Speed versus silence on the Microsoft-Yahoo announcement and the implications for Analyst Relations and the Press

icon-social-media-blue.jpgIt has been interesting seeing the different responses to the Microsoft-Yahoo announcement. For example, as of 10:15 US Pacific Time:

  • Redmonk’s James Governor on his Monkchips has an interesting post, plus James has been Twittering
  • Forrester has commentary from three analysts (Rob, Charlene and Shar) on three blogs, each with a unique point-of-view
  • Rob Enderle has weighed in on the Technology Pundits blog
  • AMR, Gartner and IDC, nothing so far on their websites or blogs

No doubt, IDC and Gartner analysts have been talking to the press and clients, but frankly so have the analysts with strong blog presence.

The analyst reaction to MSFT’s little move has interesting implications for AR professionals. In the past, first outreach on hot news went to press go-to analysts and top end-user advisory analysts. Now AR’s calculations on prioritized outreach have to incorporate analysts with social media platforms as well. For instance, if an AR team only had time to reach out to one of the major advisory firms, the team might give Forrester priority because its blogs give it a higher immediacy profile.

For members of the press, analyst with active blogs also has implication. Perhaps for a reporter it is best to quickly check the blogs before calling analysts for sound bites. That way you can target those analysts that have already thought about the situation and will have better quotes.

Update: Gartner Media Industry Blog posted a commentary at 2:15. However, no First Take. At 3 pm, IDC has still not posted any commentary. AMR’s Jon Yarmis (www.tweeter.com/jyarmis) tweeted that he is working on a podcast. 

SageCircle Technique: AR teams should start tracking analyst blogs to evaluate how blogging impacts the analysts’ visibility and influence. This information then needs to be feed into analyst lists and the breaking news process.

Bottom Line: Social media is rapidly changing the dynamics of visibility in the analyst ecosystem. It is important that AR stay on top of the volatile social media usage to determine if their analyst priorities should be changed.

Question: AR – Do you incorporate analysts’ use of social media into your calculations about ranking analysts for your analyst lists? Analysts – Do you proactively educate the vendor AR teams about your blogs and readership? Reporters – Do you first check the analysts’ blogs before hitting the speed dial on your phones?

How SageCircle can HelpSocial media will be offering new challenges to AR teams for the immediate future. SageCircle can help AR teams by:

  • Analyzing how their analysts are using social media and how that usage should be impacting analyst lists and priorities
  • Advising on how to develop a pilot program to experiment with social media

Call 650-274-8309 or e-mail info (at) sagecircle dot com for more information. Also follow Carter’s commentary www.twitter.com/carterlusher to get a feel for how information is now being transmitted using microblogging.

0 thoughts on “Speed versus silence on the Microsoft-Yahoo announcement and the implications for Analyst Relations and the Press

  • hey Carter thanks for the link. Frankly the news is potentially far too significant to not at least get a marker down. There are a ton of avenues still to pursue, many of which were discussed as you point out Twitter. That is – a whole bunch of us, from many different companies and backgrounds, collaborated on the issue from a number of different perspectives to help flesh out what it might mean. Thus for example- what the heck happens to Zimbra, an open source Exchange competitor that Yahoo recently acquired? Or the IBM Yahoo search partnership (they share code and customers). It was fun to see some developers panicing enough to already be exporting their del.icio.us links.

    We had a weekly RedMonk meeting at about 12 EST yesterday, and our take was that as long as we had something on the blogs, we were in good shape to go forward with more in depth analysis and thinking on the subject. Stephen was probably happy I got something down so he didn’t need to create one of his magnum opus Q&As… on the spot.

  • might i also recommend you add Stephen O’Grady’s Tecosystems and Cote’s People Over Process to the blogs you read. they both create really solid content – particularly on development tools and issues, open source, and systems management.

  • Hi James, Thanks for the comments.

    The whole issue of collaboration and bringing in different perspectives is a good one, because it really does have the potential for improving the quality of the commentary.

    Ironically, it is the larger firms that really need to use social media for internal research collaboration cause their analysts are so spread out geographically. A lot fo vendors are frustrated because they have to do multiple briefings to the same firm on the same topic because the analysts don’t collaborate.

    Thanks for the heads up about Stephen’s and Cote’s blogs.

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