. The full PDF version is available here or on Slideshare. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

A few media companies have started to set up camp inside Google . They include Mashable (an Edelman client) and The Next Web. Right now most of these are digitally native media companies. Could the big guys like CNN, NBC and the New York Times be far behind?

The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media

In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated.

Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. As part of this effort, I spend a lot of time with not only the social platforms but journalists and media execs.

Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. The site, now called The Clip Report, is a virtual scrapbook about the emerging future of media. It will be visual in nature with more frequent postings in the form of scrapbook pages. These pages will feature a mash-up of text and images, just like a real scrapbook.

It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report. The photo set above includes the introduction. The full PDF version is available here or on Slideshare. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

The Clip Report: An eBook on the Future of Media

In the early 1990s when I began my career in PR there were clip reports. These were physical books that contained press clips. It seems downright archaic now but that’s how I learned about the press - by cutting, pasting up and photocopying clippings. My fascination with the media never abated.

Today my role is to form insights into how the entire overlapped media landscape - the pros, social channels, and corporate content - is rapidly evolving and to help Edelman clients turn these learnings into actionable strategies. As part of this effort, I spend a lot of time with not only the social platforms but journalists and media execs.

Today I am re-launching my Tumblr site with a new name, a new focus and a new format. The site, now called The Clip Report, is a virtual scrapbook about the emerging future of media. It will be visual in nature with more frequent postings in the form of scrapbook pages. These pages will feature a mash-up of text and images, just like a real scrapbook.

It all kicks off today with a 15-page installment of The Clip Report. The photo set above includes the introduction. The full PDF version is available here or on Slideshare. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Fire up the PowerPoint. Here’s a fantastic, data-rich report (PDF) from Netprospex on the state of social media adoption in Corporate America. What’s notable is that the media continues to shine. One reason? Content matters.

via Lost Remote

The following is also my AdAge column…

With all of the attention that’s being paid to Facebook and Twitter it’s easy to forget that no single company impacts media and marketers the way that Google does. Even small changes in Google’s algorithm and/or its underlying search technology can cause a massive ripple effect in consumer traffic patterns and buying behaviors.

The intentionally low-key launch of the Google social network - which ended up being quite strong out of the chute - is no different. It’s Google’s effort to encourage more consumers to create and share content it can easily see, index and monetize. This is critical for Google as more content slips into the “invisible web” that exists solely behind Facebook’s walls.

The Google launch, however, overshadowed three recent smaller announcements that are arguably far more significant. They point to massive shift in the kind of data Google is factoring into its algorithm. And these refinements come just as the search engine is being increasingly criticized for being gamed into delivering lower quality results. Together they reveal a company that is serious about social signals.

Let’s take a deeper look at each.

First, on June 7 Google unveiled a new way for authors to claim ownership of their content around the web. This allows a writer to embed verified HTML code tied to his/her Google profile in all content, no matter where it appears (e.g. my blog or AdAge.com). Once inserted Google then automatically includes the author’s profile image whenever these works show up in searches. Already the New York Times, CNET and The New Yorker have adopted this simple tag.

This is a significant announcement since it creates an easy way for companies to insert a mug shot into relevant search results, which arguably can drive clicks. It will put pressure on businesses to identify thought leaders who can pen bylines not only for their own sites, but for the media.

Next on June 28 Google began to make more data available to companies on the impact that tweets, Facebook likes and, most importantly, its own “ 1” sharing buttons have on site traffic. (The Google 1 button, which appears next to search results, is rapidly gaining steam, according to BrightEdge. However, it remains far behind Facebook’s Like button.)

The impact here is that as publishers begin to get more data on how social networks can drive people through the funnel they will look to perhaps reorient their budgets in an effort to secure to get more retweets, likes and 1s.

Finally, Google News is starting to get more social as well. On July 14 the ten-year-old site launched a program that rewards regular users with social badges of authority for reading lots of news stories in a given subject matter. At launch Google rolled out badges for more than 500 topics.

The impact of these reading badges remains unclear. However, what it does show - especially in context with the new author markup tag - is that Google is serious about identifying subject matter experts, whether they publish or not.

If all of this isn’t enough, sandwiched in between these announcements Google urged publishers to think beyond the almighty PageRank number that SEO types historically pay much heed to. In a June 30 blog post, Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst, suggested that site owners look more deeply at other metrics such as conversion rates, bounce rates (how quickly users abandon a site) and search click-throughs.

These events, while seemingly quite technical, are not coincidental. In fact, they’re incredibly strategic.

While the press and pundits focus on Google’s effort to compete with Twitter and Facebook with its own social network, there’s a far bigger story here. Google is slowly reinventing the core of its business by refining the quality of what people turn to it most for - search results - by favoring explicit and implicit signals of authority.

These shifts in search signals, over time, may revolutionize how marketers think about their visibility in a world of infinite content choices. Some will encourage their employees speak for the brand. Others may not be as liberal. However, all will be impacted.