In earlier times when diaries were priority for young ladies nobody was allowed to read them. Some writers and composers kept diaries. Their diaries are now published but it wasn’t their aim to allow everyone to see their inmost thoughts. Diary is for private use.

But what about electronic diaries?

Now electronic diaries become very popular. But I always ask myself question how frankly writers are. There is an expression that you can hide and stay anonymous in big city easier that in small town. Probably it works here. Users write under pseudonyms that help to hide their identity. But on the other hand most of the users have friends that comment their posts.

I’ve never kept a diary. I was always scared that someone would read it. That’s why the idea about having a blog was shocking. I still don’t feel that it is entirely mine! But it is definitely the most intimate assignment I’ve ever had.

I don’t know if I’ll keep on writing here but I hope it is not the last day for my blog.

Anyway, I want to say thank you for Richard Bailey for this great idea to make it compulsory and I hope he has the same pleasure reading it as we have while writing our posts.

And of course lots of thanks for everyone who commented here. Especially for my friend Kate! Thank you for always being the first to comment, for lots of ideas and support! I really appreciate it!

Is it time to say “Goodbye”? Maybe just “See you later”? Have a nice holiday guys and good luck with dissertations!

Now we store and share photos via Internet. Our computers are full of photos but our photo albums are empty.

Can you remember when you last time printed photos?

I stopped probably because of cost and it is a time-consuming process. Nowadays if you need to stand up, go to the shop, give the film and come back later to take it back is VEEERY time-consuming.

But my mum still does, she prints photos and put them in the album. And I really like it. It is the same as books, you flick through the album and feel a history, feel emotions, not just see them on the computer screen.

What is photography? This term came from two Greek words – photo and grapho. Photo means “light”; grapho is similar to the verb “to write”. So photography means an art to catch a moment and fix it on a paper with use of light. I like the phrase “catch a moment”. I think it is the most important thing in the whole process. This is the art! This is where you can show your talent!

But! Art of photography has also changed its meaning. We evaluate beauty of picture, not a moment or sense of photo. Different software turned photos into just beautiful pictures. Most of the pictures are edited in Photoshop. Ease of use made it accessible for majority of us. But for real photo-artists format of photo doesn’t make any difference.

Usually we can meet photo works in glossy magazines. It is a PR for celebrities and photographers, like symbiosis for both of them. But benefits from this symbiosis are higher for celebs. If you ask reader about photographers that are published in magazine, he can hardly remember one of them. Well, actually I don’t…

In modern world countries have their own currencies as one of the national symbols. Have you ever thought about names for these currencies?

I’ve looked at some of them. The most frequently used names are dollar and euro. Also I want to bring to your attention some other types of currencies.

Dollar. Etymology of dollar is very old. This word came from Dutch/Low German daler. It is version of German taller that was shortened from Joachim staler. Those coins were minting in Sankt Joachimsthal, Bohemia, Czech Republic. This word came to North America in 17^th century, when Danish and Sweden colonists founded their settlements. Colonists used daler for silver coins that were in mass circulation in those times.

Euro. It is relatively new word. You can easily guess that it stand for European. Before Euro European union used ECU (European Currency Unit). In 1999 they decided to reject ECU and introduce Euro. First notes were issued in 2002.

And now a little bit more currencies.

British Pound. As you know pound is a currency in GB. This word came from Latin pendere that means to weight. Originally it was a pound of silver. First meaning was 12 ounces, than it changed to 16 ounces. Sometimes you can meet pound sterling. Sterling meant silver penny. There are some propositions that sterling come from star that was used for design of these coins. A pound sterling was originally “a pound weight of sterlings”. It was approximately 240 sterlings.

Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan. Both words in each language means round object, circle. The Yuan was silver round coin introduced in the end of 17^th century. Also Yuan/Yen is used to name dollar.

Spanish Peso. This currency is used in many countries in Central and South America. Peso is also from Latin synonym to weight – pensum. Peso was introduced as Spanish currency in 16^th century. There were two types – silver (peso de plata) and gold (peso de oro).

