From the latest MEGA QUIZ...
Horton doesn’t address IMC; instead he explains how one tool, the Web, will influence an industry. Using his article, we examine where we were, where we’re headed and what that will mean.
PR Practioners fear technology?
Little did Horton know then that less than a decade after he was surmising that professionals need to adapt what is new and get over their fear of technology; today’s PR professionals are fighting over the chance to learn what tech can do for them. Over the weekend, I joined 3,000 current and future PR junkies hoping to get their next fix from Facebook, YouTube or even Twitter. Gone are the days of having to call “Hank” to fix the problems; today’s mantra is do it yourself and then, maybe, tell IT that it was done, or don’t bother.
To see how easy it is to create your own Web site, check out Weebly at: http://www.weebly.com/
Twitter in Plain English-
Doing versus reading?
Unfortunately for Horton, doing online is often not better than reading about online. As I write this, I know how to make a Web site, start a blog or upload videos; yet I don’t know these things. I can sit back and follow along but without something written, I may be lost. Learning online is a big leap without a written guide and we’ve all been taught to look before leaping. Horton thinks that teaching online is doing online, that just isn’t the case. Skipping the theory and the reading can lead to wasted time if something goes wrong
Lucky for us many sites offer links to additional help. YouTube offers this: http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/static.py?page=start.cs&hlrm=en-US
Dreamweaver Tutorial Video-
Online is content or online is flash?
Again, Horton couldn’t predict changes in the word of Web design. A successful site uses the right amount of content to engage the reader and the right amount of flash to keep their attention. Today, Web 2.0 isn’t about “cutesy, animated pages” but no one wants to read article after article either. If we did there would be no need for 2.0 at all. We want our sound and our embedded video and images. One also has to control the white space on the page, since too many words don’t bring readers but too many blank spaces could be worse.
The Smart Webby Web site says this regarding Web design tips:
http://www.smartwebby.com/web_site_design/webdesign_tips.asp
What Makes a Good Web Site-
More people use the Web for content than for entertainment?
These days Horton’s suggestion may make sense for his generation and maybe that was the case for more people in 2002 but not anymore. The presentation I sat through earlier this week, regarding YouTube, wasn’t full with professionals wishing to learn about content unless your topic was how to make a fountain with Mentos and Diet Coke. The Web has become the place to go for entertainment with gossip sites, video downloading and online games. In fact, several traditional entertainment industries, such as television and movies, cite the Internet as the reason that they no longer hit their viewer numbers.
E! Online offers almost all entertainment at their site:
http://www.eonline.com/
Mentos and Diet Coke Experiment-
James Horton couldn’t predict those few short years ago that so many changes would come out of the Internet but he saw something coming and he knew that meant the PR industry needed to be on board. That’s exactly what the professionals and students seemed to know at the conference I attended. The future is in Web 2.0 and IMC can only benefit. In our industry alone, where PR is all about building relationships, the Web opens so many doors to ease the process of two-way communication. As Horton says at the beginning of his paper, “Online is the present and future of PR.” It was true then and it remains true today.
