Analysis on the supposed death of the PC has been around for quite some time. IBM CEO, Lou Gerstner famously proclaimed that the PC was dead in 1999. It would have been interesting to hear what he had to say when PC sales increased 20% the following year. As editorial director at IDG Connect, Martin Veitch says, “If the PC is dying, it’s dying a lingering death.”  

Just last month, IDC reported that PC shipments are down 14% year-over-year, an issue attributed to the increased popularity of tablets and smartphones and low uptake of the Windows 8 operating system. But is this enough to herald the death of the PC? Let’s use the iPod as an example. It stands to reason that the evolution of the iPod Touch and the iPad has meant that the shipment of the traditional iPod has fallen but that doesn’t mean it’s dying – Apple still sells the product at  £129.

In a brilliant article by Ted Schadler, principal analyst at Forrester Research on Forbes online, he notes that “There is no post-PC era. There’s only a multi-device, ‘right tool for the job’ era” and he’s right.  Technology evolves – legacy systems are being modernised and traditional storage is moving to the cloud. The future for now lies in using both the PC and mobile devices in tandem – each for their own specific tasks – the average employee may watch Game of Thrones on a train using an iPad or a tablet but they will still create and amend the budget of several accounts of your business in Excel on a PC. Let’s face it; the days of walking into a jazzy office with all of the employees working exclusively on tablets, having meetings by the serenity fountain are still a couple of years away.

Scaremongering news stories can provide the shock value and opinion that will get you into the news but less-sensational thought-leadership can position you as a go to contact for media for much longer. 

* In the bible, Methuselah was the oldest man to ever live – 969 years.

Industry collaboration to fight cybercrime

More security vendors are collaborating together to protect their customers than ever before.  Speaking to Gemalto’s vice president of strategic marketing, Security Business Unit, Ray Wizbowski, we discussed Trustonic, a joint venture formed between ARM, Gemalto and Giesecke & Devrient (G&D).

The company, which creates a trusted execution environment (TEE) built on the architecture of the ARM chip, integrates a new level of security directly into the connected devices, enabling companies to store information securely. If the smart device is attacked by cyber criminals, the information stored on the device will remain encrypted and protected, offering businesses peace of mind.

Educating Employees on IT Security

We also spoke to ‘spear phishing’ awareness training company, Phishme.com. The company is helping to tackle cyber threats by helping businesses to educate their employees to understand the ways in which their company can be phished. Phishing occurs where an email contains a fake web link to a fake website, where the user is cajoled into offering passwords and other sensitive information to the hacker.

According to Phishme.com, an untrained employee is 60 percent likely to miss all of the indicators that the email is in fact a scam and may click on a hyperlink or open a file attachment attached to the email. The company trains employees by running mock ‘spear phishing’ exercises in an open and transparent way and has been able to reduce a company’s risk by 50 percent in the first six months!

Remote working: Securing email on the move

Additionally, Intercede, adept4 and Deep Secure were showcasing a collaborative secure email service that works on desktop and mobile.

IT consumerisation coupled with enterprise IT mobility strategies has enabled employees to be productive outside of the company’s firewalls. However with employees often sending and accessing sensitive information via email on their smart device, the risk to the business if the device is lost, stolen or even hacked is of great concern.  In fact, many businesses consider that the biggest threat to the organisation’s IP is in fact, the employee.

According to Tracey Keel, head of marketing, Deep Secure, these types of security breaches are helping to reinforce the business case for a secure email solution on smart devices.  Deep Secure demonstrated how the company is using PIN and smart cards to authenticate the user’s identity so that emails are encrypted when sent and decrypted on the other end by the right person – to ensure sensitive business information is not read by the wrong person. Check out their video for more information: here

Secure data storage
iStorage’s Head of Marketing, Weronika Wojcikowska, echoed the need for more businesses to equip their employees with secure devices whilst they are outside of the office. With clients such as Motorola, NHS, KPMG and MBDA Missile Systems, iStorage is fast establishing itself as a leading provider of PIN activated, hardware encrypted, portable data storage. There is a James Bond feel to the gadgets – especially datAshure, which has an on-board key pad whereby if the incorrect PIN code it type wrong a little too often, the data will be wiped.

The rise of BYOD combined with threats to mobile devices from data leakage, sophisticated malware, viruses, and even spyware, has left businesses feeling incredibly vulnerable. It’s great to see security companies are not only creating products that are tackling mobile cybercrime and data loss but are also educating businesses via employee training and collaborating products and solutions to ensure IT security is applied and understood at every level outside of the IT department.

