Once upon a time, there wasn’t really another way to do things.  Back in the day (wow .. I really sound old) you actually used a fax machine to send the release, but other than that the tactic was the same.    You blasted it out, started making phone calls, and hoped for the best.  These days, however, we have alternatives to bludgeoning the media with releases.  Here’s a look at the list of suggestions from the PR Princess:

• Pitch email (sending a customized email rather than just the release)
• Make a website posting (preferably a blog post)
• Send a Tweet
• Send a Facebook message
• Pick up a phone (call the reporter rather than just sending the release)
• Offer to meet the reporter in person

While I consider one of these a dead or dying PR tactic, I’m in favor of anything that teaches public relations people strategies to avoid creating the news release spam that journalists complain about so frequently.

I’d like to add a few more suggestions to the list:

• You can re-purpose these releases as part of a monthly e-newsletter to your clients and employees.  It will let them know what you’re up to.
• Create a custom Facebook landing page (new service EndGame PR is now offering — look for an announcement soon) and list releases there, along with special offers for Facebook “fans”.
• Post on a news release distribution service, and be sure to include a link back to your (or your client’s) website.  It’s a great way to spread your release around the web, and it’s good for SEO too.

It’s good to be a PR person in our social media age!

Truth is, despite the fact that my profession is public relations, until a relatively short time ago I (and most of my peers) didn’t actually deal with the public all that often.  My job, and the job of most of the vast majority of PR professionals out there, was to either solicit media coverage, handle incoming media inquiries, or to manage the media in a crisis.  In each case, we didn’t take our news directly to the public. Sure … we would sometimes organize an event that was open to the public, but in most cases the main reason for the event was actually to draw news coverage.

It’s no secret that the world has changed due to the social media tools we now have at our disposal.  Now we can blog, we can grow an audience on Facebook or Twitter, we can create our own online videos, and we can even distribute our news release directly to the public rather than politely asking reporters to write about it for us.  While taking this news directly to the public, we’re actually communicating with them one-on-one in a way that wasn’t possible just a few years back.

While the media is still an important tool for disseminating news from my clients, it’s hardly the only way to go about it.  Now, it actually makes sense to call our profession PUBLIC relations.

Note: Part of what got me thinking about this was a blog post from colleague and friend Jon Newman, on how PR can capitalize on winning the “battle” over social media within organizations.  Good read.  Check it out here.

To read more about what happened, check out the coverage on the WPSecurityLock.com blog.

This hack hit me particularly hard, affecting five client sites — three that were live and two more that were being built.  Fixing the problem was time-consuming but not terribly difficult once I figured out the problem.  I’m not writing this post to compete with other coverage of what happened or how it happened.  What interests me from a PR perspective is GoDaddy’s response to this attack.  Here’s the statement from them that has been posted in many places:

Measures are in place to protect the overall security of the shared hosting server on which your website resides. The compromise of your account is outside of the scope of security that we provide for you. Virus scans are performed on the content that is hosted, but they may not pick up everything, largely due to the fact that hackers tend to upload custom scripts which are not picked up by traditional malware scanners. However, if a virus is detected, you will be notified. The overall security of your password and the content within your account is your responsibility, as password compromises and compromises due to scripting can only be prevented by you.

I don’t know who crafted this statement or who it was even directed to, but it doesn’t appear to me that it was crafted by someone with much experience in crisis communications.  First, it’s all I’ve been able to find from them on the issue.  Second, it reads to me like, “We just host your site … we’re trying to figure out what happened, but it’s really your own fault.”

While I agree that, in the end, the security of a site is the responsibility of the site owner, to say that when hundreds of site owners are really ticked off is not a great idea.  Additionally, there’s nothing that can be easily found on the GoDaddy site that addresses the issue.  My experience with GoDaddy has been that their customer service is quite good and their downtime is minimal, but GoDaddy has many detractors.  Here’s an example of what you see on Twitter right now:

These comments are relatively mild compared to what you’ll see in comments on blog posts about this hack attack.

How would I have handled it?  First, a more sensitive statement would have been issued — something that addressed how the company values its customers and is working very hard to figure out how the sites were hacked.  That statement would have been posted on the front page of GoDaddy, as well as on the company’s popular Twitter account.  Regular updates would have also been posted, even if there’s really no progress to report.  Additionally, instructions like those found at WPSecurityLock would have been made available by GoDaddy.  This is all relatively simple stuff to do.

