Guess anyone could make good use of a PR pro every now and then, right? At the end of the day, it’s all about the spin.

1. 10 Signs PR is the Right Job For You

Works well for PR guys as well, I think.

2. Successfully Land Your Resume in the Big Apple

“Then you hear crickets.”

Great read, especially after having interviewed potential NYC interns and account managers all week long.

3. Myth of Work Life Balance

“Rather than finding your passion and following it, make doing a good job your passion. No matter what you do, do it well. Make your customers and employees happy and work harder at it than anything else.”

4. “We don’t hire stick figures.”

I think I would. Creepy sure, but still interesting right?

5. Upcoming changes to Spotify Free/Open

Difficult PR situation for Spotify. Either they must screw their fans, or they must screw their content suppliers. Without content, no fans, without fans, impossible to monetize content. I think their screwing their fans because there are legal implications and contracts as well as financial realties forcing them to screw their fans.

But that’s business. Sometimes the reality is harsh need to make the best of the situation. I think they see their solution as pretty smart. They limit the free version in a way so that people still can use it pretty widely. For most, ten hours of music is quite a lot. But I can imagine the frustration of having playlist running in background, you turn it to mute because you have a call, and suddenly your time is up. No more Spotify that month.

And when friends share content, you click and then - stop. Ouch.

I’m concerned about limiting listening for the freemium level. Better to add more commercial and maybe lower the quality. Having people posting on friends Facebook walls “Sorry, I can’t listen to that since my time is up for this month” will feel so much not like Spotify. For the freemium users, cut everything off but the music instead. Spotify needs it’s soul.

I think there should be two premium levels instead. One for the average premium listener and one for the enthusiast. The enthusiast level should be given access to a premium bitrate level as vell as extensive artist information. Many listeners would accept this as an add-on. And for most computer speakers the first premium level would be sufficient for those who wan’t to get rid of the commercials.

And what about three premium levels? The top level could be super expensive and provide extensive Sonos support. Use PR to turn this level into a status symbol. Call it “Spotify Black” and change the green color. And then add Spotify Black+ which you only can unlock when your playlists are followed by more than 5,000 people. Once you reach this status, the interface text changes into gold against the black background. Personally, I would both pay and kill for that kind of status.

In other words, monetize smarter.

Remember, Spotify has about 10,000,000 users and 1,000,000 paying customers. That’s ten percent and that’s really good! Personally I think it would be a better strategy to move up to 20,000,000 users rather than going for 20 percent paying customers and loosing users to competitor’s instead.

6. Expand with courage

Or in PR terms:

“Expand with coverage.”

7. Gamification Basics: Gamifying a button - Adding the Fun

This is sooo geeky. And I love it. And I think the interactive web really is moving in this direction fast:

Mediocre doesn’t cut it anymore. Mediocre worked at first, because the novelty made everyone so darn happy about basically everything.

“Oh, so you have a blog! Good for you! You must be social media awesomeness!”

Now, the game is changing quickly. You must bring your a-game, especially when it comes to content, added value and interactive design. As foreseen, the days of the hippie web is soon over… for brands it’s no longer good enough to just have a presence. If the presence is poor or mediocre, it directly reflects badly on the brand. Saying that ‘tonality’ is difficult, that interaction design isn’t a priority, all of that is no longer an excuse.

And yes, it might seem geeky, but it’s not a bad idea to start with the buttons…