Who is Golebiewski? You might not be surprised to learn he is the CEO of a micropayment provider, Znak It. So his argument is a little self-serving, but still valuable. In the age of newspaper paywalls, Golebiewski  tells Paid Content newspaper publishers are missing a trick with not using micropayments to, say, offer a single article for a few pence to entice new readers. One of the schools of thought around paywalls is they’re not half bad for monetising online readers, but sub-par when it comes to growing a reader/subscriber base.

Says Golebiewski, “it’s extremely difficult to break that notion, the theory that micropayments don’t sell. [Critics] don’t have any data… it’s very difficult to go to them and say we have a flexible system for payments and then when they figure out it’s micropayments, they stop listening.”

Speaking of data, Znak It has some to back-up the CEO’s enthusiasm for micropayments. The company ran five pilot projects to see how many participants would buy a range of digital content; videos, music and written. Some 1,281 “buyers” emerged from a total of 43,000 unique users. According to Paid Content, “as many as 5 percent of the unique users wound up becoming buyers (paywalls usually get about one percent conversion).”

So what’s going to get micropayments into the mainstream? Google/YouTube might be the answer. Stick with me.

Google’s online video behemoth has been linked to the idea of a subscription model service, supplementing the traditional ad-revenues, for quite some time. Fresh rumours emerged in this weekend’s FT, with a report declaring “Google is on the verge of unveiling an à la carte subscription service for some of YouTube’s specialist video channels” (alternative info here for those sans an FT sub).

“A la carte subscription service” is a little vague, as rumours tend to be, but the article goes on to say users could subscribe to channels “as little as $1.99 a month”. I guess that’s a la carte in the sense you pick a channel to subscribe to, rather than ‘subscribing to YouTube’. Whatever the specifics, this isn’t a million miles away from a micropayments system. True you’ll be subscribing to an entire channel rather than a single video, but chances are it’s a single video that will be the trigger to purchase in the first place – so not so far from buying one newspaper article through micropayment. The relatively low cost is another similarity.

The new system, combined with the prevalence of YouTube, could bring the concept of micropayments to a mass user base. It’s simplistic thinking, but it’s a start – and not the first time a big technology company has kick-started a digital content payment trend. How many people would have spent a few quid on a small software program for their mobile in 2006?

It could happen. Bit ironic potentially too – if Google ends up helping newspaper publishers develop a revenue stream from micropayments, after the ‘evil’ Internet got them into this fine mess in the first place.

Last month our own head honcho Ben Drury was at the Financial Times’ annual Digital Media Conference, speaking on the Sound of Innovation panel. It was an interesting debate, and the panel discussed everything from the growth in mobile and digital music to the revenue streams that were kicking around some 2,000 years ago.

Geoff Taylor, CEO of the BPI, started the discussion on a positive note. While it’s been a tough decade for the music industry, the BPI is seeing positive growth in digital music globally – as shown in their latest report. And the good news for British artists is digital is growing faster in the UK than the majority of global markets.

Ian Hogarth, Co-founder and CEO of Songkick, made some interesting observations of the trends in music over the last 10 years compared to the last 2,000 years (which raised a few eyebrows and smiles). His point was, until relatively recently, the music industry had made the majority of its revenue from live music. This changed for a, relatively, short period as the ability to record and distribute music on records, tapes, and ultimately CDs became possible. The decline in physical, he noted, led to live music revenues overtaking recorded revenue 3-4 years ago in the UK.

Also on the history side, Ben thought back to 2004 when he founded 7digital. Back then, everyone thought he “was crazy” to get into the music business, and no one would pay for music again. Today, the digital business is worth $6bn globally, and the average music fan can access the world’s music catalogue through their smartphone. Our own technology platform is helping partners like Samsung and HTC tap into this world of opportunity.

Responding to a comment that a lot of younger music fans access music for free and this is a ‘hard habit to kick’, Ben noted 7digital is actually seeing a lot fans using free services, like YouTube and SoundCloud, to discover music which they go on to purchase  – either through downloads or subscription services. He also noted people are becoming more and more happy to pay for subscription services, but the “sweet spot” for a monthly fee is still elusive. £10 a month, or £120 a year, is more than the average music fan spent at the height of the CD market.

The entire panel agreed the digital and Internet revolution has changed the way the music industry operates, making it easier for artists and acts to develop a fan base and sell music internationally. In particular some British artists, such as One Direction, have managed to break the US by initially developing a fan base on social media – instead of focusing on the US radio scene, as many have tried and failed to do in years past.