These days people understand that hackers are out there and it isn’t necessarily the fault of the company that made an operating system or is hosting a web site, AS LONG AS the company responds to it appropriately.

UPDATED 5/3/10: There was another attack this past weekend, one week to the day after the first one.  It hit (it appears) most of the same sites plus some non-Wordpress sites.  The word from GoDaddy is that the non-Wordpress files that were infected were actually part of a site that included some WordPress element.  That’s not the word (pardon the pun) we’re seeing, as many people have come out and said their sites got hit, and WordPress isn’t on their server.  GoDaddy HAS responded this time, with some infection removal procedures.  They’re recommending those who were infected back up their database and customized files, delete WordPress, and reinstall the software.  This doesn’t seem to me like a viable option, as all PHP files on infected sites were affected, and many of the customized files are PHP files.  That said, at least they’re responding publicly now .. however weakly.

If you look on the EndGame PR services page, you’ll see a pretty long list.  There’s a reason for that.  I want to be able to do everything I can to help my clients.  I’m talking about not only social media, social networking and traditional PR tactics such as media relations, but also search engine optimization (SEO), web content creation, and even web design.  Imagine these skills and tactics as part of a never-ending “circle of life”.  Quality media relations campaigns can equal links back to a web site, which helps search rankings, which in turn can help a social media audience find you, which in turn can help you promote your quality web content, which can add links back to a web site, which can help SEO …. lather, rinse, repeat.  All of these strategies and tactics work well together, and should not be stuck in silos, as they are in so many organizations.

Perhaps the best part of thinking about PR in this way is that you’re not reliant upon one single tactic. If your media relations campaign isn’t going as well as expected, perhaps another portion of the “circle of life” will kick in and help you.

While I’m not suggesting that all PR professionals should know what a 301 redirect is or what to do with the .htaccess file (I do, but I’m a geek), they should know the basics of SEO.  They should also know how (or have access to someone who does) to create a basic web video.  They should also have the writing skills to be able to write an entertaining and thoughtful blog post.  Feel free to judge whether I possess that last one or not .. I won’t assume.

I am going to assume, however, that most everyone reading this knows at least a little bit about social media.  You ARE reading a blog, after all.  Not near as many have knowledge of the SEO basics.  Here are a few, with an example at the end of how the circle of life works:

• Keywords: The basic strategy for figuring out which keywords to use is to think of what words you WANT web searchers to use on Google in order to find your content.  Then, work those words into your title and copy (in a natural way, please .. no keyword stuffing).  If you want to get more precise about which keywords to use, try playing with the Google Keyword Tool.  Most important, however, is that you include those keywords in the headlines and copy of your news releases and other online content.
• Backlinks are king: One of the most important things you can do to improve your site’s search ranking WITHOUT digging into web site code, is increase the number of other sites linking to your site.  From a PR perspective, this can be done two ways.  First, create original content that people will want to link to.  In other words, people will enjoy it and want to blog about it or post about it on Twitter or Facebook.  Another tool in the SEO PR toolbox is online news release distribution.  Check out my sort-of-annual review of online release distribution sites for more information about this.
• Promote your content on social networking sites: Obviously this isn’t ALL you should be doing on Twitter, Facebook, Buzz and all of the others, but it’s one of the things you should be doing.  Obviously, the more people who know about your unique content, the more people who could potentially link back to it from their sites.  See?!  Circle of life!

What it comes down to is that PR pros need to learn everything they can about these tools, even to the point of teaching themselves a little bit of HTML and even how to use CSS.  These skills come in handy much more than you would expect, and can improve the service provided to clients or employers.

And, don’t blame me if you walk away from this blog post humming an Elton John song from a certain Disney movie.  That’s your problem, and I accept no responsibility for it.  It’s less annoying than Hakuna Matata, at least!

Halleluia!

I wrote a post on this very blog (well, it had a different design at the time, and maybe a different name, but it had the same URL anyhow) nearly THREE YEARS AGO, laying out a case for why McDonald’s needed to get rid of its $2.95 wi-fi fee.  And, it appears the reason they switched is the exact reason I laid out in my post.  Here’s what Mashable says:

…McDonalds is hoping to become a hang-out spot of the coffee shop variety — it also plans to start selling frappes and smoothies mid-2010. And given the fact that coffee chains like Starbucks charge customers to surf while they sip, the idea doesn’t seem all that pie-in-the-sky.

