A very happy Thanksgiving weekend to my American readers! I extract items for the Wrap from my link blog, which you’re welcome to follow. To make sure you never miss an issue, subscribe to my weekly email briefing.

News

Anonymous blogging platform launches—Telegram—the popular privacy-focused messaging app that features robust encryption and self-destructing messages—has introduced a new blogging platform that lets people share stories anonymously without the need to register for an account. Dubbed Telegraph, the service is “the most lightweight blogging platform ever,” according to TNW. visit the site, add a title and your name (or pseudonym), and add text, images, tweets, and videos, then hit publish. Without a profile, you can’t collate your posts. There’s no commenting, either, and there’s nowhere to see Telegraph posts except when the URL for each individual item has been shared via social channels. The takeaway: This sounds great for quick publishing-and-sharing, but as the article notes, the potential for misuse is significant. It would be easy to publish under somebody else’s name. Telegraph could easily become the latest venue for fake news. Read more

The Pentagon plagiarized Wikipedia—The U.S. Defense Department plagiarized Wikipedia as part of its effort to justify its decision to build a new intelligence analysis center rather than use its existing facilities. A document submitted to various Congressional chairperson by a deputy defense secretary used information “directly copied from Wikipedia.” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes told the deputy secretary, “I’m just alarmed…that we would rely on Wikipedia, a free online encyclopedia that’s famously known for most high school students plagiarizing their homework. And that the Department of Defense would even use Wikipedia, a free online service, to provide any information to Congress to put in any report.” The takeaway: If the Defense Department is doing it, you can believe that Wikipedia passages are showing up in business documents, too. Read more

Google tells you how busy a place is right now—Google has enhanced is Popular Times feature to show just how busy a restaurant, coffee shop, or bar is right now. Since the tool was introduced last year, it showed the ebb and flow of crowds based on patterns, but now it is applying anonymized local data and searches to figure out how crowded a place is in real time. The takeaway: I expect this kind of data to expand to all retail locations, which could incentivize companies to provide faster service in order to avoid customers opting to visit a competitor rather than deal with crowds. Some businesses could even use the data to demonstrate how popular they are. Read more

Facebook Live tests real-time ads—How do you let someone know you’re broadcasting right now via Facebook Live? If a Facebook test pays off, you may be able to advertise it. The ads appear in newsfeeds as the live stream is taking place. They could pay off, based on one cosmetic company’s experiment boosting a live video that performed significantly better than its videos that didn’t include paid promotion. The takeaway: I’m cautiously optimistic that paid ads will create more exposure for streaming videos people actually want to see, rather than clutter newsfeeds with unwanted promotions for video streams in which they have no interest. Read more

Analytics now available for Messenger chatbots—Facebook announced it is adding chatbot performance to its Facebook analytics for Apps. Brands will now be able to obtain insights about users interacting with the chatbots they have launched on Messenger. Among the metrics available are the number of messages sent and received, along with user blocks and unblocks. Reports will also provide aggregate, anonymized demographic data of users interacting with bots including age, gender, country, language, education, and interests. The reports will make it easy, for example for “a travel business (to) see how often people are transferred to a human agent” or “an ecommerce business can build cross-platform funnels to see what percentage of people interact with its bot also make a purchase on its website or app,” according to a Facebook software engineer. The takeaway: Tens of thousands of bots are now in service, but too many reports focus on frustration using them. Analytics like those Facebook are now making available should help identify where the problems are so developers can refine their bots. Read more

Beware fake Google—If you see a link to Google with an unusually small capital G, click at your own risk. It’s not a capital G at all, but a Unicode character being used to direct you to spam sites. The takeaway: I’m including this link because companies will need to start watching out for similar treatments of their domain names. A similar Unicode character displaying a capital A could lead people to a fishy site instead of Apple.com or Adobe.com. If your computer security people aren’t aware of this yet, alert them. Read more

“Click to Message” comes to Google ads—Google has created a click-to-message feature to its ads that allow users viewing an ad to send an SMS message directly to the user’s mobile phone number. Google said its research found 65% of consumers would consider using messaging to connect with a business to learn more about its products or services. SMS messages have a 79% open rate with messages read within three minutes, making text messaging a highly desirable way to interact with customers. The takeaway: Don’t incorporate this feature without making sure your organization has the infrastructure required to address the inquiries it may receive from a mobile-savvy population. Read more