Talking on mobile, Ben observed how music has gone from being one item on a long tick list of smartphone specs to being a top priority and necessity for the likes of Samsung, HTC, BlackBerry and more. So much so, over 70% of 7digital’s revenue is now coming through mobile.

Finally, an audience member asked a question on the important interoperability for music services – that is, the ability to move your music, playlists and collection from one device to another. This particular conference attendee noted he has a large amount of music on his iTunes account and it was making him think twice about buying a new Samsung Galaxy S4. This was the most important point raised in the discussion. Music must be accessible wherever and whenever a fan wants it, and on any device they’re using. In today’s innovative, multi platform digital music world, having your collection locked to platform makes no sense whatsoever.

You can watch the panel discussion in full on the FT’s website.

1. Booth surveys: Short surveys on the booth can result in valuable feedback from potential customers and partners from the show floor. Mix qualitative with quantitative questions to give you the right blend of answers and offer incentives and competitions to draw in the punters. Release your research on day two of the show – journalists will also appreciate your research as it can be used to support their daily news stories and the customer comments can be used in your future press releases or other marketing initiatives.
2. Case Studies:  Don’t forget to take your customer case studies along with you.  Customer quotes will help your audience to paint a stronger picture of how your organisation is tackling new trends and challenges in security.  Additionally, offering your case studies on a USB stick with your marketing collateral can help journalists to digest your business and solutions in their own time. Later, you can offer the journalist a follow up interview with the customer.  You’ll also find your biggest fans will be happy to support you at your booth, so in future, offer your customers the opportunity to present at your stand or have joint analyst and media briefings with you.
3. Exhibitor media opportunities: Make the most of the opportunities created by media sponsors and organiser at the show.  Submit your opinion articles or blog posts for the Infosecurity Europe 2014 website and newsletter. You can also send journalists your news and trends in the run up to the event to increase your chances of being covered by a tight for time journalist.
4. Press and analyst briefings: Don’t forget to add your press packs to the press room with your spokesperson’s biography on the front. It will help journalists to find out more about your company, and then identify who they would be speaking to if they would like to learn more.
5. Social media: Twitter is where the debate and conversation around the event will really kick off. Having a presence on this channel and making sure you’re engaging with your influencers before, at and after the event will keep you relevant and interesting in their eyes. Nothing is more interesting than a company that has an opinion so try to relate your opinions with what is being spoken about during the event and use your social media channels such as Twitter or your corporate blog to keep your audience updated. Make sure you work out which breaking news and established trends work for your brand and deploy twitter, blogs and pitch journalists to attract interest in your opinion.

Although it’s almost a given to buy at least one egg for yourself and for your loved ones, at least in my house, Tesco has decided we all need a little encouragement to hit up their many, many, many stores. Queue this rather nice Google StreetView mash up:  tescofindtheeggs.com.

It’s a good ol’ fashioned Easter egg hunt brought online for your social media convenience. The site lets users hunt for virtual eggs by tapping in a postcode and navigating around Google’s StreetView map. Once you spot three, you get a voucher for a free MalEaster bunny.

The site also promises a few ‘cheeky’ golden eggs, which get you a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 if you spot one (wow, Samsung really is giving those away for free ain’t they?)

Tesco’s hunt also includes some clever social media links. I found my first egg quite quickly, but struggled to find the next two. As I was already invested, I opted to ‘Like’ the site on Facebook (along with 14,000 others at time of writing) to activate my ‘EggRadar’ (annoyingly/sensibly, golden eggs don’t appear on the EggRadar).

Now anyone on my Facebook has the change of spotting the site too. Once you’ve found three eggs and claimed your voucher, you can spread more eggs at a postcode of your choice (say, a friend’s pad) and are encouraged to tell them about it through Facebook and Twitter.

Nice one Tesco, clever seasonal promotion. Although we’re essentially looking at thousands of children getting chocolate in exchange for sitting at a computer screen and not hunting for eggs in the traditional outdoorsy, fresh air kinda way.

Jamie Oliver and Sainsbury’s might be having a word.

HT @vickywoollaston

Related and less detailed rumours had appeared before, but this latest gaming-insider-info was quickly picked up on numerous other sites. Then it was revealed to be a hoax.

It turned out the ‘news’ came from a prankster who had clearly reached frustration breaking point with tech and gaming websites reporting unconfirmed rumours. On a dedicated Tumblr blog the wily tipster explains these actions, wanting to highlight the lack of fact-checking some sites do on rumours and leaked stories.

