"The only way to be credible in the blogosphere is to be authentic," said panelist Jason Calacanis, founder of Weblogs, Inc. "PR people aren't human; they're on-message. Corporations aren't human; they're on-message." Calacanis said that by and large, bloggers who receive standard PR pitches tend to write them off--or worse, post them and mock them.
Panelist Michael Krempasky, founder of RedState.org, a Republican online political action committee, said that the tightly controlled messages that are popular among more traditional PR firms fail in the blogosphere. "The model was control, control, control--and that doesn't work anymore," he said.
Krempasky advocated more personal contact with bloggers, saying that online communications lack an important tone to establish a good rapport. "Everyone wants to know what the Rosetta Stone is--everyone wants the key," he said. "The thing is, no matter how good your blogs are, they simply cannot come close in any way to dinner."
Panelist Peter Daou, author of Salon.com's Daou Report, said that part of the problem with communicating with the blogosphere is that much of the mainstream media establishment still regards bloggers with some hostility, "taking the approach that bloggers are a bunch of angry, vicious, vitriolic lunatics."
"That perception still exists, and it seems to be getting worse--it's turning into a war," he said.
Also on the panel was Joe Trippi, former campaign manager for Howard Dean, Roger Simon, CEO of Pajamas Media, and Ari Rabin-Havt, the director of Internet communications for Senator Harry Reid's office.