CaliberPulse

Shifting emphasis to local news and embracing a broad scope and portfolio of news, information and advertising products enabled Lee Enterprises, parent company of Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, to report at its annual meeting in February improved revenue trends and projections that advertising revenue would continue on a positive track. “The business is financially healthy,” said Mary Junck, chairman and chief executive officer of Lee Enterprises. Lee has outperformed the industry every quarter throughout this recession and back to 2003, she said.

Over the past month, Google has been slathered with attention and media coverage because of its new social platform – Google Buzz. Some people think the application’s incorporation of Google’s existing Gmail users will help it build a robust database of people who will incorporate Buzz into their daily routines. Critics say it is one […]

As our agency conducts social media training sessions, we've noticed many Twitter users do not understand the benefits of the platform's hashtag capabilities. Designated by the pound sign or hash symbol (#), this is a tool that even the most active social media enthusiasts haven't had the time to wrap their head around. However, hashtags can be powerful resource in a marketing and communication arsenal.

Whoa! Before you ask Janet in Accounting to blog about the firm’s terrific service or you give a sample of your miracle product to cousin Ernie in the hopes that he will post an oh-wow comment on Facebook, pay heed to the new Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines. Don’t let the regulations catch you by surprise or the FTC could slap a $10,000 per day fine if it finds you making and not immediately yanking unlawful claims. What the FTC considers “advertising” may be a surprise.

The Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Showcase, which will bring thousands of buyers, sellers and treasure hunters from around the world to Southern Arizona through Feb. 14, will remain a Southern Arizona tradition and economic rainmaker. Fears that the Tucson Gem, Mineral & Fossil Show, commonly referred to as “the gem show,” will leave Tucson are “unfair” and “unrealistic,” said Kimberly Schmitz, director of communications and public relations for the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau. One of Tucson’s premier events, the showcase packs an annual $100 million wallop into the local economy. On its heels: Accenture Match Play Championship, La Fiesta de los Vaqueros (the Tucson Rodeo) and Spring Training. (The Arizona Diamondbacks and the Colorado Rockies leave Tucson for a new spring training facility east of Phoenix in 2011.)

Remember Betamax? Not many people do. In the late '70s and early '80s, Betamax, commonly known as "Beta," was a hot technology that allowed people to watch and distribute recorded video content at ease. Other similar formats, such as the more widely used VHS tape, were developed that held a similar role. In a few years, one format reigned and Betamax went into the history books as another piece of meaningless trivia. This week, Apple announced the iPad, a tablet device that combines the best elements of a laptop and a smart phone. It's today's VHS - a piece of innovative technology that will turn its competitors, such as Amazon's Kindle and Barnes & Noble's Nook, into the next Betamax.

Last week’s launch of The Tucson Sentinel illustrates two news and information delivery trends: the inkless, paperless “newspaper” and the nonprofit business model. Dylan Smith and a handful of former staffers from the Tucson Citizen, the 138-year-old newspaper paper that ceased print publication in May, launched TucsonSentinel.com in the wake of newspapers and media outlets nationwide slashing staffs and shutting their doors. Tucson Sentinel content and format resembles online versions of traditional print newspapers. Professional reporters and editors and a cadre correspondents will cover local topics and promote community conversations on issues that affect Tucson, according to TucsonSentinel.com. It also has national and international news services.

comScore, an online measurement firm, recently released a staggering report on the significant increase of visitors to Facebook. Between December 2008 and December 2009, the social network more than doubled its U.S. audience from 54.5 million visitors to 111.9 million. Facebook is now the fourth most visited online property, right behind institutions such as Google and Yahoo!. Facebook is where people are going to communicate and get information. Every demographic has a presence on the Facebook network and each is rapidly growing.

The Burlington Coat Factory, setting up shop in El Con Mall, and the Casitas on Broadway, being built east of Campbell Avenue, are optimistic indicators of one of Tucson’s major, albeit rundown, thoroughfares. The Broadway Corridor stretching east from Downtown is pockmarked with dated, dingy buildings. Renovating a decades-old building can be cost prohibitive and some parking lots are actually parking slivers. However, the retailer and the senior housing facility point to the potential of the corridor. Burlington Coat Factory took a 10-year lease on 65,000-square-feet of former Dillard’s space in El Con Mall, 3601 E. Broadway Blvd., according to the CoStar Group, a commercial real estate information company. Burlington is expected to open in March in space that was vacant for more than 10 years.

Gov. Jan Brewer’s proclamation — “Arizona is open for business” — should be a rallying point for Arizona businesses. “Government can’t create jobs … only the free market can,” said Brewer as she laid out an agenda packed with economic development specifics in her State of the State Luncheon/Address Jan. 12 at the Tucson Convention Center. Overarching comments on state budget and a looming $5 billion deficit dominated the first half of her speech, but during the second half she spoke passionately of shoring up the economy through private sector involvement. Brewer cited several economic accomplishments or “strategic wins.” On the top of her list: Suntech Power, China’s largest solar panel manufacturer, which plans to begin production of its first American plant near Phoenix in the third quarter and it plans to eventually employ 200.

Do you know who your competitors are? Would your customers provide a similar response if asked the same question about you? Have the fluctuations in the economic climate changed the competitive situation for your company? Theodore Levitt’s landmark article “Marketing Myopia,” first published in 1960 in the Harvard Business Review, implores us to think of our competitive set in terms of the need we are filling or the problem we are solving for our customers, as opposed to an orientation towards the products and services we are offering. One of Levitt’s examples — rail companies that incorrectly considered themselves as being in the railroad industry rather than in the transportation industry— demonstrates the shortsightedness that made railroads ill-equipped to handle challenges from the airline and automotive sectors. It is an ideal time to start asking questions to ensure that your company doesn’t succumb to a similar fate. Consumer decision-making seems to be shifting from wants and toward needs.

New technologies changed the way businesses communicate with customers, friends and families throughout the last decade. For public relations and marketing professionals, the emergence of social media created new opportunities to build relationships never dreamed possible. Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, LinkedIn…Where are these social media platforms taking us? Will there come a day when information is somehow beamed directly into the cortex of our desired audience? While that seems unlikely, so did the concept of a social networking site like Facebook ten years ago. Today, one can update customers through a company’s social media account through a cell phone or notebook. Restaurants and businesses have free wireless Internet services to plug into. The news doesn’t wait for the evening broadcast or morning newspaper; rather, news reaches us instantaneously on our mobile devices through the latest post or tweet. Even traditional news sources allow for public comments after each story on their Web sites. Remember the days of dial-up Internet service or sending faxes to communicate 10 years ago? The times are certainly changing.