PR Futurist | Stuart Bruce | Purposeful Relations - 📰 PR Futurist #35 - Fighting fake news, AI, metaverse and NFTs

Welcome

Hype about AI, metaverse and NFTs

At Purposeful Relations we're all about cutting through the hype of new PRtech tools and working practices to find what really makes a difference. In this week's PR Futurist we've got stories and research about AI, the metaverse, NFTs and more. We're tracking them all to figure out what matters for public relations and communications. There's also an interesting update on the fight to tackle 'fake news', misinformation and disinformation.

Crisis communication

World’s first standard for certifying digital content provenance

An interesting update on the work of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) which is creating the world’s first standard for certifying digital content provenance. This could be an important step in combatting misinformation and disinformation. It's important that anyone who does corporate affairs, reputation management or crisis communications is familiar with and understands this.

Research and reports

The cost of new business pitches for PR agencies

A great overview, from survey work undertaken by Perspectus Global and the PRCA, of the time and money that UK PR agencies put into pitching each year. At an average of 1,674 hours spent, this is the equvalent to a full-time member of staff! More concerning must be the level of expectation from clients that they will be presented with fully formed campaigns from multiple agencies. This can be seen as clients exploiting agencies— good pitch ideas do sometimes get executed by another agency—but it might also say something about the difficulty of buying PR services. We need to better differentiate ourselves through our work and agency positioning, decreasing the clients need to ask for the exact thing they want to buy, before making a decision.

CommTech tools

Free PDF, video, image and other file conversion tools

TinyWow is a neat little site that provides an array of free tools to help you with tricky, but useful tasks. There are more expensive, or better tools for most of these jobs, but often the free TinyWow tool is all you need. Tools include PDF to Word, image background removal, PDF to PowerPoint, video to GIF, esign PDFs, meme maker, GIF to PDF and many more.

AI, digital and social

Why do news organisation struggle with TikTok?

TikTok is often dismissed as viral dance videos for teenagers. The reality is that TikTok has more than 100m users in Europe and 67% of them are over 25. TikTok is a place for 'serious' stuff as well as fun, but it needs to done in a format that works for TikTok. For companies it isn't just for consumer or entertainment brands as there are lots of ways it can be used for serious news, content and corporate communications.

CommTech newswatch

GPT-3 demystified - spooky-good AI or overrated text generator?

OpenAI's GPT-3 AI-based text generator is one of the most hyped AI developments in recent years. But does it really understand language? And what about upcoming AI advancements, such as GPT-4? There might be a lot of hype about AI, but some elements are very real, so it's essential PR and comms professionals understand them and use them when they need to.

How NGOs are using digital tools in the fight against deforestation

More trees growing on the planet can only be a good thing. The Dutch NGO, JustDiggit, helps communities in Tanzania better manage the trees that live in their sometimes stressed environments through education and appropriate technologies. From providing advice and reminders to farmers on how to keep trees healthy via SMS, to using imaging from drones and satellites, and an AI system to monitor and report changes in tree numbers and growth. An initiative that is proving concept and, we hope, scales globally.

Microsoft CEO Nadella pitches his metaverse vision

It's not just Meta's [Facebook's] Mark Zuckerberg that is talking about the metaverse. However, some of the most interesting thinking I've seen is coming from Microsoft as it's less about hype and more about practical steps. Microsoft's £68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard isn't just about acquiring a games company. It's buying expertise and experience in the metaverse, which will eventually have practical work applications.

Do you want to know what NFTs are all about?

This short, humorous video provides a tongue in cheek explanation of NFTs. More seriously, we're spending time understanding and exploring NFTs to try and cut through the hype. It's easier to see potential for NFTs when the also much hyped metaverse starts to become reality, but until then it's harder to believe some of the explanations offered by people talking about NFTs.

The big tech developments to watch out for in 2022 - Ofcom

Ofcom's Chief Technology Officer, Sachin Jogia, has written a 'year ahead' article that offers insight to the organisation's view on technology developments in 2022. There is little you wouldn't find elsewhere, and we would have liked some reflection on what these developments mean for the long tail of (mainly older) people who are still using landlines and consuming via traditional media. Not shiny enough to catch the eye of the UK media regulator's CTO?

Regulators find Europe’s ad-tech industry acted unlawfully

Is this a massive blow to a hard working innovative industry or a comeuppance for clear and ignored breeches of users privacy and data protection rules? IAB Europe, the central organisation of the on-line ad industry, has been handed both a substantial fine and the task of reengineering the Real-Time Bidding mechanism that places $10s billions of adverts each year. In the EU at least, the level of mass data collection that happens across platforms to feed RTB based ad auctions currently falls foul of the law. Pass the popcorn, this is an issue that is going to be with us for a while.