Twitter is a wonderful place, sure there are a load of mundane and mindless comments, but you also get to hear about the cool new things happening in your industry and the resulting conversation this causes. Last week, I saw the news break that Squidoo would be launching a programme called Brand in public, which is essentially brand hubpages or “lenses” that aggregate conversations taking place around that brand. Now, in addition to that (and the bit that is causing all the conversation) is the fact that they will be looking to charge brands $400 a month for the right to add to them and ultimately develop them. 

I have to admit, at first I was one of those people that reacted less than favourably to this – you’re effectively charging a brand for the right to reply, aren’t you? Then, after I thought it through I actually think it could be a good thing for the PR industry. This essentially offers a snap shot of the type of conversations taking place around a brand, ultimately allowing us to better do our job. 

We already have monitoring tools like Radian6 that help us identify the conversations we want to influence and they can also alert us to potential issues before they develop. Squidoo could actually become both a reason and a proof point for Digital PR. For example, it’s one thing aggregating conversations using third party tools, but if it’s right there in one place on the web for a brand to see, the decision to act becomes a bit of a no-brainer. So, what does PR do? We  help brands engage with these conversations in order to shape the Squidoo page – not pay to control it. So, if PR is doing it’s job, that Squidoo page should look pretty good. For more on this, TechCrunch posted a pretty good overview that you can find here