Envisioning 2.0

There’s been a rumor going around the blogosphere that BrandWeek is distancing itself from its new resident blogger, the controversial Dr. Peter Rost. John Mack, author of the Pharma Marketing Blog, said it first here:

“It seems that Nielsen Business Media, owner of Brandweek — the trusted print publication formerly associated with NRx — is busy putting some distance between Brandweek and the NRx blog. First, the name change, which is evident in the new logo although the URL still has ‘brandweek’ in it. Second, if you go to the Nielsen page that lists its publications, you won’t find BrandweekNRx blog mentioned in the ‘Brandweek’ section. Consequently, if you are a new reader of NRx, you are not going to know the association, if any, between the blog and Brandweek! There’s no ‘About’ section or anything else that will tell you who’s responsible for the blog unless you scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the copyright notice. And who besides me is going to do that?”

The rumor continued to spread in the latest edition of the MedAdNews e-newsletter, Pharma Blogs: Week in Review:

“Last week, Dr. Peter Rost at NRx (formerly known as BrandWeek NRx) and Ed Silverman at Pharmalot reported the departure of three managers from the HIV marketing team at Pfizer.”

Is it true that BrandWeek is distancing itself from Dr. Rost? Last week I conducted an interview with Jim Edwards, BrandWeekNRx’s former author, for a new WebTv show I am producing in partnership with Scribe Media, The Digital Health Revolution. He told me there is no evidence that BrandWeek is putting a firewall between itself and Rost. Specifically Edwards said:

o The BrandWeekNRx logo has not changed. It’s the same as has always been since the blog was launched

o All of BrandWeek’s blogs are listed on the front page of the magazine’s Website. If you scroll down, you’ll see that the company refers to Rost’s blog as BrandWeekNRx and still prominently displays its posts (see screen shot below; click it to enlarge)

o BrandWeekNRx’s traffic has shot up since Rost took the helm, which is something the publication is very happy about.

In addition to discussing Rost’s addition to the BrandWeek blogger roster, Edwards and I had a very interesting and wide ranging conversation. Stay tuned to this blog for more info about The Digital Health Revolution, which will launch later this summer.

This entry was posted on August 13, 2007 at 11:20 am and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.