…and here’s what I said in my post, On Wi-Fi Hotspots and McDonald’s, on February 10, 2007:

Free web access [...] would open McDonald’s to an entirely different set of customers. If you walk into a Panera Bread Company store in the middle of the day, you’ll see that it’s crawling with business people who are eating and getting a little work done. McDonald’s could combine cheaper food with free Internet, and draw a bunch of those businesspeople in. Parents could even get some work done while their kids catch syphilis from those hamster tube play areas.

It’s nice when a big company reacts to a reasoned argument from a PR guy like me ;)

I spoke this week at the July edition of the monthly New Media Seminars, organized by Advertising and New Media firm Madison + Main.  I recorded my portion of the half-day workshop, and included it in the latest episode of my small business advice podcast, Startup BizCast.  My topic was “How Social Media Changed Everything in PR”.

You can listen in the player below, or find out how to subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or other podcast directories by visiting the Startup BizCast blog.

Check out the article here: With PR on the Rise, Here’s a Refresher Course in the Basics

Allow me to give you a little background, in case you’ve never been to this theme park. There are two versions of Busch Gardens.  One is in Tampa and is a theme park based around Africa.  The other is in Williamsburg, and is based around Europe.  In Williamsburg, the park is broken into a handful of pieces — England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Germany, and France.  Each “country” has its own architecture and feel, with attractions that are based on things that might be found there.  I can’t speak for Busch Gardens Tampa (never been there), but I think Busch Gardens Williamsburg has done a very, very good job keeping “on message” with the Europe theme.  It’s also generally regarded as one of the most beautiful theme parks in the world.

Given all of this, imagine my surprise when I find that Busch Gardens Williamsburg has added a new section between Italy and England called Sesame Street Forest of Fun.

I’m a huge fan of Sesame Street, mind you.  The show started right after I was born, so I grew up with Grover, Big Bird, Ernie and Bert.  My kids love the show too, even if my nearly seven-year-old daughter tells us she’s too old for it.  The issue is that no one told me the show was based in Europe!

Wait.  It’s not based in Europe?  Well then, that’s a problem.

Whether this was a decision by the park’s new owners, or this was something that was in the works before they took over, we’re seeing a watering down of a brand.  BG had a clear message that “when you come to this park, you’re visiting Europe”.  There wasn’t a ride in the park that didn’t, at least in its name, follow that message.  Until now.

BG did make an *attempt* to fit the furry monsters and the giant bird into the theme, but it’s an impossible task.  Nothing short of giving the well known trashcan-loving monster the new name of Oscar Von Grouch would fix the mistake.  It’s like Kentucky Fried Chicken suddenly selling hamburgers.  It just doesn’t fit.

When you’re thinking about your own business and considering a change … please think about this example.  Busch Gardens surely will make some money from the Sesame Street characters, but they’ll pay the price by losing their hard earned identity.

Bonus Content
Here are a few funny comments posted on Facebook when I mentioned in my status update that I was confused about Sesame Street moving to Europe:

• Did you see Oscar Le’Grouch and Big Van Der Bird? [Editor's note: Yes, I stole this joke.]
• Did Big Bird speak French?
• Did Big Bird drink any Busch Beer, he might have been speaking French after a 6 pack!!!
• Big Bird is from France. It’s true. Always thought Oscar was British.

Do I need to chill out and lighten up?  Feel free to say so in comments!

As I got over that thought, I started pondering all of the ways that PR has changed since I started in the industry.  This pondering led to my post last week, 10 Dead or Dying PR Tactics, about common PR tactics we practiced 10 years ago that aren’t practiced anymore.  I decided to write this sequel on common tactics practiced today that weren’t even thought of 10 years ago.  If the tactics I wrote about last week are dinosaurs, these are newborns!

Please add your own suggestions in comments!

10 Newborn PR Tactics

10) Reputation Monitoring: I understand this isn’t an entirely new tactic, but who could have imagined the WAY we’re monitoring reputations today?
10 Years Ago: In existence, but in a different form

9) Corporate Web Videos:10 years ago we sent out Beta tapes or booked satellite time to deliver client video and video news releases to journalists. Today, we create YouTube channels and make our video clips available for download in HD format from corporate websites.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, but corporate video was available in a different form

8) Corporate Podcasting: As mentioned above, the Internet has simply changed the way we deliver our content.  10 years ago, I was known as one of the early practitioners of the simple nationwide Audio News Release (ANRs … also called Radio News Releases or RNRs).  I recorded interviews with clients through the phone, cut the audio into soundbites using a simple digital editor, and made those soundbites available through a voicemail line.  The audio quality was so-so due to the layers of telephone sound.  Today, you can record high quality sound in your office and easily make it available via the web to whoever wants it.  Much more efficient than a voicemail line!
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, but corporate audio was available in a different form

