After thoughts of IDC's Directions'08 Panel Discussion

A big topic was the idea of "paying bloggers" from a public relations standpoint, we can't pay bloggers, because that's like paying journalists.

unfortunately, journalists get paid for the writing, and bloggers don't get paid for their hobby.

what we do see is blogs like Techcrunch paying their own writers. Hence, the blog needs to attract enough attention (can you beat TC's readership of 700K++ RSS sunscribers?) to attract sponsorship, or advertising dollars, or some way to sell content and pay their staff writers. not really different from a regular Traditional Media (TM) publication / broadcaster, but i see the business model of information bloggers evolving to something new. something more along the lines of a workable meatball sundae

with reference to "do bloggers have a code of ethics?" it's interesting that Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence open a discussion with bloggers in USA to hear what they had to say.

read their responses here: link and our own code of ethics as Digital Influencers / PR practitioners here

i also thought Uniquefrequency's comments about Twitter were awesome. the example of the airline contacting customers directly via Twitter as an instantaneous, anywhere, anytime feedback channel HAS to be a good thing. i refer also to this post of how Twitter helped save a journalist from incarceration

Finally, advertising should evolve past static banners or even microsites. PR helps connect bloggers and brands together by being real, Digital PR NEEDS to evolve as well, it's not about using traditional methodologies and just treating bloggers like journalists and expecting certain things of them.. at it's heart, if you are only interested in a 'media hit' your bloggers become nothing more than statistics and you're doomed to failure. Brian Solis writes expertly about the concept of PR2.0

embrace the social element of SOCIAL media, understand the communities, be a part of it, add to it, find out what help bloggers need from your clients and join the dots! We're launching The Open Room to do just that, and i am oh so psyched!