Here’s a round-up of PR, tech and marketing articles that caught our eye online in recent days. Includes stories on how online media can suffer without Google News, the horrors that result when algorithms get it wrong and how a viral social media story has meant a dentist-come game hunter has been forced into hiring a PR agency after killing a famous lion in Zimbabwe.
- Spain’s media suffering in wake of Google News shutdown
New research shows that online publishers – especially smaller publishers – actually suffer without news aggregators such as Google News. TechDirt has written a story about an analysis conducted in the wake of Google News being shut down in Spain after calls to tax news aggregators by the country’s publishing industry.
- CEOs can become stupider as they get more successful!
A blog post by Seth Grodin highlights how three things – more power, more exposure and a lack of constructive criticism – means greater success leads to some CEOs becoming less able to make smart decisions.
- Dentist who killed Cecil the lion hires PR agency
PR Week revealed that the US dentist who sparked a global backlash after the story about him killing Zimbabwe’s famous Cecil the lion went viral on news sites and social media. With the vitriol and outrage surrounding the story, we think it’s a brave move by the PR firm to take on the task.
- Digital tech can drive economic growth finds new study
Digital technologies could drive up the world’s GDP by $1.36 trillion in 2020 (2.3% more than current forecasts) according to a story in Computer Weekly. The study by Accenture places the UK fifth in a list of countries that are successfully supporting digital take up.
- When computers get it wrong
Big data, machine learning and algorithms are all the rage. But an article in Diginomica reveals the horrors that can result when it all goes wrong. It quotes the example of a case of mistaken identity by a computer that led to the wrong person facing a hefty bill in back taxes, besmirching his credit history with the knock on effect that he was forced to shut down his new business venture
And finally, take a look at CloudNine PR’s own blog post about how Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal press office must have been wincing when one of the premier league club’s directors spoke to the media recently.