Trends

Facebook’s Workplace and Microsoft’s Teams grab brands wary of Slack—Companies that were reluctant to adopt the upstart collaboration software Slack are evidently more comfortable with new competing tools from established software companies Facebook and Microsoft. Brands and agencies are adopting Facebook Workplace and Microsoft Teams, in part because of their stature and in part because they are enterprise suites rather than standalone products. They’re also less expensive than Slack. Among those that have signed on to Workplace are Starbucks, Heineken, Weber Shandwick, and TBWA Worldwide. The takeaway: The fact that companies are choosing Slack alternatives may not be good news for Slack, but it does signify a widespread acceptance of collaboration tools in the enterprise. Read more

Should brands tap into fear?—Fear is rampant globally these days, and it is “the simplest emotion to tweak in a campaign” according to one advertiser. It led to the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump. It’s also something brands can use, according to the founder of StrawberryFrog, an ad agency that calls itself a “cultural movement agency.” To tap into fear, you can’t represent the establishment, he writes. “In the era of the challenger, it is not enough to be for something,” he writes. “You must stand against something as well.” That allows you to demonstrate your brand’s values and beliefs. The takeaway: Fear has long been a marketing tactic. I have even used the “don’t be left behind” approach for training on new technologies. While some organizations can use the strategies suggested in this article without whipping up anger and hate, I worry that others will launch campaigns that produce unintended consequences. Tread carefully. Read more

Will 5G change the way we use the web?—The next evolution of mobile wireless networks will make mobile online connectivity significantly faster. That means more real-time connections, accelerated adoption of mobile for all online activity, faster adoption of Virtual and Augmented Reality, the development of new applications that take advantage of the network’s speed (such as tools that can process data in real time), lower operational costs, and a surge in video, among other things. The takeaway: 5G could mean home Internet access with be strictly wireless; no more cable modems. Cars can also go wireless with 5G, and the potential for citywide infrastructure is also being explored. While we won’t see 5G rollouts until the end of the decade, companies would be wise to step up mobile capabilities now in order to be ready when the new standard is introduced. Read more

Have people figured out how to game employee engagement?—Root CEO Jim Haudan says it’s time to stop measuring employee engagement. Boards of directors are incentivizing leaders to improve engagement numbers, he writes, leading to various tactics to raise the numbers without actually building a more engaged employee population. “The tool became the goal,” he writes. Instead of measuring engagement, Haudan suggests we measure the 4 C’s of engagement, which he defines as Caring about employees’ success, removing Constraints, creating the conditions for true Collaboration, and being Curious about what employees understand and think. The takeaway: I entirely agree with Haudan that too many companies are more concerned about producing high engagement numbers while remaining unconcerned about real engagement, but that doesn’t mean measuring engagement should stop. In fact, most good engagement studies (including those I incorporate into my internal communication audits) explore those 4 Cs, which by themselves don’t amount to engagement. Missing are critical elements like employee voice, a strategic narrative, organizational integrity, and engaging managers. From where I sit, engagement is harder than Haudan sees it. Read more

Brands are getting excited about Snap’s Spectacles—Snapchat Spectacles are getting marketers excited. One creative director said they represent an opportunity for brands to bring a new perspective and first-person narrative to their marketing efforts. “It will make an immediate impact on how we plan and produce our storytelling—the opportunity to share a POV perspective when skydiving, firefighting, skateboarding, or baking a pizza is now just $130 away.” Snap, the recently-renamed company being Snapchat, has demo’d the glasses for BBDO and several other agencies. The takeaway: I have no doubt brands will share the 10-second videos Spectacles create and we may even see campaigns based on the hardware. Whether Spectacles will become a runaway hit, though, remains a question. Despite the buzz they’re creating (see the item in the VR/AR/MR section below), I remain mildly skeptical about the use of glasses become a common activity. Read more

Research

Corporate reputations represent $4 trillion of shareholder value—If your leaders don’t think PR—the function that focuses directly on the company’s reputation—isn’t worthwhile, you might consider letting them know that their reputation accounts for $1 of every $5 in shareholder value. That’s the finding reported in the latest Reputation Dividend Report, which determined that the reputations of the S&P 500 companies are worth $3,977 trillion of their total shareholder value. That’s an increase of 2.5 percentage points. The takeaway: The evidence continues to mount that a company’s behavior matters more and more. While PR departments and agencies can help convey a company’s behavior, it’s up to leaders to make sure the behavior is consistent with what stakeholders are increasingly demanding in terms of transparency, ethics, and commitment to improving sustainability and societal good. Read more

Branded video drives brand interaction on social media—Nearly 75% of consumers report a connection between watching a video on a social media channel and the process they employ for deciding what to buy. A study from Brightcove found that nearly half of video viewers have bought something because they watched a branded video on social media and another third have considered it. 81% of consumer interact with brands on social media, and 43% have done so via a branded video. 79% say video is the easiest way to get to know a brand online. And 67% say they watch more video on social networks now than they did a year ago. The takeaway: Video is becoming a core competency for communicators. How up to snuff are your skills? Read more