Russian Ruble. There are a lot of discussions on the etymology of this word. The most possible one is that ruble was formed from Russian verb rubiti that means to chop, to cut. This proposition was based on that fact that first mention (14^th century) was found in region where silver bars were cut as needed and used as money.

I’ve mentioned only small part of possible currencies. But I think that tracing currency etymology we can find history of trading and possible equivalents for money. Do you agree?

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to be loved and love in return”

It is right words for all love stories. If you try to remember them, you’ll end up with a figure with six zeros or more. One more love story is presented in musical Moulin Rouge.

Moulin Rouge is probably the most famous cabaret all over the world. Cabaret opened its doors on 6 October, 1889. One of the founders was Charles Zidler, who can be seen in the movie. Nobody can prove that this story was true and nobody needs it. Great actors, wonderful music and cancan make this musical popular for ladies and gents. Musical helped Moulin Rouge to improve its performance.

It will be nothing without a story. It is a story about love. Love that will live forever. For love doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from and how old you are. Christian and Satin don’t suit each other. It was clear for everyone except Love. Someone will say that they loose in fight for Love. No, their Love is still alive.

A little bit more about music. Charming tango Roxanne is full of Argentinean temp and French atmosphere. It was alternative version of the whole movie’s love story.

Another story also took place in Paris, but in place on a level higher than cabaret. It was Paris Opera House. It is Phantom of the Opera. Love story of singer and vicomte, singer and Phantom. Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber perfectly support Gaston Leroux’s novel. Reading a book it is a mystery for reader to solve whether Phantom is real or not. Musical solved it. He is real. Phantom will be always alive in Christine’s mind. It made some people to search for evidence of his existence. Romantic and mystic story disturb our imagination. He can be a Phantom for others, but she and her love made him as he is.

What is in common between these two musicals? Location? Music! It is charming and involves you in action on the screen. After two hours in Parisian atmosphere I don’t want to return to real world.

And what about you?

What do you know about Cannes Lions? Have you heard about it? I’m sure you have.

15 – 21 June will be hard time for Cannes. International Advertising Festival comes here. Festival celebrates 55^th anniversary. Leading companies from different countries across the world are trying to get into shortlist. Great, isn’t it?

A few people in far 1954 could suppose that adverts are as interesting to watch as movies. But after the first Festival in Venice attitude to it has changed. And now a lot of people want to be there.

Some interesting facts

Probably, you will ask why Lions? The answer is easy. The first place for Festival was Venice that has winged lion as a symbol. First awards copied its symbol. Now awards have changed a little bit.

These awards are adjudged in several categories. Category list of Festival includes Radio Lions and Cyber Lions. Despite the fact that radio adverts appeared earlier than virtual reality Cyber Lions ( 1998 ) were introduced 7 years before Radio Lions (2005).

If you want to see Cannes Lions 2007 winners, they are here.

And below is the advertisement which has won 8 awards in Cannes:

Social networks… What comes into your mind when you see this word-combination? Facebook, MySpace or LiveJournal? Or, probably, you thought about WordPress.com?

Social networks as a term appeared in 1954. This term was used to describe relationships in society. Social network means circle of acquaintance. Interesting point in this theory is theory of six handshakes. It means that you can reach each person in six steps. Two strangers are separated from each other by only five people. Now this theory is used as applied to Internet networks.

It won’t be wrong to assume that everyone who reads this blog use LiveJournal, Facebook, MySpace or services similar to it. It is not a secret that it is a trend among teenagers to meet on-line using MySpace or Facebook. At the beginning these services tended to help in search and communication with friends. Now frameworks are much broader. People can share video, music or photos via MySpace. This leads to several implications in real-life.

Head – hunters use social networks for their purposes. You can easily find professional networks in web. The reason for using these sites as a path to work is that it is easier to get work through acquaintance. So people use it.

Video and music sharing service allows users to post their own creations. Others evaluate it and some day you wake up famous. Stars use MySpace and etc. to chat with their fans and introduce new compositions.

