Fake Plastic Noodles

When I was a kid I wanted to be a dancer, pediatrician, veterinarian, and/or marine biologist, but somewhere along the line, I realised that I suck at math and dancers don’t make enough money unless they’re that kind of dancer. I chose PR my second year in college, but about midway through my senior year, I decided that I didn’t want to go into it. I dabbled in journalism and considered publishing all while wishing that I just had a trust fund that would sustain my will to travel and eat at fancy restaurants without having to work at all. I wised up when I found out my insurance bills were $480/month and working in a restaurant (albeit a wonderful one) was not going to sustain me for the rest of my life. Journalism and publishing weren’t doing it for me, and so I ended up back where I started: in PR.

I think I’m one of the few people that I know who really likes their job; nay, their career choice. But this week, I think, has been a tough one for those in the online PR industry. I alluded before to a “scuffle” in the blogging PR world and while I’m *still* not going to go into it in detail, I’ll admit it’s really hard to see people writing about PR in such a negative tone. Public Relations has a stigma (always has) and I’m new enough in this field that it bothers me. A lot. So, my seasoned PR vets, I ask you: How have you dealt with the negativity surrounding this profession?

PR posting has been pretty light this week, but to be honest I haven’t really found anything that interesting going on. Late last week there was a bit of a scuffle in the UK PR world about media lists, influential bloggers and the ethics of PR people online (*ahem* what else is new?) that I didn’t really care to get involved with, but other than that, nothing too earth shattering has happened.

Honestly, I think Miss South Carolina is the best thing that happened to the Internets all week, but I’m not about to turn this post into a cartography lesson. Instead I will take you on a music lesson. I was always more of an artsy kid anyway….

On my nightly before-bed-Internet-sidetrack, I stumbled upon Color of My Sound, a web experiment in “synaesthesia” - or the mixing of the senses.

“Those affected by [synaesthesia] hear colors, see sounds, and taste tactile sensations. When the two senses involved are sound and color, this phenomenon is no longer limited to synaesthetes: anyone, given a sound and time for contemplation, can ascribe color to that sound.”

The site works by choosing a sound category and then while listening, pick an accompanying colour. As soon as you choose a colour, you can see how others voted.

Feeling blue? Have a mean case of the reds? Tickled pink? Not sure if it’s easy being green? Try it out. But be warned, it delayed my bedtime by at least an hour.

Just in case you were wondering what would happen if the Internet died….

It’s the end of August, which means that in Ann Arbor, it’s moving week. Ann Arbor is the home of the University of Michigan, home of the Wolverines and home for eight months of the year to wining over-privileged teenagers from New York.

The city is already starting to “buzz” as the new crop of fresh, young minds move in, much to the chagrin of its permanent residents. Many of the students - my neighbours, especially - are awful human beings. I wrote an open letter to my neighbours on their outdoor toilet habits earlier this year, and believe you me, if I hear any bodily fluids outside my bedroom window, that letter is being sent to their landlord. That, or I’m posting pictures of those habits on the Internet.

I’m not sure when I stopped being a “student” and when I started being an adult. I didn’t realise the change until I started living near university students again. I couldn’t believe how loud, obnoxious and very self-righteous they can be. But still, I’m a little (very little) nostalgic for those times.

A couple months ago, a group of my friends from the college years and I got together for the first time in nearly two years. We sat around and just talked. A couple days later, my friend noted that it “felt just like college again.” It had not occurred to me that it had been that long since we just hung out with no other plans than to just enjoy one another’s company. It seems like I always have to make an appointment to see my friends: meet for a cocktail, grab dinner, etc, which is fun, but it puts quite a dent in my pocketbook.

Oh, to be a kid again….

We have been absolutely pounded with rain and thunderstorms over the last week; last night, especially. But luckily, as the wrath of God came upon the tri-county area last night, I was indoors with a cocktail watching over-sensationalised coverage on network tv. It made for quite an entertaining evening.

I nearly fell over when one of my co-workers came in to work today with a WordPress t-shirt. Upon seeing it, another co-worker remarked, “Oh yeah, I have an ‘I heart Typepad t-shirt’….but jeez [name], I never wear it out of the house.”

Honestly, we take dorkdom to a whole new level here.

I guess I can just add to the list another reason why I hope never to fly Spirit Airlines again.

This week, in what was supposed to be an internal reply to a customer complaint, Spirit Airlines CEO, Ben Baldanza hit “reply to all” to an e-mail, accidentally sending his response back to the original customer.

Oh, Spirit, when will you ever learn that you can’t treat your customers like this?

“Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I’m concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He’s never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.”

Let him tell the world how bad we are, indeed. The customers in question, Christy and James, have now made sure this accidental e-mail has made it all over the web.

The entire situation came about from a post ripping on Spirit from Alex Rudloff. Christy made a comment on that post with Baldanza’s response and the rest, as they say, is viral history.

It’s actually been in my backup grab bag of post topics to write a rant about Spirit Air, so this really adds fuel to my fire.

I flew Spirit on my recent trip to Mexico. On the return, we had to make a stop in Ft. Lauderdale, but due to the fact that we were entering another country, we had to get off the plane, go through customs/immigration, get our bags, recheck our bags and get back on the SAME FLIGHT.

