This is a new map of what the emerging news ecology looks like, based on a Value Network Mapping and Analysis tool developed by Verna Allee for the recent NewsTools2008 conference among 150 journalists, technologists and educators. Talk about change!

According to journalists and bloggers Chris Peck, Peggy Holman and Stephen Silha over at Journalism That Matters, here’s what’s emerging:

• Some reporters become “beat bloggers” tapping into networks of bloggers to bring complex stories into focus.
• “Community weavers” create a sense of community among the former audience and with formal news entities.
• “Information architects” make intelligible the vast amounts of data and images now available.
• While editors continue to be sense makers, connecting facts and making story lines visible, ultimately who filters news from noise, how it happens, and who pays for it is still unfolding.
• Even the definition of “news” is up for grabs as memes — cultural units of information equivalent to genes in the body — replace an event orientation to story.

Fascinating model that can be applied to traditional media, online communities and social networks, or company communities for customers or employees.

Last week I had lunch with an editor of a major daily newspaper who is trying to innovate his paper. The question his execs keep asking: “How do we make money on a different kind of model?” As with this news ecology model, no one has figured out a magic money-making model.

What is clear is that if newspapers do nothing as they wait for the magic model, they will continue to lose their customers, many of whom are no longer just “readers” but active participants. Ditto for marketers and corporate communications execs.

I am waiting for the moment when the light bulb goes off: this blogger is my customer. That is PR 2.0, ladies and gentlemen. The sooner you realize that, the better your conversation gets. Instead of asking yourself: how can I send this pitch in a way that all these bloggers will publish it? Ask: how can I talk about my service and product to a potential customer?

Remember when we were talking about advertising that way not a year or so ago? Well, we may still be talking about it that way. You’ve got to stop treating your customers like they are morons - they are your (increasingly) daughter, too. If you think of it that way, wouldn’t your whole attitude towards the medium change?

So, now that you know that bloggers are your customers, what are the thoughtful steps you will take to open a dialogue with them?

1. First off, lose the attitude. They owe you nothing. Just because you are showing up announced in their email box, it does not mean they should even read your message. There are many messages just like yours piling in their in box.
2. Then figure out if who you are trying to reach is a match for what you’d want to say. It begins with listening, in this case reading. What is the author writing about? What if you find out that that blogger does not write about what you’ve got? Go out of your way to connect them with content they want, as a kind gesture. You may know where it is.
3. You do that and add a third step, depth. See, bloggers are proud about what they write, and they like to have a special angle for their readers. Have you got one to offer? It will probably not take you long to ascertain what the core interests of both readers and author. Look at the list of topics and see which ones have the most entries.
4. Do you want to score points? Continue a conversation they started at their blog. I know, I know, that would mean you’d actually want to pay attention to what they write about. This is not exactly the same as pitching main stream media. This means reading more closely, contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way to the blogger. He selects his content, not his editor.
5. Talk with them (not at them) as if they were your customer, chance are they may very well be. When you do that, keep it real. Be yourself, answer additional questions honestly, go out of your way to be helpful. Bloggers don’t mean to be difficult, they are generally busier than main stream media - in many cases, the blog is not their day job.

Has the light bulb gone off, yet?

Jerry Yang of Yahoo yesterday blogged (“OK, so now what?” ) about Microsoft’s decision to withdraw its offer. I give Yang credit for writing something and allowing comments, which is more than most CEOs do.

But Yang’s post doesn’t sound genuine; it sounds like something the corporate PR folks wrote in a committee. Too bad. In today’s world, people want the real language of the person behind the ideas. After reading the post my reaction was, “Does Yang really care — or is this just a PR move?”

A better approach would be to give the CEO a few of the major points that communications thinks should be conveyed — and then let him express it in his own words and style. Who cares if the words and grammar aren’t perfect. Neither are real people.

What do you think about his post? A good example of Marketing 2.0 — or misguided?

I was looking over the posts on this blog and realized that we are asking a lot of questions. We’ve covered a great deal of ground in a short span. Some would say it wasn’t fast enough. After all The Cluetrain Manifesto was published in 1999 - well, it’s still very much news today.

Others tend to take the new ways for granted. Chances are that some of those others are your customers. Thanks in large part to the downsizing, right sizing and readjustments that are still going on in corporate America:

“Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations.”

Thank you, Web. As marketers, many of us are starting to ask a series of good questions:

• Is the mobile Web dead?
• What is the role of corporate marketing in multi-brand environments?
• Can a community be successful with low brand awareness?

Does the answer to those questions matter to us as customers? I started challenging myself to answer this last question every day at work. What do you think?

Harvard Business School professor John Quelch once said “The purpose of marketing… should be geared to changing and reinforcing customer actions rather than customer attitude.” I recently revisited this quote and feel it still holds true. But in the age of social media, it is likely to come under siege.

Within his quote is the idea that we as marketers need to focus on driving fundamental shifts in customer behavior. Using tactics like pay per click advertising, you can effectively do just that. One well-placed Google AdWords can get prospects to engage in the exact behavior you want them to! It’s short. It works. And John would be pleased!

Other forms of media, however, can no longer deliver a captive audience. Customers and prospects have plenty of reasons to dislike media these days: irrelevance, interruption and just plain clutter.

But now factor in social media. The media balance is shifting from push to pull. Content creators represent 13% of all U.S. adults online. That means command and control of exact behaviors just gets harder every day.

So to think marketers can really affect customer behavior with social media is a dangerous idea to hang your hat on these days. Sure, marketers can perhaps influence behaviors with forms of social media like communities. But to me, it seems like we are getting further and further away from where Professor Quelch was directing us.

What’s your view?

Is the press release dead?

Well not really. But there certainly is a new wave out there – the social media press release, or SMPR, spawned by Todd Defern and the folks at SHIFT communications.

What does this mean for you? Well, when newspapers, magazines and other media go online, they are trying to create a conversation around a given article or topic they have written about. Why shouldn’t that be the case for press releases?

So I decided to get a podcast together with Todd so he could shed some light on success stories using the SMPR. Enjoy …

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About Todd

Todd Defren leads client services and business development efforts for SHIFT Communications, a $10 million agency with offices in Boston and San Francisco.

Working in high-tech public relations for approximately 15 years, Defren currently specializes in social media strategies and is widely noted for creating the first template for social media news releases in 2006. He followed up with a template for social media-optimized online newsrooms in early 2007.

Prior to SHIFT, Defren was at Sterling Hager, joining in 1994 as an account manager and reaching the level of managing director of the San Francisco office in August 2000. His earlier experience included managing the strategic and tactical corporate communications at ENTEX Information Services, a $2 billion New York-based systems integrator, now part of Siemens AG.

Defren has served as a visiting professor at Emerson College in Boston, lecturing on marketing and public relations on the Internet. In 2006, Defren was named a Research Fellow and member of the Advisory Board of the Society for New Communications Research.

Full Disclosure: I have hired SHIFT Communications to help BearingPoint with our Social Media PR