Punch

Erica Whiteman

Chinon, Saumur, Anjou, Muscadet. I've been in my personal heaven this past week driving along the Loire River and frolicking among the grapevines. From Orleans to Nantes, I was on a vineyard adventure that explored the riverside and hidden chateaux of the Loire Valley. I love this part of France. Everyday was a new town, new chateau, with interesting food markets and churches dating back before the French revolution. Life in the pink has come to an end, but there's always next year.

Pete Goold

I've had a few busy weeks over the last few years but this one has been extraordinary.

I'm delighted to welcome Ed, our new London based senior AD to the team who's now into his third week, we've begun working with a major new client, having won a 10-way competitive pitch for a major piece of business, new business enquiries are coming in thick and fast and, as a result, I have spent roughly two hours in the office this week - which feels like approximately the same amount of time as I've slept.

All good news and symptomatic of the fact that we're becoming ever stronger in our conviction regarding the appeal of the integrated approach to PR, Search & Social Media, over that of any one discipline on a stand alone basis.

More to follow over the next few weeks - we have another major new hire joining on Sept 6th, to provide a more technical and visually-oriented dimension to the team and further push the boundaries in terms of re-defining what a PR company can and should offer in the contemporary market.

Whilst the three days ahead are welcome indeed for myself and the team, I personally can't wait to switch immediately into Dad mode and expend my energy in a completely different direction for a good few days. So, sleep's probably not on the agenda.

Fortunately, I'm pretty happy with (and indeed, fairly used to) that...

Keredy Stott

Eric Schmidt has got the media very excited over the past twenty four hours about privacy and people's information being freely available on the internet. As many have suggested, his comments are a little ironic to say the least but I get the feeling it's all a storm in a virtual teacup - people changing their names to escape their cyber past, surely that's part of a Philip K Dick plot! I believe in common sense and I hope it prevails.

I didn't catch the whole piece but Channel 4 News spent far too long debating the issue last night. One commentator particularly caught my ear when he pronounced that the platforms, Facebook in particular, should be taking more responsibility, educating users better and basically not allowing this type of data to be available at all - and so I shouted at the television. If users of social media are not intelligent enough to see the risks for themselves then maybe they deserve all they get. Controversial? Perhaps. Encouraging people to take responsibility for their own actions? Definitely.

The only exception to my harsh view is for those users who are actually too young to know any better but then it is parents who should have some control and knowledge of how their children are using the internet. At the very least, parents and guardians should be educating minors about the dangers, explaining to them why it's not very smart for everyone to know everything about you. The concerns go beyond the fear of not knowing who you're talking to and I find it disappointing that it may actually take this media furore for many people to take a little bit more notice of their own or their children's actions.

It only takes a moment to check your Facebook privacy settings every once in a while - so go do it now. The new Places application means a new setting has popped up in there so make sure the only people able to see where you are, are the people you choose, not everyone in the world!

Emilie Legrand

This week marked two very special occasions for the Punch office; It was Holly's and my own birthday! Only a year and a day apart, it was a double celebration for us two young ladies - and what a celebration it was!

On arrival into work I was greeting by a generous helping of delicious icing cupcakes, thanks to Miss Boulanger-Extraordinaire, Erica America. Decorated in a very pretty pink with swirls and glitter (to match the majority of accessories on my desk), not only did they look amazing but they tasted it too.

Holly and I exchanged some small presents - I bought her a girly mug to make her addiction to caffeine all the more pleasant, and she bought me a pretty bracelet, to help improve my style maybe? Whatever the reason it is absolutely gorgeous, thank you Holly!

The team also kindly put together a very generous collection so that I could go and buy myself something special and they also presented Holly with a boutique voucher to help her satisfy her shopaholic needs. All in all we both had lovely days and we are now preparing for the next office birthday which will be Erica America's later this month.

A big thank you to the Punch team from me and Holly!

Keredy Stott

In June, Facebook confirmed to allfacebook.com that "all Open Graph-enabled web pages will show up in search when a user likes them". With this news and also that the social media giant has offered instructions for creating Open Graph Meta Data, it seems a new breed of engine and, therefore also, SEO is emerging. The question is, how fast?

In simple terms, Facebook is creating its own socially driven search engine. Google provides its results based on a mixture of authority and relevance, using the quantity and quality of backlinks as a measure. Facebook's Open Graph search engine, when fully go-go-go, will use a ‘like' as the determining factor, as long as sites can be accessed through meta data and a ‘like' button is embedded on the page.