Most students don’t know when they’re seeing sponsored content or fake news—Preteens and teens aren’t adept at assessing the accuracy and authenticity of content. 82% of middle-schoolers were unable to distinguish between content labeled “sponsored content” and a real news story, according to a study of 7,804 students by Stanford University. Students were shown native ads and fake news stories, but many found no reason to doubt them or were able to tell them from legitimate journalism. In response to this trend, some schools have started teaching “media literacy” to help equip students with the skills to detect questionable content. The takeaway: it is incumbent on organizations to take extraordinary steps to ensure audiences know exactly what they’re looking at. We need to be part of the movement to build credibility. Read more

Just the facts, ma’am—Nearly 60% of U.S. adults don’t want news organizations to add analysis or interpretation to news reports; they should stick to just the facts, according to the Pew Research Center. Interestingly, supporters of Donald Trump were more supportive of the just-the-facts approach with only 29% agreeing that journalists should add interpretation, while half of Hillary Clinton supporters wanted to see some interpretation. The public is broadly in favor of fact-checking, though, suggesting the public doesn’t perceive fact-checking as interpretation. The takeaway: The study addresses only journalism, not PR, but does suggest that companies sharing news (via press releases and other channels) might want to stick just to the news, using other avenues to add perspective. Read more

Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality

AR feature hidden in Snap’s Spectacles—Snap’s brilliant strategy has Snapchat users buzzing about Spectacles, the hard-to-find sunglasses that let you take and share photos and videos. Those lucky enough to get their hands on a pair are finding a hidden Augmented Reality feature; When you aim the glasses at the lettering on the protective case, you’ll see bubbles floating up that display the snaps shared by others. Consider it an AR Easter egg. The takeaway: The fact that AR appears as a throw-away Easter egg says something about the growing ubiquity of the platform. Read more

Diageo puts you in the car for a drunk-driving crash—The innovative uses of immersive Video and Virtual Reality keep coming, this time in a public service experience called “Decisions.” The Diageo-produced VR video follows three groups of people whose stories come together in a drunk-driving crash. The video is available on multiple platforms. The goal is to move beyond the typical safe-driving materials to which so many people have become desensitized. The takeaway: The compulsion to experience something like this is unusually strong and the experience is far more intimate than what people have become accustomed to. If you have a headset, give it a try to not only redouble your personal commitment to not driving drunk, but also to open your mind to other possibilities for the medium. Read more

Fake News

Elon Musk the latest fake news target—Conservative websites have been publishing stories by a writer named Shepard Stewart that attacked Elon Musk. It turns out it’s a fake name. Some of the publications that ran the pieces have removed them since determining there is no Shepard Stewart. A Tesla spokesperson noted that fake editorial content is a tool “used by those who don’t have facts on their side.” Unlike the political fake stories that have made headlines in recent weeks, content targeting Musk could be coming from business rivals or their supporters, such as “coal companies and utilities uneasy about Soar City and automakers and dealers concerned about Tesla.” Musk has been the subject of multiple attack sites. The takeaway: Given the number of real content antagonistic toward Musk, fake content has an easier time gaining traction. If your leaders are visible and at all polarizing, you can expect them to get the same treatment as the practice becomes more commonplace. Read more

Fake news sites finding writers via Amazon—Fake news is all over the real news these days, with assertions that it affecting the outcome of the U.S. presidential election and big sites like Google and Facebook taking steps to curtail it. Now comes word that right-wing sites that serve as the launching point for alt-right fake news are recruiting writers via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, the odd-job platform that has for years served as a means of finding coders and people willing to perform short-term, menial tasks for a few bucks. White supremacist site The Goldwater was offering $5 per fake news story. The takeaway: Too many pundits are asserting there’s nothing new about fake news. While it’s true that fake news has been around for a long, long time, the uses to which it is being put, the sources producing it, the channels through which it is being propagated, and the formats in which it is appearing (giving it the sheen of authenticity) are all new. We have never before seen publishers recruiting people to write it. And businesses are now being hurt by it. Shrug fake news off at your own risk. Read more

Google removing “In the News” label—In response to the fake news brouhaha, Google is rebranding its “In the News” section that appears at the top of a search engine results page with a rotation of “Top Stories.” The goal is to make it easier to identify real news (which is curated by real people at Google) and search results (which can include fake news). The takeaway: A band-aid solution, but every little bit helps. Read more

It’s getting colder outside, so this week’s wrap image—from the Flickr account of the U.S. Department of Agriculture—points out that “firewood that has been heat treated is often sold bagged, boxed or wrapped. Look for a state or federal seal to certify it was properly treated.”