Learn About Web 2.0 Through Sarah Lacy

Sarah Lacy of BusinessWeek.com caused quite a stir a few weeks ago when she conducted an on-stage interview of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at SXSW and asked a lot of off-the-wall questions that the tech-heavy audience thought was disrespectful and irrelevant. They were posting their thoughts from the auditorium on Twitter and the story started getting around the Internet even before the interview was over. I blogged about it here.

Larger than that tempest, though, Lacy is starting to emerge as one of the leading chroniclers of Web 2.0 and has a new book coming out in which she details the rise of companies like Facebook and Digg. In today’s fast-changing online world, its a good idea to keep track of folks like Lacy, because they can give you some insight into how things are changing and how that might impact your job and your career.

Lacy recently gave an extensive interview to PRWeek (sub. req.) about Web 2.0 and made some comments about PR, excerpted below:

PRWeek: You also used Twitter to respond to your critics. Can you address how journalists can use social media to respond to criticism and feedback?
Lacy: Larger than the whole SXSW thing, I’ve been a huge proponent of using all social media as a reporter to engage with readers. It’s a great way to directly interact with people who like your work, and it’s another thing that really facilitates this move where reporters who are successful are increasingly less and less reliant on their publications and are becoming their own entities. I am a huge fan of using social media to connect with people because I think there was this “ivory tower” aspect of journalism where people might read a byline for years but have no idea about the person who was behind it and never get to communicate with them or ask them a question.

PRWeek: What’s your experience with Silicon Valley PR people outside of working on your book?
Lacy: You know, they’re horrendous. I’m saying that partially jokingly. There are a lot of clichés about PR people that are there for a reason. But actually, I think PR people in the Valley are somewhat savvier because they have to be, because they have to deal with so many requests and it’s such a pressure cooker. That having been said, it never ceases to amaze me – or other journalists – the degree to which a lot of PR people seem to do things intentionally to piss you off. It’s like just the lack of common sense. For instance, I have a column in BusinessWeek called “Valley Girl,” yet I get constant pitches from people [asking me to meet them in New York]. I only write about Silicon Valley – why would you assume I’m in New York? When a PR person asks why is it a big deal that they got your name wrong or sent you a pitch on something you would never cover, it’s because when you get hundreds of those a day – it’s incredibly annoying. It’s basically like having telemarketers call you all day long for something you never want to buy.