That’s all good and noble and all, although it does somewhat ignore Pocket-Lint’s disclaimer:

“Naturally, when a tipster is anonymous, there is some degree of trepidation attached to believing what they say verbatim. However, considering the facts Pocket-lint has been given, and the lack of outlandish claims, everything our source says is plausible”.

It’s also sad that it’ll discourage future rumour stories that may be correct, as Pocket-Lint suggested in an update to the original article.

As a PR, it also highlighted something else to me – the desire for news sites and blogs to post a story, any story, with a headline including a well know brand or product, sometimes to their detriment.

Don’t get me wrong, this makes a lot of sense. Having New iPhone Launched smack in the middle of your homepage will grab more than your average traffic. And since the majority of sites rely on traffic to support their business model, I can see why even the vaguest of rumours is worth considering.

However, this focus on big brands, products and rumours shouldn’t come at the expense of stories from smaller brands that have something darn interesting to say or show. In my time as a PR I’ve been told by journalists several times news, a new product, or briefing sounds interesting, but the lack of brand awareness of the client company means they can’t dedicate the time to covering it. They sometimes play it off to the high level nature of their publication (I’m looking at you nationals).

This may sound idealistic and a little romantic, that the little guy should get an equal look-in as the goliath brands of the world. And since it does, here’s a real example (with details lacking to protect my cowardly self).

Earlier this year, a client launched a new product that attracted a lot of media attention. The client was very tight lipped in the run up to the launch and was reluctant to do any pre-briefs ahead of a launch event. Event invites started and we had a few yes/no/maybe responses, when the client gave us permission to do a select few pre-briefs with trusted contacts. However, we couldn’t provide details in advance beyond ‘a new product from X company’. So we approached a few nationals who had covered the company’s products at launch before. The response from one was words to the effect ‘Unless you’re Apple or Google, we can’t dedicate the time to come to an event or an interview on something without knowing exactly what it is’.

Happily another contact, who was also open to coming to the event, took a briefing on merit and past experience, assuming it would be a good story from a known company. And it was. On the day, the article was one of the most read and shared the outlet’s website. Then the first contact got back in touch, requesting any future announcements be given as a pre-brief in future.

So in some cases, a good story from a reputable client is out-weighed by an unconfirmed rumour from a well known name. Desire for high search traffic aside, this doesn’t seem right.

The paper has done a good job of adapting to the digital world, attracting large numbers of paying subscribers to both print and online. It’s usually the default pro-paywall example; although with the note its content has the advantage of being unique enough to attract paying readers.

Long standing editor Lionel Barber announced on Monday a renewed focus on digital, and is hiring 10 new employees specifically under a digital remit. The knock-on effect is 35 current FT staffers face the chop – or more accurately being offered a ‘buyout’ according to Paid Content. 35 of these buyouts will save the paper £1.6m this year, according to an internal email sent yesterday.

Barber says “The intention is to reduce the cost of producing the newspaper and give us the flexibility to invest more online”. There’s also a mandate to focus more on “priority stories”, an streamlined international presence and new products in the coming year.

Interestingly, Barber sees less competition with rival papers and more with social media channels, “Our common cause is to secure the FT’s future in an increasingly competitive market, where old titles are being routinely disrupted by new entrants such as Google and LinkedIn and Twitter.”

On the surface it may look like hard number crunching (+10 -35 isn’t tough maths), but these are the hard calls publishers and editors are being forced to make in the digital world. Ultimately is does mean we’re looking at smaller editorial teams, but it also means more focused teams delivering the content readers want to consume and pay for. What Mr Spock might have called ‘the needs of the many’. Although there’s no way around the fact it’s tough times for the 35 potential buyouters.

At the sometime Barber was tapping out his email, Andrew Miller, CEO of Guardian Media, has reaffirmed the group’s commitment to “open journalism” and shunning of the paywall model. Miller is one who has argued the FT’s paywall works because subscribers were always willing to pay for the premium business and financial content – something his paper can’t match. In an article with The Economist last week, he wrote:

“The overriding business task is to monetize the online audience…when we talk of ‘audience’ we still mean our readers…newspapers have always used a blend of different funding mechanisms to extract revenues for their ‘product’. That’s why I am unconvinced by those who say that the only model that works is to build paywalls. This is not an area where one size fits all.

“In some news organisations where growth in readership may not be so important and in particular where there is a strong existing print subscriber base to build on, a pure paywall may make excellent business sense. The Economist and perhaps the Times spring to mind here. It also makes sense in other publications which feature business-critical information – for example, the Financial Times and, in the Australian context, the AFR.”