It's revolutionary for sure and professionally I'm incredibly interested and excited about the PR potential; personally, I have a feeling I'll be staying loyal to Google. My gut reactions are -

• Most of the results, for most of the things, I use a search engine for are not pages I would ‘like' or really expect others to ‘like' - the system doesn't seem suitable for all web content
• The people who cast the majority of likes surely cannot be representative of what is quality or relevant information - I don't care if people like it, I want good, accurate content
• Unless policed by Facebook (and it has taken years for Google to cut out the spam) linkbait will morph darkly into likebait - it's currently too easy to click a like (I do it by accident on my phone all the time!) or create multiple accounts for that sole purpose

However, and it's a big one after all that cynicism, any brand that would like to target even a small portion of Facebook users (a mere 25,000,000 in the UK alone) should probably pay attention, particularly if their target audience is under 20. I advise businesses get informed and come to their own conclusions sooner rather than later but it's about looking to the future and how younger generations interact with the possibilities the internet provides. Just because I can't see its use within my personal search habits at the moment that doesn't mean I'll be forced to eat my words somewhere down the line!

For my own curiosity, I've posted the following question to my status and I've asked my seventeen year old brother to also do the same. "If it was possible to 'like' any internet page and then use Facebook as a search engine, instead of Google, and it gave you results based on what was liked the most - do you think you would use this new type of search more than Google? More/Less/Equal/Don't Know". Results to follow....

Keredy Stott

It's always exciting to come across a new tool but every so often one appears that you genuinely think ‘ooh that's an amazing idea' and that's just what happened to me yesterday with Rapportive and Gist. I'm not sure if I'm behind the times or that they not been promoted very well but the concept of having a person's social media and other information displayed alongside email is new to me. From a little bit of research into it, they seem to be tools that have really come the fore in 2010, perhaps because Outlook has a new social connector feature in Windows 2010, but Gist was founded as a company two years ago. As an aside, it seems that Windows needs some improving and Gist is the most innovative and forward thinking tool.

Rapportive only works in conjunction with Googlemail, which I use for personal communication, but this device is going to be more useful for me in the work place where, like most people, I use Outlook. Gist works for Gmail too but there are plug ins available for Outlook and Lotus Notes, plus they are also prepared for iPhone and Android usage - and if that wasn't enough you can use the tool as a piece of hosted web software, which I suspect is where it all started.

I downloaded Raportive for my Googlemail and signed up to the Gist web and Outlook versions so I can compare their functions but as I'm only on day one, I don't have any great learnings to share just yet. Rapportive is pretty clear-cut and gives you a small section to the right of the email window. On the web, Gist pulls together all of the contacts you tell it to, from emails, databases and social media sites before aggregating everybody's everywhere everythings into one neat profile space. Within Outlook it shows me the profile of the person whose email is selected in a side pane.

Obviously I haven't had chance to really play around with either yet but I'm very excited about what information I am going to be able to see, how it's going to save me time and especially how it will help me do my job better. For me, seeing news, blogs, posts and updates about a person as well as the company they work for is a labour saving device if ever I saw one. However, I think I've spotted a glaringly obvious drawback, which may be surmountable but I haven't delved enough yet - if the person's various accounts are set up with a different email to the one they are emailing you on then I don't think they will be displayed in the Outlook pane. I will keep you updated...

Erica Whiteman

I'm a big fan of Facebook and Twitter for keeping up with the Joneses, keeping in touch with family and far away friends and sharing information. Being involved with social media on a daily basis, I've always been aware of other social networking sites that pop up. Today, I branched out and extended my reach to Tumblr. I'm excited to have a place where all of my random thoughts and finds from the web can be broadcast to followers.

In a recent article, The New York Times has touted Tumblr as Facebook and Twitter's new rival. Although they are competing for attention in the social media world, I am happy to use all three. For Cupcakes and Other Stuff, watch this space - erica-america.tumblr.com

William Davis

My first two months at Punch have seen social media become a bigger part of my daily life (at least, after SEO!), and it's certainly been a big learning curve. However, it's been a thoroughly enjoyable one. Constantly working within these digital parameters, you learn to take note of what constitutes a good use of the internet, and then others that make you wonder why some people even bother! However, I've found one recent project that looks very intriguing.

