It's been pretty quiet round these parts (again) but there is good reason. Between my day job (usually 2am - 3am) I have been working on a new Twitter application that effectively replicates the Google Alerts service but, yes you guessed it, for Twitter! So, I proudly introduce Twilert.com to the world! Ideal for anyone interested in following opinion or discussion on brands, products, people - anything really. Give it a go, it's dead easy to use and completely free. Let me know what you think. Oh and follow us on Twitter too.

I was catching up with some friends earlier this week, most of which work in some sort of marketing / digital / interactive capacity. During the course of dinner we noticed the array of mobile phones on the table and in particular the fact that 5 out of the 6 phones were iPhones. The conversation moved onto how to engage consumers on the mobile platform (seriously, we have some crazy rock 'n' roll dinners) with half arguing that brands need to engage users through iPhone apps and others arguing that the market share of the iPhone was still too small for it to warrant such a large focus. My view, for what it was worth, was that the focus should be on non-iPhone but there is no reason why this can't be supported through the iPhone. Anyway, it struck me, looking at the array of iPhones on display, how important it is for us to remember that as marketers we aren’t our client’s target audience – and we shouldn’t lose sight of what is the norm for us and what is the norm for the general population. I've see it so often, and I do it myself, when marketers presume audiences behave in ...

I'm beginning to find some innovate ways brands are leveraging the Twitter platform. Two new services caught my eye this week! The first, Qwitter, aims to help stop people smoking. As a non-smoker I haven't tried it but it's simple to get involved. Simply follow Qwitter and send messages to the user (@iquit) telling it how many cigarettes you have had. Qwitter will track how many packs you're getting through and provide tips and advice to help you kick the habit. The second is Tweet What You Spend which, like Qwitter, allows you to send messages and track how much you are spending day to day. What I love about this is the fact that it's such a simple way of engaging an audience through an existing and established platform. Both Qwitter and Tweet What You Spend are the start of brands engaging Twitter users with value-add services. Many of our clients are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon, using it as a simple comms tool. But, the examples above show that Twitter is becoming much more than a micro-blogging service and extending beyond comms and into a powerful web app for both brands and consumers.

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article discussing how traditional PR is dead and today's Google Chrome announcement only furthers my belief that PRs must continue to looks at new and interesting ways of communicating to the media and consumers. Google has pulled off, in my opinion, a mini masterstroke by announcing its new browser through a cartoon. Why? Well for a start it's much more interesting than a press release. But, more importantly look at how the story is being reported, there are just as many blog posts and news articles discussing the cartoon as the product itself. The cartoon does nothing more than communicate the key messages and features of Google Chrome but by packaging it in an interesting and unique way, (all of) those messages are reaching the end-user. By discussing or even posting scans of the cartoon the media are doing the equivalent of reprinting a press release. I don't think we can all go start sending out cartoons to journalists, we can't lose sight that the Google brand and this particular announcement carries a fair amount of weight with the media. However, we shouldn't be afraid of exploring new ways of engaging journalists and consumers, especially ...

Found a great new website over the weekend that could prove to be an incredibly useful tool for some raw measurement of campaigns, events and activity. It's called Twist and allows you to plot the frequency of keywords found on Twitter. It's quick and dirty as far as measurement goes but clients love the odd chart and this is an effective way of demonstrating the amount of online buzz being generating at any one time. As a side experiment I created a graph based on mentions of "Gordon Brown" and "David Cameron". There is a lot of talk of David Cameron being the new-age digital political compared favourably to Mr. Analogue Gordon Brown. But on this evidence, GB is much more prominent amongst the Twitter chatter!

I get a little bit of stick in the office for being a self-confessed techy but more and more I am finding an array of software, websites, gadgets and tools that allow me to stay one step ahead in the fast-paced world of PR I thought I would compile a selection of things I kit myself out with to make me a little more PR 2.0: 1. Firefox & add-ons: I took the plunge with Firefox earlier this year and have never looked back. Aside from the speed, stability and usability it provides it also allows you to install add-ons and plug-ins to tailor the software. Pertinent to this post include: LinkedIn Companion: Allows me to keep access and my business network at the click of a button (Disclaimer: LinkedIn is an H&K client) Foxmarks: Invaluable for working between the office and home. Synchronises your bookmarks across computers so you never have to find that obscure news article you saved during some late night surfing Googlepedia: Displays a Wikipedia article next to your Google searches. Excellent resource and time-saver when doing desk research Cooliris: Fantastic tool for some one-man creative thinking. Turn your PC into a mood-board in seconds TwitterFox: I can’t remember the last time I ...

Further to my post on client adoption of Twitter, Jeremiah has posted a great article on the evolution of brands using the service.

TechCrunch has published an article by Ashley Norris on why blog publishing has failed in the UK.

In his latest post, Steve Rubel has asked whether PR is obsolete and I generally agree with the sentiment. Traditional PR is, to a degree, dead. Distributing press releases far and wide in the hope of getting a hit (the machine gun effect) is time consuming and delivers little if anything. The same goes for press-conference style events - they no longer pull in the numbers. Conversation has changed forever but as PRs we have been slow to adapt our approach and tap into "the new way". One of the problems is moving out of our comfort zone. Clients have to report upstairs and have numbers to hit, numbers that are measured by circulations, OTS and AVE - it's hard to measure conversation. So why put ourselves out by trying to encourage the use of new media and communications tools such as Twitter. Well if we don't then one of two things will happen. Either our competitors will demonstrate how new media can be more effective and clients will walk out the door; or our clients will realise the power of new media on there own and guess what, they will walk out the door. Our clients demand to be where their audiences are and ...

Robert Scoble's latest post is praising the launch of a new service for programmers called Stack Overflow, claiming its success has been down to ditching PR in favour of letting the users create organic noise around the site. Robert is right in that it is incredibly effective having passionate users spreading the word of your product or service, but he is mistaken if he thinks a PR hand isn't behind this. For any start-up business, whether online or off, BETA testers are one of the most effective tools in a PRs arsenal. Not only do they provide instant feedback that we can guard against but they provide a core user base that can be leveraged as part of a powerful word of mouth campaign, which, it would seem, Robert has been exposed to. Robert - PR isn't all media relations and stunts. Occasionally we do something really smart and stay invisible!