The Sterling Cross Group

I got this message. "Hi this is an automatic email from TwitterMail with some new replies: @digitalvillages social media is perfect for reaching niches, especially in the medical industries! You'd be surprised by the people on sm! MrChristopherL at 17-01-2009 18:41."

Learned about The Sterling Cross Group. The lesson is, we need to learn to talk with the audience. Writing and attracting readers isn't enough. Social Media should lead to a conversation.

Home | Sterling Cross Group: "Public Relations can’t exist as a news release alone anymore. PR requires full integration across all media. If you don't, you are missing out on reaching over half of your targeted audience.

We are here to help! Sterling Cross Communications is a fully integrated media provider taking your traditional story and telling it with today’s technology. We make it possible for you to reach your intended audience in the format of media they receive news.

From Traditional Media (newspapers, television, radio, and magazines) to New Media (internet, podcasts, blogs, webinars, web video, RSS, SEO and PPC) to Social/Viral Media (wikis, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Second Life, forums, intranets, livecasting, and more) Sterling Cross is your complete integrated media solution."

It's prime time for selling online properties - Mar. 5, 2008

It's prime time for selling online properties - Mar. 5, 2008: "But with all the big media shops coming to the table with propositions, it becomes evident that no one is really holding the winning hand, at least not in a game against Google.

Helge: Internet Web 2.0 and Google. What happens in Europe? The picture isn't just as clear. We still have all these national markets, brands and operators. It will be even more difficult for European companies to show it big.

MySpace, for example is the largest revenue contributor of all News Corp's Internet businesses. The popular social networking site has money coming in, but its largest deal is a multi-year guaranteed payment plan with Google, which will eventually bring in $900 million for its share of online ad sales.

Helge: MySpace, News Corp and Google.

Last June, News Corp's booked $50 million as its installment from this gravy train. Silicon Alley Insider's blogger and Net media analyst Henry Blodget estimates that MySpace had $600 million in revenue last year. That's merely a ripple on the company's $28.6 billion top line.

Helge: Old media still holds the lead, true.

The point here is pretty much well understood: for all their untapped Internet revenue potential, media conglomerates have yet to strike it rich in their online ventures. TimeWarner's AOL deal set the industry standard for failed Web opportunities and squandered resources. (TimeWarner is the publisher of Fortune.)"

Helge: How to make money with online ventures.

Sporadic by Cathleen Rittereiser: Meida Snackers

Sporadic by Cathleen Rittereiser: Blogging sporadically to comment, post interesting links, discuss online experiences and entertain. CR bio tells she is Wall Street by day, comedy legend by night, comic, writer, raconteur , personality: All blogging and comedic writing and performing is for entertainment purposes. Anything I say or write in those contexts is my personal opinion and property. All posts on all sites are those of Cathleen Rittereiser and do not represent any company, group or activity that I am associated with.

Helge: I'll install Voki on my blog.

• Character Style Select a character from one of our many styles: Classic, Animals, Oddballs and more!
• Customization Change the look, clothing and accessories.
• Voice Add your own voice via phoine, microphone, text to speech or upload a file.
• Background Choose a background from our library or upload your own.
• Click Publish to email to a friend or get code to take your Voki avatar anywhere.

"Participatory online media, like blogs, podcasts and social network profiles give the creators and audience a chance to connect with new, intelligent people they might never have met through a shared interest or perspective and to build a friendship, a business, a movement or a fun game of scrabble.

Half the fun of producing blogs or other forms of this personal journalism is that it is about YOU, the creator, what you have to say and when you have to say it. People that find you or your topic interesting will make the time to read it. Or they will skip or skim your post if it's too long or too involved for the amount of time and attention they have available. If you aren't getting the audience you want, it may have as much to do with what you have to say and how you say it rather than the venue, format or length of time and space it took you to say it.

If you define respecting a media snacker as giving them little, streamlined bits of content that don't tax their attention span, then I inadvertently respect media snackers by rarely posting to my blog. That's probably because I'm so busy being a media snacker, I don't have time to entertain the rest of them."

Helge: Media Snacker, do I understand the true meaning of this word?

Why is Apple Cute?

"Apple’s been in the news quite a bit lately. Nowadays, Apple is a media darling. The critics like the company’s direction, and so does Wall Street. But it wasn’t always so. This summer marked the tenth anniversary of Apple’s lowest point–a time in 1996 when the company’s profits and products were hitting bottom. (Steve Jobs’s return to the company he founded was still a year away.)," Write's Pogue in his New York Times blog. Find more about the Apple blog here.

I can find parallels to the Apple Cinderella story here in Finland as well. Nokia wasn't the best of companies in the early 90's. Satama Interactive has been going through difficult times, but has received good publicity in the last weeks. Start-ups are very vulnerable in the early stages of development. We've been addicted with success stories and would like to read more and more about the good things. All companies go through good and bad times. All quarters aren't pure and linear growth in earnings, rising stock prices and new successful product launches. Companies need to live through the times they travel on the dark side of the moon.