The point should that you treat journos different depending on what they like. I’ve managed to sell in a story on Twitter before but that’s because the journo liked Twitter and it was a story I knew would be good for them. You will fail A LOT at selling in a story by phone/email/social if it isn’t right for them so I try and find out as much about them as possible, sometimes by phone before any pitch.

I’d never say don’t phone. I had one instance where a journo had disregarded the story due to space in the magazine but I managed to talk her in to uploading it online while I was on the phone to her. If I hadn’t called it would have got nothing.

Until there is more transparency it will be hard to fit podcasts in to plans alongside press/broardcast/online.

I’d add spend your whole day in client meetings that achieve nothing but burn time nicely from the retainer………….

Thanks for getting in touch Pilar. I’m afraid I haven’t used Scrapebox or anything similar. We tend to focus on building quality links by selectively commenting on relevant blogs and sending news announcements to major media news sites.

On December 4, 2009, ZL Technologies filed an amended complaint against Gartner, Inc. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The Court granted ZL the opportunity to clarify and augment our earlier allegations of defamation and trade libel.

In the first round of ZL’s legal dispute with Gartner, Gartner argued to the Court that its rankings and other statements in the proprietary “Magic Quadrant Reports” are merely opinions that are not based upon fact, and that they are understood as such by the readers of those reports. However, Gartner’s past statements in marketing materials, white papers, blogs and even the Magic Quadrant Reports themselves, assert that their research and analysts’ opinions are based on a body of facts compiled through what is asserted to be a rigorous process.

The amended complaint clarifies ZL’s contentions about the inaccuracy of Gartner’s reports, the inherent conflict of interest arising out of Gartner’s voluminous business with the vendors it reviews, and its subsequent bias towards large and established vendors. The amended complaint also adds new detail about Gartner’s repeated claims that its research is based on objective fact—a position exactly opposite to the stance forwarded by Gartner in court.

While this case is focused on ZL’s dispute with Gartner over the erroneous statements in Gartner’s publications, the issues here also implicate Gartner’s larger business model. Gartner plainly admits that it attempts to leverage value from its largest clients, many of whom are also vendors covered in the company’s research. ZL’s legal filings describe how that business model causes Gartner to favor those large companies at the expense of identifying the best technologies, thus misleading not just the vendors who are inaccurately reviewed by Gartner, but the consumers who base their IT purchasing decisions on Gartner’s biased research.

ZL is seeking injunctive relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages from Gartner.

The amended complaint can be found here: http://www.zlti.com/courtdocs/docs/First_Amended_Complaint.pdf