Multiple PR requests - musicians, socializers and business owners oh my!
Thursday, September 21st, 2006 at 4:46 PM by: catherinelindenPR is kinda crazy sometimes. This week I’ve gotten a boatload of requests for the most particular things…
For instance, a reporter in St. Louis, Missouri would like to speak with a local Second Life resident who is also a musician in-world.
A newspaper in Annapolis, MD would like to talk with a local resident!
Does anyone from Switzerland want to be on TV?
ABC News would like to speak with a SL resident from the Chicago area who is also a musician
And, ABC in Los Angeles has a big wishlist:
1. Is there someone in the LA area who could come to their offices and demo SL?
2. Would someone like to talk about how their Second Life relationship moved to real life?
3. Is there anyone who would like to talk about their business in Second Life?
If you’re interested in participating in any of those stories, please get in touch with me directly at catherine@lindenlab.com. Include your rl name, sl name, rl location, phone number and which story you’d like to talk about it. I’ll want to meet you in-world or talk via phone to learn more about your Second Life experience and your background as it pertains to the news story.
Full disclosure: Oftentimes, reporters will want to know some real life information so keep that in mind when you respond. The ABC and Swiss stories are on-camera so you should be prepared to be filmed.
September 21st, 2006 at 7:03 PM
Samuel, that’s an email to support@ or a visit to the website, not here.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:33 PM
So cool that News sources are interested in SL.
Wonder why the music interest though.
I’m an Artist but not set up for SL Live yet.
Hope you get some good coverage and PR.
September 21st, 2006 at 9:42 PM
Wow, thank of the response you might get if this was in a forum.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:18 AM
I think this interest in music arose after Popular Science article.
September 22nd, 2006 at 5:37 AM
It looks like the media exposure due to the recent issues does have some positive effects after all.
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:40 AM
Well I don’t meet any of those but I might be willling to discuss SL with the media in the Seattle area (or for those that don’t need a specific geographical area).
September 22nd, 2006 at 7:54 AM
Cottonteil: you know what they say about bad publicity and the nonexistence thereof.
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:10 AM
Got anything in UK?
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:17 AM
On The Register’s Developer site, http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk there’s an interesting article “IBM’s ’secret island’ Virtually a new way of doing business” http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2006/09/21/ibm_secret/ It describes how IBM is using a private island in SL to think about ways to conduct and manage business in the metaverse.
A small quote from the article, “IBM has decided to use the capabilities already developed by Linden Labs for its Second Life gaming environment to build a separate, experimental area within it. Participants – from IBM research and development departments around the world – can contribute whatever they feel is important to create a productive environment in which to conduct and manage “business”.”
It’s been just over 2 weeks since the last article about Second Life was linked to in your news section. Where should we be reporting these articles too?
September 22nd, 2006 at 8:28 AM
Couple answers for you:
Please send ME an email if you’re interested in participating. I’ll need your email address and phone number. When I get dozens of responses, it’s impossible to chase people down who don’t provide all the pertinent info. I’d hate for you to lose an opportunity to speak to the press if you want to.
Lektor - actually, I did have a PR message board that sadly noone responded to, This has LOTS more visibility. Yay!
Asian - No need to report. I receive a daily email from a clipping service that lists all the US and International online stories published about SL, LL, etc. Yes, we’re behind in posting - fortunately, the volume of stories published combined with the volume of interest is fantastic and exciting. Unfortunately, it’s also completely overwhelming. We’re working on sorting that out.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:12 AM
Aslan, you can send those to Catherine. Please feel free to ping me as well whenever you see Second Life in the news. I keep track of articles on http://del.icio.us/secondlife/press and I just added the IBM article you mentioned.
Thanks for the help! You can reach me inworld or at pathfinder@lindenlab.com.
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:25 AM
I’m a musician, and close-ish to both St. Louis and Chicago, but I’m guessing they want actual resi’s of the cities mentioned - I’m in the Des Moines, IA area, so about 300-500 miles.
September 23rd, 2006 at 4:59 AM
News paper in Annapolis, Md. I’m a club DJ and remixer in the Metro DC. I would love to talk to this news paper how great SL is. I have got to reach people world wide with my music and it has been great. With a lot of great feed back from people on SL.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:05 PM
OK, Catherine, you used to have a section of the old forums where you put press opportunities, and people could email you — and that worked to an extent — when you in fact published media opportunities there. Not all of them were there, of course.
You also have a kind of “press club” group that people in world can join to hear about media inquiries and respond if they like. This is great, though I don’t know if I’ve seen more than one message in it for weeks.
And here on this blog, now, with more visibility, you’ve let us know about this great opportunity that came up with…erm…”a newspaper in Annapolis, MD [that] would like to talk with a local resident!”