Also it is a good service for PR people. Information spreads very fast if you put it in a social network. We make people know about something new through these networks.

P.S. One question after all. What networks do YOU use?

As I wrote in one of my previous posts an average person receives about 5000 advertising messages a day. And almost 20% of all advertisements we see contain sexual appeals.

The controversial topic whether sex sells or not has appeared when non of us were even planning to exist. And it is still arise lots of questions!

So why do companies use sex to sell products?

There is an opinion that usage of sexual appeals only gets customers’ attention but doesn’t always help to sell the product. Especially when product is irrelevant to the sex.

But I think it’s not only about getting attention to the advertising. Dr Freud came out with a great idea. And it really seems to work in marketing world!

When I was preparing for our group presentation I have found a nice article about PR in Russia. It was written three years ago but nothing has changed since then.

We really can say that PR in Russia appeared 17-18 years ago. After collapse of the USSR Public Relations industry has appeared in Russia.

“The Soviet Union had its own working tool of communication – propaganda – and although public relations is now regarded as an accepted communications vehicle, propaganda is far from dead”

“In the rise of the crony capitalism in the ex-Soviet Union and the triumph of the oligarchs, the richest and biggest companies had the best PR: not only did they buy stories, editors and reporters, but entire media outlets. Black PR agents still work in Russia today, but have no future as the market matures”.

“Russian television – particularly national channels controlled or influenced by the government – has a simple way of understanding business news: if the company name is mentioned, it is considered to be an advertisement. This means that the story has to be paid for, regardless of whether a company is creating thousands of jobs or investing millions into infrastructure and social welfare. Some print media outlets take a similar approach, but as the local media market is maturing, there has been a positive change in attitude”.

I absolutely agree with this article. But I think “Black PR” is not dying in Russia. And recent elections showed it. People believe that if they lied once they will lie again. And it’s a pity that such campaigns influence the whole industry.

I think almost every channel has had their reality show. Pop idol, Big Brother etc. All of them are very popular. But that’s nothing new about them now. So TV-men try to think out something really NEW and controversial.

Channel Four was going to broadcast reality show “Make me a Muslim” (I don’t watch British TV so I don’t know the future of this reality show). But I’m shocked of the idea! People watched
“non-Muslims living under strict Sharia law for three weeks”. Participants are “mixed race couple, a gay hairdresser, an atheist taxi driver and a glamour model . . . all of whom are called upon to give up unmarried sex, alcohol and pork, pray regularly and dress modestly”.

Producer of the show said: “I wanted to make a series that had some humour in it. I’m tired of seeing guys with beards who are a bit scary. I wanted to explore how white people come to grips with a religion they’ve kind of heard of. I wanted to portray those people as human beings who go through a range of emotions.”

Or another Dutch reality show! “A 37-year-old woman suffering from an inoperable brain tumor wants to donate a kidney before she dies and will choose the recipient from among three contestants on Dutch national television, a TV network said Tuesday, claiming it wants to highlight a crisis in organ donations.”

People were supposed to decide who would survive and who would die. I thought it was God’s role!

Or in Russia! We have a reality show “Dom 2” (“dom” means house) which has been shown for FOUR YEARS without any stop! It is the longest reality show in the world! Their slogan is “Build your Love” but people go there just to become famous!

And everything is presented as something natural and with good intentions. Popularization of Islam, organ donation and true feelings. For me everything is cynical in those reality shows and I even don’t want to imagine what is going to be next!

Russia is not only Moscow and Saint-Petersburg. There are lots of cities and towns with big potential. But people there are different. Now many companies try to expand to regions. But do they know who is waiting there?

There was a case with one company in Russia. They had a so-called policy – “no advertising” and were very successful. And then one important partner made a term: if they want to sign a contract they have to launch an advertising campaign. They started from Moscow region (small towns around the capital).  And what were the conclusions? People’s reaction was unexpected. They thought that if company had decided to use advertising it was facing some problems. And the image of the company was damaged.

We all know that advertising is not always effective. And moreover it can be damaging sometimes. Especially when companies don’t know their potential customers.