Air France Airbus missing

I am trying to find out as much about the missing Airbus. I first heard about it on Twitter from news sources such as NYtimes, BBC news, The Guardian etc.

Obviously info is still pouring in all the time. It is looking similar to how the news broke about the recent Amsterdam plane crash.

Where is best to follow the details? BBC News 24 on the Television is emphasising that the details are extremely sketchy saying that some of the news sources are unreliable.

As a journalist, or even as an audience, where do you start collecting info? I am following on twitter, BBC News 24 (Television).

For research I have viewed Wikipedia, Searching for Air France and the model of the Airbus A330-200 . The page has been altered on the accidents and incidents section already.

I don't know if this is possible and may have ethical issues but could someone who is interested in the story find info on Twitter?

If a passenger placed an entry which may give insight into what happened? Surely if this has happened could the entry from (what would have been a laptop or mobile) give a traceable location as to where the plane is? Or passengers are?

PR and Audioboo

http://audioboo.fm/

I have just had a look at this site. I am not sure about its uses but I think it could be great for journalists and PR practitioners, especially for acquiring quotes or releasing them.

It presents challenges for PR as it is another outlet for opinion formers to express opinion. If it is negative then how do you combat this and even monitor it? If it is positive about your product or service etc then can you harness this? Consumer feedback sections on companies site could use these?

To stand out on this site, how do you make yourself listened to? It is like shouting amongst a crowd and trying to be heard!

I'm sure there are many uses for this. But lets see if this takes off or is just a fad. I am not going to make the call, but on initial viewing I think it could be extremely useful.

If anyone has any thoughts then please share...

Update: It appears that this post is my most successful as it got a mention on Neville Hobsons' FIR 451 podcast which I was pretty chuffed about. The conversation about Audioboo starts at around 39 mins into the cast. Delighted that practically my whole post was read out. Even my tutor Philip Young got a mention. Now to get more involved with online conversations...

Swine flu and Kleenex

I don't know what I think of this. On the one hand I think that it is really clever as it has been launched at just the right time to make some money. On the other hand it is taking advantage of a panic that the media has quite rightly been fueling over the outbreak of swine flu.

If they work then great. But at the same time I feel that this company could be seen to be taking advantage of a bad situation. I wonder whether this was a good move for the company or whether anyone is slightly skeptical?

The website contains advertising for the anti-viral product along with information about swine flu next to it which to me is either a clever juxtaposition or very helpful.

Does this brand look like they care or are they taking advantage? You decide... http://www.kleenex.co.uk/

Divine Chocolate blog!

Check it out...

I did a guest blog post this week on Divine Chocolate's blog after completing my placement there.

Get naked!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZqkqJB_Yeo

How about this for a PR stunt. One of those simple yet effective ideas. Get naked, run around a bit and see if you can draw attention to yourself.

My question is- was this a good idea? Possibly.You would certainly get alot of attention (331,030 views on Youtube and countless mentions in National press) but it may not be for the right reasons.

I don't recommend doing this on a drunken night out by any means... Either way I think that in Britain it is just far to cold for anything like that!

A good example of social media...

http://www.eggapolitician.com/

I like this idea and we should see where it goes...

Here is who created it...

http://eatthewholebuffalo.blogspot.com/

When I mentioned this there were over 60 emails sent. See how many have been sent when you throw an egg-look in the top right top corner.

Posted at around 15:30 26th March...

Update:
The amount of emails sent is now 1544, which is a respectable amount. I expect that alot more traffic will have been to the site but may not have sent an email.
14:29 31st March

Update: There have now been 2120 emails sent. However, the combined 'egg score' (amount of eggs thrown) added together from Obama, Sarkozy, Hu, Brown and Singh amounts to 52,402. That is a pretty significant amount. The politician with the most eggs thrown at them is Gordon Brown with 16694 and the least is Mr Singh with 6568... (14:20 7th April)

Here is an interesting take on PR...