But, Catherine, there were recently stories in Popular Science, Wired, the Wall Street Journal, and the Economist. No notices of those media opportunities showed up anywhere. You held them close. Understandably, magazine articles in particular take months to prepare, and the journalists don’t always know when they’ll run — so these opportunities may have been open months ago, not weeks ago. Still, no mention was made of them being in the works back then, nor was the opportunity presented to apply to be interviewed.
Instead, each and every one of these stories featured people to whom you steered the major media — the same list we’re familiar with.
Now, you may feel as a private company that you have no public obligation to anyone to simply pick and chose your favourites and pitch the same ones to the media every time — that’s understood. Then say that’s what you doing, then, and don’t tell everyone in fact there’s a *different* system of open casting calls — when that system gets us only the newspaper in Annapolis, MD, and not Wired.
Oh, is it that each of these stories had reporters who did their own journalistic research without you? That Wired, the Economist, and the Wall Street Journal went by without you involved? That’s not possible. And even if it were, well, those reporters would Google Second Life, and of course find the stories of all the people you previously steered, and then trod the well-trod path already.
That’s why it’s impossible to get diversity even when someone does their own homework, unless a group of residents is willing to spend money hiring their own PR firm and holding their own press conferences.
Do I say this as some sour grape who feels they’ve been left behind the door when it came to handing out groovy media coverage opportunities? Of course not. I don’t have any barn-storming story, as a manager of a medium-sized mainland rentals business, I clean up after the real psychos online griefing me and tenants with malicious tub girl scripts, I don’t make elaborate wow builds that simulate the life of schizophrenics (I find I never have to look really far to get that simulation in SL).
I don’t need any special media coverage. If I did, I’d sit down and write my own piece or call up my own reporter friends, frankly. But I do wonder about all the *other* people in SL who are just as good as those constantly featured; just as interesting; just as compelling.
December 1st, 2006 at 9:07 PM
Im working on an e-learning initiative. Ive been working with Macromedia(Adobe) Flash for 10 years making e-learning for corporate clients.
I think the 2d internet has run its course. SL is internet 3.0. (3.d?)
SL has provided what Ive been looking for for years of working in the e-learning field…a new set of tools that mimics real human interaction better than anything to date, so Im really excited about the possibilites. Teaching with avatars, creating real world tools.
I bought an “island” but to me, its not “real estate” its a server with a fully realized open source 3d simulation engine, easy to use tools (easier than anything Ive seen to date) an integrated purchasing system, and access to a growing audience currently over 1.7 million. (and much more) At $2000, its a giveaway. When SL integrates flash, there will be nothing you can do on the internet that you cant to in SL, and SL will be 3d. X, Y? I have a new friend to introduce you to…”Z” !
Might be too early to talk about it but Id be interested in talking to the news and have them follow my progress if they think its worthy of a story. At any rate Im incredibly excited about SL. I hope to use my expertise in programming to make SL a learning simulation tool killer app.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:34 AM
Real world national band looking at getting gigs in Second life. We are not far from the st louis area and would love to do the interview and see if we could get some of our music played here. Please let me know.
May 23rd, 2007 at 3:38 AM
HI Catherine,
I am maybe late, but I’m from Switzerland and want to be on TV
August 6th, 2007 at 6:43 PM
Beware! artists!!!
the following radio promotion company is a scam.
I am posting this to protect other artists from making the extremely costly mistake we did.
do your research, and go over everything that’s in your contract, with any promotion team you hire, your wallet will thank you later.
We made the huge mistake of hiring Jack Ashton Consulting!
When all was said and done Jack Ashton is full of ˚˙©∆ƒ˚©˙˚˙©∂ƒ I can’t write what I think.
He ripped us off, and did absolutely nothing but make the song look good on fmqb. which is a useless, and fake chart.
he sounded like he was drunk most of the time, and didn’t even know who he was talking to half the time in conversations.
he charges 20 times the fee most other promotion companies charge, and it’s all for nothing, believe me.
DO NOT USE JACK ASHTON!!!!!!
The single biggest, most costly mistake we have ever made!!!!! 65,000 dollars worth of broken promises and lies!!!!
Jack Ahston Consulting, and the entire team is a huge scam, and by the way if he offers you a publicist named LuLu….stay far away, we got ripped off by her too.
10,000 dollars, she was late for the appointments,
completely dressed like a bag lady, came out of her house for one day, and did nothing as far as lining interviews up, she’s a rip off too.
And they work in conjunction together ripping people off.
Take my word for it, I have nothing else left to lose, so I will spread the word to other innocent people.
Don’t use them, I will make it my mission to post in every blog I can about this scam and rip off artist Jack Ashton, and LuLu!
don’t make the same mistake!
sincerely,
extremely ripped off