Steve Rubel is a

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. Pu ...

executive and professional

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

ger. While with the firm CooperKatz & Co., he advised clients on using blogs in their business strategy and started his own blog, Micro Persuasion, in 2004. The focus of his blog is the effect of blogging on the public relations industry. Rubel moved to the

Edelman Edelman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Abram M. Edelman, (1863–1941), American architect * Abram Wolf Edelman (a.k.a. Abraham Edelman; 1832–1907), Polish-born American rabbi; the first rabbi in Los Angeles, California ...

public relations firm in February 2006, to help it use blogs more effectively. The firm later came under criticism when one of its clients,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States and 23 other ...

, helped pay for a couple to blog their cross-country RV trip on which they parked at local Wal-Marts. The blog, "Wal-Marting Across America", was quite favorable towards Wal-Mart, but the extent of the financial support was not fully disclosed (any RV can park overnight for free at Wal-Mart, but the company also paid for renting the couple's RV, along with

gas Gas is a state of matter that has neither a fixed volume nor a fixed shape and is a compressible fluid. A ''pure gas'' is made up of individual atoms (e.g. a noble gas like neon) or molecules of either a single type of atom ( elements such as ...

and other fees). As the firm's blogging expert, Rubel was a focus of some of the criticism, but he said he was not personally involved in the project. On March 7, 2008, Rubel was interviewed on the

WBGO WBGO (88.3 FM, "Jazz 88") is a public radio station licensed to Newark, New Jersey. Studios and offices are located on Park Place (AKA "Wayne Shorter Way" as of April 2022) in downtown Newark, and its transmitter is located at 4 Times Square i ...

program ''Conversations with Allan Wolper''. He explained how blogs are now a part of the political game.

References

; Sources *Baker, Stephen and Heather Green.
Blogs Will Change Your Business
. ''BusinessWeek'', May 2, 2005. *Gogoi, Pallavi.

. ''BusinessWeek'', October 17, 2006. *Ives, Nat. "Madison Avenue Ponders the Potential of Web Logs". ''New York Times'', October 27, 2004.

External links

Micro Persuasion
* American bloggers Living people Hofstra University alumni The Lawrence Herbert School of Communication alumni Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-business-bio-stub