High Road Communications

Silicon Valley buzz maker Tom Foremski (formerly of Financial Times, now prominent SV blogger) made some news of his own today with this post in which he states that he will only receive PR pitches through FaceBook.

The switch up is really an experiment to try and ensure pitches are more customized, personalized and fit with what Foremski normally covers. But it isn’t all virtual, all the time. He says that face-to-face communications still trumps all other channels.

Something tells me he might be receiving a few friend requests this afternoon.

Zinc Research recently unveiled the results of their “Canadians and Facebook Survey” and it comes with a few surprises. According to the survey results, just over half of all Canadians that are online are now also members of FB. What’s more surprising is the rapid ramp-up of Canadian membership over the three months prior to Christmas. With an average of 5.7 hours a week spent on the uber-popular website, it is clear that Facebook still has legs. One thing found lacking in the report was any critical mention of the intensely popular social networking site. With the relatively recent opening up of the platform to developers, introduction of “targeted ads” (Hey Facebook, I don’t need to lose weight, really), advertiser fan pages and the kerfuffle regarding Beacon or FB’s policy of knowing what you are doing on non-Facebook sites, and in some cases actually publishing this activity has many long-time users fuming mad. Add the recent spam attacks to that and although the legs seem fine perhaps a new pair of shoes are needed to help the website really find its stride.