7) Viral Marketing: Who doesn’t want their company or client content to go viral?  Getting an article, blog post, web video or whatever to spread on its own through social media sites or email is a dream!  10 years ago it WAS in existence.  It was called “word of mouth” advertising, and it’s been around since we’ve been able to talk.  The web got involved later, and changed it forever.  Per Wikipedia, the term was coined in the late 1990s and was used to describe Hotmail’s practice of appending advertisements to the end of free email accounts.  The tactic wasn’t, to my knowledge, used by any significant number of PR pros until much, much later.
10 Years Ago: Gestating

6) Corporate Blogging: For years, we’ve wanted reporters and influencers to know our executives  personally.  Ten years ago, we took those bosses or clients on meet-and-greet tours with reporters.  That’s still a valid strategy, if you can find reporters who have time for it.  Another way to achieve this goal is to launch an executive blog.  That’s just one of the myriad of uses for corporate blogging.  Others include link building and SEO, news release distribution, and as a home for podcasts and web videos.  Per Wikipedia, the term “weblog” was coined in 1997, and was first shortened to “blog” in 1999.  Corporate blogs really didn’t start to explode until a few years ago.
10 Years Ago: Gestating

5) Blogger Relations: Once there were enough bloggers out there writing about enough topics, and enough people were reading them, we PR people started to realize that … OMG, WE NEED TO PITCH BLOGGERS!  From what I can see, there’s not much rejoicing going on among bloggers about that realization.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent

4) Web Design: Sure … websites existed in 1999.  I started my first web business in 1998, and I certainly wasn’t the first one.  However, I agree with Sara Evans’ recent blog post that today’s PR pros need to have at least a basic knowledge of HTML code.  Optimizing and even simply improving the look of our postings, whether they’re on a blog, Facebook, or on a news release distribution site, is part of our job now.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent, at least as a PR tool

3) SEO PR, or PR for Search Engine Optimization: Keyword optimization has been around as long as the Yellow Pages.  Ever wonder why company names like AAA Auto Repair were chosen?  Yup … it was so they’d be at the front of the book.  SEO, meanwhile, came into being in the mid-1990s, as businesses tried to get to the top of Excite, Yahoo, and Lycos.  Using tactics like online news release distribution and keyword optimization of news releases, PR pros got into the act a handful of years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent

2) Social Media News Releases: There’s still a lot of discussion going on about whether this is the best format for a release.  I’m on the side that believes the old narrative format can still be used, while at the same time using some of the elements of a social media release.  Essentially, when I write a formal news release (something I’m doing less and less) I use a hybrid, which you can check on on my news release page.  However, whether you’re a practitioner of the social media release or not, I think we can all agree that this was not a tactic we were using 10 years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent

1) Social Media … anything: You can’t get away from the phrase “social media” these days.  Hard to believe it didn’t exist in any significant form 10 years ago.
10 Years Ago: Nonexistent

Honorary Mention:
Online News Release Distribution: I left this out because it’s a tool for SEO PR, but it can be used for non-SEO purposes as well.  PR Newswire has been posting its releases online for a while, but it wasn’t until the RSS feed gained wide use a few years ago that those releases could easily spread around the Internet … which is at least half of the point of posting an online news release!

Note: I’m sure there are some PR pros out there who were using some of these tactics 10 years ago.  If you have, then kudos to you … you were ahead of the curve!

So, at the risk of sounding incredibly old, I present:

10 Dead or Dying PR Tactics:

10) Newspaper-based Media Relations Strategy
Newspapers are dying. Circulation is down. You can’t wrap your media relations strategy solely around trying to get print coverage anymore.
Status: Alive, but poor strategy

9) Deskside Reporter Meetings
These are the sit-down meetings where you get to know reporters and/or pitch them in person.  My friend and former boss Jon Newman recently wrote about desksides, saying they’re dying.  I agree.  In a “former life” I flew from Richmond, VA to New York City on a semi-frequent basis for these meetings.  Now, reporters (particularly the print ones) are ridiculously overtaxed and even more jaded than I remember.  You will occasionally find journalists who appreciate the face-to-face time, but there aren’t many left.
Status: Hard to find