In short, the FT et al can afford to monetise content and focus on digital because they don’t have to worry about growing their readership – but The Guardian does.

So where The Guardian is competing with paid-for titles and grabbing readers wherever it can, even in Australia now, the FT is more concerned about monitising content and developing a profitable digital business. The idea of “open journalism” is a noble one, and one I hope works out in the long term. But for now, it seems making the tough calls is the better option for newspapers looking for a firm foothold in digital.

From the brief demo shown at the launch event, the app looks to be a good one. The ‘pages’ of each issue look similar to the print addition, but certain aspects of each come alive in various ways.

For example, this month’s cover features images of the Cars of 2012 under spotlights. By tapping each, you get playback of the engines firing up and revving, a la Clarkson. Nice for the Ferraris and Maseratis of the world, but you wonder what will happen when they feature a family saloon on the cover.

Or actually, you don’t. The guy presenting (who didn’t introduce himself, sadly) told the audience each cover would be interactive in one way or another, with the production team “finding ways” to bring them alive.

Deeper inside the iPad addition there’s more treats, such as videos from presenters Clarkson, Hammond and May as part of their monthly columns, images in slideshow format and an interactive feature that allows the reader to open the boot, bonnet and doors of a featured auto. Quite nice when you’re looking at one of the more extravagant supercars with gull-wing doors (or Back to the Future Delorean doors for non-car enthusiasts).

In fact, the iPad addition easily overcomes a few inherent issues with print. The buyers guide that lists the specs and prices of all makes and models on sale in the UK is much, much easier to flip through on the iPad’s endless scroll-column compared to print. And there’s almost limitless space for hi-res images of each car, excellent news for a magazine that’s all about showing off big shiny things.

The launch event also featured everyone’s favourite white-overall-clad mute, The Stig. Stiggies’ actually become quite a good PR and marketing tool in his own right. He was a bit of a pull for the event, and while he was on stage for a bit he soon ‘got bored’ and wondered off – and thus left the audience to focus on the app demo.

The app is in iTunes now, £2.99.

Also, here’s me with The Stig.

For me, the award was as much about Racepoint as myself. I’ve been with the company (formally Fuse PR) for over six years, starting out as a graduate trainee. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some truly brilliant people both here and client side, and Racepoint’s dedication to coaching and personal development is really the only reason I can calm to know what I’m doing every day.

My fellow 29er Rich Leigh has compiled a full list on PR Examples, which I am shamelessly stealing and adding below for ease of reading.

Congratulations to all this year’s 29ers!

Giles Abbott (LI), 27, consultant, Capital MSL London

Carys Afoko, 26, comms manager, New Economics Foundation

Maria Allen (LI), 28, account director public affairs, and UK lead for the EMEA energy, environment and climate change practice, Burson-Marsteller

Karen Butcher (LI), 27, account director, Hill + Knowlton Strategies

Chris Cassell, 27, account manager, Shine Communications

Gemma Dudley (LI), 28, account director, Kaper

Deborah Findlay, 27, external comms manager UK and Ireland, Office Depot

Will Gardiner, 28, client services director, ITPR

Kate Garratt,  26, head of energy, Aspectus PR

Simon Hilliard, 28, account director, Racepoint Group

Vojtech Horna, 28, account director, Atomic PR

Jonathan Ireland, 26, client director, MCE Public Relations

Nicola Koronka, 28, senior programme director (financial services & technology practice), Hotwire PR

Rich Leigh, 25, account director, 10 Yetis PR

Andrew Marcus, 28, PR manager, Museum of London

Ashlea McConnell, 29, PR manager, Irwin Mitchell

Jenna Oxley, 27, senior press officer – policing, cycling & streets, Transport for London

Rachel Penniston (LI), 24, account manager, Tudor Reilly

Nick Pickles, 28, director, Big Brother Watch

Mary Pollard, 27, associate director, Bell Pottinger Business & Brand

Annabel Rayner, 28, MD, Silver Ball PR

Bree Sutton (LI), 25, media officer, General Medical Council

James Thomlinson, 28, group head of digital, Bell Pottinger Private

Laura Townshend, 26, media officer, Shelter

Jenna Vernon, 24, digital PR director, deWinter PR

Faizel Vohra, 27, account manager, MTJ Associates

Becky White, 27, founder, Becky White PR

Ross Whittam, 27, Shell spokesperson, Royal Dutch Shell

Laura Wootton, 28, Head of comms, UTV Media (GB), TalkSport