Forbes this week began accepting applications for this year’s Cloud 100 List as well as the accompanying Cloud 100 Rising Stars list, which focuses on private cloud startups with less than $25 million in funding.
For most tech PR pros, the Financial Times isn’t top-of-mind. That may change. Last month the FT expanded its San Francisco-based bureau to “deepen its coverage of technology companies, venture capital and the intersection of money and technology.”
Just for fun, try creating the story pitch after the story is written. We did that this week, using generative AI. We pasted an already-published story into each of three GenAI tools and asked it to write a compelling PR pitch based on that article.
It’s 2026. You’ve got a new job, earning $250K a year as “VP, Pitch Analytics.” You’ve got a modest budget to retain freelance tech reporters. You manage an intern.
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Last year around this time we covered the launch of Silverlinings, a trade publication serving network cloud architects. In the wake of Protocol’s sudden demise
Who does John Kell write for again? Fortune? Fast Company? Business Insider? Well, all of them. John might have to rein things in starting this week, however, once he starts producing Fortune’s new CIO Intelligence newsletter.
Is TikTok worth the attention of tech PR pros? Based on fresh SWMS research, the answer is no, not really.
What exactly is Tier 1 publishing on TikTok, and is it pitchable? So few PR pros know because when they do find themselves on TikTok, they are probably not visiting, say, The Economist.
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YOUR ACCOUNT
FRIDGE NOTES
Less than ten individuals were impacted, says a Jan. 15 report in Business Insider. Monitor Fridge Notes for the names as they become known.
Registration is now open for the ‘Bloomberg Tech’ F2F event, being held Jun. 4-5 in San Francisco. With the current early-bird discount, a ticket runs $1,500. There is no better way to build relationships with Bloomberg’s notoriously elusive tech reporters.
Well, for now it’s Jim Jordan… but such news illustrates the kind of world we seem to be headed for. Adweek has the details, subscription required.
According to Adweek, Omnicom CEO John Wren and IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky were in merger talks for eleven and a half months before the transaction was announced this week. Amazing that it didn’t leak.
Should PR pros stop visiting X, with all its lies and hate? It’s only going to get worse. Or are tidbits from targets too important to walk away from? Click here to watch tech edit vet David Strom and I disagree (at high speed) about this, as one compelling visual after another pops up on your screen. In 2025, SWMS will officially launch “SWMS Sound Thinking,” designed to be “argumentative insight in six minutes or less.” Each segment will explore a timely and controversial topic of interest to tech comms pros. This prototype runs 5:25. Hope you enjoy it — feedback vital and welcome! –Sam
New EIC Jamie Heller has asked her reporters to start going on camera — for the BI TikTok channel — to explain the big, deep-divey story they just published. Other publications do this — especially archival Fortune. BI is now on that too. Game on.