The airline allowed about 50 minutes for this process, which would have been tight as it was, but then we were twenty minutes late due to a delayed departure. On top of that, they went ahead and scheduled six international flights to come in at the same time. We were an hour and a half in immigration and a half hour in customs. The next flight to Detroit took off four hours later.

When we inquired about the possibility of food vouchers due to the fact that - not only were we getting to our destination 6 hours later, but we’re going to be forced pay $15 to eat dinner at the airport - we were told “no” because the 20-minute delay was due to rain (which we heard nothing about) and that any weather-related issue was not their problem. Right. And I suppose allowing 50-minutes for six planes full of people, most of whom had connecting flights through Spirit, to get through immigration isn’t either?

We went to three different customer service representatives to try to resolve our problem. One customer service rep told us that a supervisor wasn’t on duty, and there was nothing she could do. Another told us there was one on duty, but she would tell us the same thing – no voucher. She walked away after we asked to physically talk to the supervisor, but was never to be seen again. Soon after we realised she wasn’t coming back, we saw a lady in an official-looking coat and asked if she was the supervisor. She was, and in about 3 minutes we had our $9 dinner vouchers. Even though we eventually got what we wanted, the whole situation left a very bad taste in my mouth.

I hope I’m not swayed by Spirit’s lower prices in the future. Honestly, I think I would have paid the extra $100 to fly something else and potentially save the headache. But when it really comes down to it, I’m sure Baldanza is right in saying people will come back to save pennies.

So maybe I should revise my previous question by asking: Oh, consumers, when will we ever learn to stop taking this crap?

Call me old school, but I still use MySpace. In fact, I don’t see myself shying away from it any time soon. Most of my friends still use it and until they ALL delete their accounts and hop over to something else, I will be there with them.

This is not to say that I haven’t embraced other social networking sites. I have had a Facebook account for a few years, actually, and I like it just fine. I use it to connect with people who aren’t on MySpace, more commonly known as friends from abroad. That’s why I was so unsurprised to see the results of today’s Facebook user poll: Do You Live in the USA? Forty-three percent of the respondents said no. (This is in contrast to a study that said only around 10% of MySpace users are from abroad.)

I don’t get it, though. I mean, is there anything concrete that makes Facebook more popular abroad? Do status updates, which MySpace has so (un)artfully stolen, appeal more to the French? Are the applications just not as annoying across the Atlantic? Or is it just the viral nature of the social network? My guess is the latter.

Either way, you can’t deny that Facebook is gaining popularity. But what gets me is that somehow that translates to “Facebook rules and anyone still on MySpace is a loser.”

Whether it’s generalising the socio-economic background of its users (which incidentally I did not appreciate) or lambasting its ads, hating on MySpace while lauding Facebook is becoming somewhat of a national past-time. And yet, I haven’t heard one really good reason why Facebook is really the superior site.

Phil Dotree lists some common reasons supposedly spelling out why Facebook is better than Myspace - ones that I am more than happy to rebut.

1. Facebook is less emo than Myspace.

Melanie says: Last time I checked, you could stream all the Death Cab songs you ever wanted, post a pouty picture of your bathroom mirror reflection and write little posts about how much your life sucks on both sites.
WINNER: TIE

2. Facebook has no “Top Friends” list, which Myspace has.

Melanie says: Facebook has a Top Friends application. From what I understand, it’s very popular
WINNER: TIE

3.You can monitor relationship status on Facebook.

Melanie says: You can monitor your relationship status on MySpace too. Plus, MySpace doesn’t alert all of your friends when your boyfriend dumps you.
WINNER: MYSPACE

4. No technical errors on Facebook.

Melanie says: Let’s be honest here. “No” technical errors is a little strong. Less than MySpace, most definitely, but I know of at least two times that Facebook was down for no discernible reason
WINNER: FACEBOOK

We all know what I think about the ads and applications, so I’m not even going to go there.

So what have we learned? A whole lotta nothin, if you ask me. Maybe one can buy the other so everyone can just shut up and learn to be one big social networking happy family.

UPDATE: You know what? I completely forgot about the geography quiz application on Facebook. It is now the sole reason Facebook is better than MySpace. Relationship status, my ass…

One of the obvious differences between the US and the UK are spellings. If you’ve been reading this blog lately, you’ve noticed that I’ve started to rely on more English spellings than American. To be quite honest, I’m not sure if I’m comfortable with that yet.

Writing with American spelling seems silly considering that, besides my friends and family, most of my readership is from the UK (thanks to TWL). However, English spelling is not natural for me yet and I have to do a once over to make sure I’m not missing any u’s. So I’m at a bit of a loss. Do I come off sounding pretentious to my American readers? Or do I come off sounding like a typical screw-you-and-your-stupid-zeds-American to my English readers?

Both sides feel free to weigh in.

Last week I was interviewed by Mithu Mukherjee, PR Manager for Sage Publications. She is working on a CIPR Diploma with a concentration on social media at London Metropolitan University. Mithu’s been writing a blog on her progress, which I think is quite fitting considering the topic. So far, her observations have been very astute:

“..treat bloggers like a journalist, and as individuals.”

More importantly, though, Mithu needs all you digital PR experts to take a survey on the “role of social media in brand and corporate reputation management.” She has only a few weeks left before she has to present her thesis, so time is of the essence. It shouldn’t take too long, ten minutes-tops. Run along now and be a good Samaritan.

Mithu’s Social Media Survey