8) Media packets
I would put this tactic in the “nearly dead” category.  You still see plenty of them.  Just one man’s opinion, but I don’t consider glossy packets a good use of money for most organizations.  I’d sooner build a micro-website or even a Facebook page.
Status: Alive, but IMHO a waste of money

7) Video news releases (VNRs)
These are still around, but they’re not nearly as popular as they were 10 years ago.  The Bush Administration essentially killed this tactic.
Status: Alive, but hard to get results

6) Audio news releases (ANRs)
This tactic, which I actually promoted as a service when EndGame PR was first founded, was always the less popular younger sister of VNRs.  While I’m not aware of the Bush Administration getting in trouble for ANRs, they basically died at the same time as VNRs.  They’ve been replaced somewhat by podcasts or web audio soundbites used in social media news releases, but you can still find stations that are willing to accept them.
Status: See #7

5) Media Map
For those of you who aren’t familiar with this tool, it was a server-based media directory.  It was horrendously expensive compared to today’s web-based directories.  I recall the president of the firm where I worked being elated when I discovered we could save about $40,000 every year by switching to the web-based Bacon’s Mediasource.  Oh yeah … I got some major brownie points that week!
Status: Replaced

4) Blast faxing
Remember when we used to pay services to send our releases out to hundreds or even thousands of news outlets?  Who faxes anymore?  I have a fax machine.  I rarely use it.
Status: Replaced

3) Mailed Newsletters
These used to be very popular, but have been replaced by email newsletters that should be backed up by a blog. You’ll likely see a trend in this list. I consider anything that involves using snail mail to be outdated.
Status: Replaced

2) Bacon’s Media Guides
I’m not talking about the online media directories.  I’m talking about the paper media guides … the books.  I believe they’re still available in some format but, really, if I have to explain why the web-based versions are better then you need to take a course on the “Internets”.
Status: Dinosaur

1) Mailed Reporter Pitches
It’s hard to believe, but if you hunt through the “pitching preferences” in the media guides (the web-based ones of course) you’ll still find some reporters who say they prefer mailed pitches. This is another way of saying, “Don’t pitch me”. However, there was a time before email was widespread when it was a legitimate way to pitch.
Status: Doornail, as in “dead as a”

Honorable Mention: Peter Shankman claims the news release itself is dead, or will be soon, with the exception of financial releases.  I disagree.  I believe the release is still alive and well, but is in a different form than it was 10 years ago.  I believe online distribution has saved the release from becoming a dinosaur.  We’ll give it a couple of years and see who is right!

Note: Plenty of people DO still use some of the above tactics.  I’m not writing this list to offend anyone.  If you’re successful … I’m not judging!

Be sure to read the follow up to this post: 10 Newborn PR Tactics!

Scott suggests print reporters need to build alliances, diversify, and get closer to the cutting edge.  I agree.  The skillset that print journalists have is one that is still of use in the world.  Print reporters just need to learn how to put it to use.

As a PR professional, my world is changing too.  I find myself contacting fewer and fewer print reporters trying to get stories for my clients.  This is partly because there are fewer of them, partly because the ones who are there are overworked and less open to pitches, and partly because fewer and fewer people are actually reading newspapers.

Instead of wasting my time pitching newspapers all the time, I’m contacting bloggers, I’m posting online news releases via PRWeb, PR Newswire, and Business Wire, and I’m CREATING media for my clients via podcasting and web videos.  As the world moves further and further away from print media and more into online and user-generated media, the public relations pros who know how to work in that element are the ones who will continue to succeed.

What do YOU think?  Will the successful PR pro of the next decade be a cross breed of today’s PR pro and a social media producer?

Kevin Medina was removed from the CEO post of Registerfly for some pretty seedy allegations. The remaining shareholder of Registerfly, John Naruszewicz, alleged that Mr. Medina had been “stealing money from the company since the middle of last year to pay for two Cadillac Escalades, a penthouse apartment in Miami’s South Beach, an escort service, and liposuction. In a phone interview, Naruszewicz said Medina used company funds to pay for loads of private expenses. Also, he said Medina was taking customers’ money in online transactions and then failing to register the domain names they had paid for. Medina denied misusing company funds and accused Naruszewicz of using fraud to take control of the company.”

(SNIP)

According to Business Week, about 75,000 Registerfly customers have lost access to their Web sites. This seems to confirm rumors that a significant amount of customer data kept on Registerfly servers has been corrupted and lost leaving Registerfly management scrambling to find a way to get it back.