Life in a Day is an experiment conducted through YouTube, encouraging users to upload footage of what they did on July 24th. To be directed by Kevin Macdonald (Last King of Scotland) and produced by Ridley Scott (need I say more?!), the end result is set to document a single day across the Globe, looking at how different people chose to spend their time, and what's important to them. Macdonald has described it as a time capsule, but this is much more than burying drawings and letters in a box outside your school to be opened again 50 years down the line...

Personally, I can't wait for the end result. I find it easy to spend hours wasting time on YouTube, from watching something informative to watching compilations of people generally making idiots out of themselves. But this is something completely different. This project will give any amateur film maker with a video camera the opportunity to make it onto the big screen, and is likely to be a documentary like no other. With two heavyweight Hollywood directors throwing themselves behind the project, the final cut is likely to make compelling viewing for many.

It will be interesting to see how the footage is used, whether a voiceover is used to connect the many different stories, or whether the footage will be allowed to flow and illustrate how peoples' lives can vary, or perhaps even intertwine! Sadly this won't be my big break, as I didn't think watching the German Grand Prix and sitting in a beer garden would constitute film-worthy material, but I'm sure even without gut-busting aliens or anything Russell Crowe-related, the end result will be fascinating!

Alex Smith

With Facebook recently announcing that it has surpassed the grand total of 500 million users, the authenticity of this figure must surely be called into question. This massive figure would indicate that one in every 14 people in the world has a Facebook account... hmm.

Although there may indeed be 500 million "accounts" on the Facebook platform, I know for a fact that many individuals have duplicate accounts that they use for entirely different reasons and purposes. However, one dubious area that this particularly led me to investigate was that of Facebook gaming.

Without going into too much detail, it seems fairly obvious that games like Farmville (although I must confess I have never played it) rely on the volume of players participating, Having "neighbours" is apparently highly beneficial, and what better way to accumulate a bunch of generous neighbours than to create them all yourself? This theory could of course be applied to many different Facebook games. This is most certainly not to say that Facebook games are bad, just that they may have lead to Facebook's numbers being bigger than they actually are.

There are of course numerous other reasons for creating multiple gaming accounts. Many users may just want to keep their personal feeds free from game-related updates, whilst others use it to protect their real accounts from in-game friends who may not be friends in reality. Nonetheless, it is against Facebook's Terms of Service to do this.

About half of Facebook's user base is considered as being active on a day-to-day basis, which leads me to call into question the extent to which fake accounts are being created. It seems that Facebook may have quite a battle on their hands in solving the problem.

Keredy Stott

I've never really been a huge fan of computer games, even though I've had machines since I was about 9. My favourites over the years have included Alex Kidd, Wipeout 2097, Crash Bandicoot and more recently Mario and Mario Kart as well as Blur - yes, I basically only like easy platforms or super fast racers! However, the actual time I have spent on consoles over the years, currently I have a Wii with only four games, is truly pitiful.

I never seem find the time to play but I also suspect it's because I'm not very patient with games and therefore prioritise everything else above going back to that annoying level I can't get past or that difficult track I'm not very good on; seeing friends, sunbathing, reading, watching favourite TV programmes, being online and even household chores all come above the experience of shouting and swearing at a few graphics. Because of the time and stress factors I've never played casual games either but I think I'm learning to like them... too much.

It started with a free Bubble Burst app I found on my Android phone and pretty soon I had to stop myself from playing over and over again. It's a bad sign when you need a quick game in an advert break but then keep playing and miss the rest of the programme you genuinely wanted to watch. When Google celebrated Pacman's 30th anniversary with its version of the game, I started using a portion of my lunch break to get a fix - and now well done me, I want to play it now after I weaned myself off it! Next, a free online pinball game app is launched on the Sony Ericsson Facebook page and, oh no, I had to play it for work - you have to get to know the product you're publicising! A high score of 5457 is not one to be sniffed at, I (and my low scoring rubbish fellow colleagues) can tell you. I seriously challenge anyone reading this to beat me.

Now that lack of patience thing I have might just correspond to a competitive thing I have. When I'm good at a game, everyone around me knows about it and when I'm not, I don't like it. So I might have found a new hobby in addictive (not ‘addicting' might I add, which seems to be a new, grammatically incorrect popular term that really irritates me), quick to play, easy concept casual games that you can boast about to friends. Facebook in particular seems to be the perfect platform for me to explore and with creative, funny and cool new games appearing all the time, like Cadbury Australia's Freida Smooth Moves released just a couple of days ago, I think there might be a lot of programmes missed, books dumped and chores not done.

And as an aside, I've been with Punch one month today so I'll drop in an overused cliché - time flies when you're having fun!