While I don’t normally like seeing a company go downhill, I have to say that I will shed no tears for Registerfly. At one time I registered several domains through them and their customer service is somewhere south of pathetic. I recall having to fight to get them to renew a domain that I’d already paid to renew, and they make it rather difficult to transfer domains to another registrar. Amazingly, according to this story, things have gotten worse.

These days I’m a very happy Go Daddy customer. I’ve purchased a handful of domains through them and have two websites and two blogs hosted there. By the way, if you’re a Registerfly customer, you may currently be having problems accessing your account information. Bob Parsons has a special offer to help you transfer to Go Daddy. It’s a good business move for him, since he’s looking to pick up more customers at the expense of a dying company. However, I recommend you take him up on it.

“They were meant to be seen by one person and one person only,” Coluccio said at her Holmdel home. “The really bad ones aren’t her. I’ve studied them. It’s not her nose. She’s never had (acrylic nail) tips in her life. She’s the least slutty person I know.”

So, the denials begin. Antonella herself can’t comment because FOX doesn’t allow interviews with contestants until they’re voted off the show. Maybe she posted them herself … maybe she didn’t. The conspiracy-theorist in me says Ms. Coluccio could be in on the whole thing. This is starting to sound like O.J. Simpson and Al Cowling to me. Regardless, my original stance remains: If she did post them herself, I’m impressed with the results.

By now you may have heard about the racy pictures of American Idol contestant Antonella Barba that are flying around the Internet, particularly if you’re a fan of social media or at the very least a fan of the reality show. If you haven’t seen them, I’m not going to leave you completely on your own to find them. Nor am I posting them here, however. If you look around, it should be relatively easy for you to find what you’re looking for.

If you haven’t heard what’s going on – here’s the story: Antonella Barba is one of the top 22 contestants on the reality show. She is, in my opinion, a mediocre singer but a very attractive woman. She was nearly voted out last week when suddenly some pictures, a bunch of her in various states of undress and another that might or might not be of her performing a very personal act, appear in blogs across the world. Because of this, she is now even more famous than she would have been if she had merely been a contestant on the show. In fact, her name is, at the time this blog was written, the top search on social media search engine Technorati.

At this point, you’re likely asking, “So what?” Well, here’s my point — either Ms. Barba is a victim of friends and/or ex-boyfriends who really don’t like her much, or she is a social media genius.

Think about it for a moment. A lot of reality show contestants have gone on to pose in girly magazines after their shows are over. At least one other has become a talk show host, if you can believe it. If Ms. Barba is indeed the source of the pictures that are floating around, and I believe she is, I’m impressed.

One of the keys to using social media to promote anything from yourself to dog food is creating something that turns viral. Marketers and public relations folks search far and wide to find something that will spread across the Internet on its own. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes their efforts fall flat. What this reality show contestant is doing is manipulating her show while it is underway, by using the power of social media. She reason it might work is that the winners and losers on the show are chosen by telephone voting by the audience. She won’t win the show with singing talent, but she could pull a huge voting block into her corner — teenage boys. They’ll dial until their fingers bleed, hoping more pics will surface next week.

Is releasing racy photos of yourself and then denying you did it a new tactic? No. it’s probably been done before by people from Paris Hilton to Britney Spears. There are an awful lot of so-called unauthorized sex tapes out there. However, this is a different because those people were already famous. Before these pictures, Ms. Barba was on the cusp of celebrity. Now, she’s extremely well known, at least in the growing blogger community. It remains to be seen how far these “unauthorized” pictures take her.

1. People like me don’t like to pay $3 to do a quick email check. I’m sure if you look at research, you’ll find that’s what free wireless web access like what’s offered at Panera is used for.
2. If you’re going to make me pay, at least let me use what I’ve paid for. Who the heck spends TWO HOURS at McDonald’s? They need to change the system so that you can use it over a matter of weeks or whenever.
3. Free web access, or at least a system like I described above, would open McDonald’s to an entirely different set of customers. If you walk into a Panera Bread Company store in the middle of the day, you’ll see that it’s crawling with business people who are eating and getting a little work done. McDonald’s could combine cheaper food with free Internet, and draw a bunch of those businesspeople in. Parents could even get some work done while their kids catch syphilis from those hamster tube play areas.

Now, I know someone out there is screaming that I need a Blackberry or something like it. Sorry … I hate monthly fees! Besides, I’m not whining about finding hotspots. I simply don’t understand the McDonald’s WiFi plan. Fire away if you do.