What happens when you merge the frequency of newspapers, the engagement of magazines and the immediacy of the Web?

The answer is TheDaily.com, according to News Corp. The Daily debuted in February as the first national news publication with original content created each day exclusively for the iPad. All Things Digital — a Wall Street Journal website also owned by News Corp. — reported that The Daily is also prepping delivery for Android.

The audience
During The Daily’s launch this past Feb. 2, News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch said that the emerging tablet era is allowing publishers and journalists to completely reimagine their craft. He added that 50 million Americans may own tablets by 2012.

Consumers are doing their part. The iPad 2 went on sale in the United States on March 11. According to The Los Angeles Times, analysts covering Apple said they believed that the company sold anywhere from 500,000 to 1 million iPad 2s during the opening weekend. More than 70 percent of the consumers were buying their first iPads.

“The Daily is innovating for the culture we now live in,” says Adrienne Bailey, account executive for Young & Laramore PR in Indianapolis. Her sentiment echoes what many have anticipated for digital journalism as social media and Web subscriptions have proliferated.

The format
The Daily is a digital publication model that evolves how stories can be told, consumed and pitched. It features 360-degree photography, HD video, interactive graphics, audio voice-overs and article sharing via Facebook, Twitter and email. Twitter integration lets readers and the subjects of articles themselves immediately comment on and help expand stories. Subscriptions are $39.99 a year — roughly 11 cents per day.

The opportunities
The Daily’s always-on newsroom represents new potential for PR practitioners.

“The Daily will test our creativity in finding ways to get clients coverage,” says Jason Mollica, PR manager for Carr Marketing Communications Inc. in Amherst, N.Y. “A pitch can have many angles given the publication’s multimedia format and help The Daily deliver the enhanced experience it seeks to provide readers.”

All-digital publications will allow PR professionals to more liberally offer the video, text, audio, photography and graphics needed to sustain production schedules.

Meanwhile, the ability of PR professionals to create in-demand content needs to change more than their approach to offering it to digital publications like The Daily.

“Although the medium is changing, my job as a communicator remains the same,” Bailey adds. “If you understand public relations,  journalism and relationship building, then the medium doesn’t matter.  That said, I must admit, The Daily is a welcome addition to the media landscape. I’m looking forward to working with them.”

This post also appears as the April “Digital Dialogue” column in the April edition of PR Tactics Journal, published by the Public Relations Society of America.

My October Digital Dialogue column for PR Tactics, a publication of the Public Relations Society of America, is a Q&A piece titled “Grow into your social media strategy” that also appears on the newly redesigned www.prsa.org site (tip of the hat to PRSA’s editorial and design teams). I interviewed Lee Aase, Mayo Clinic’s manager of syndication and social media about his efforts getting Mayo involved with podcasting, blogging, and YouTube. He described his approach to social media as developing a balanced communications diet, and I rather like the analogy because it emphasizes the benefits of educating and pacing yourself along the way.

The Tactics article gives a quick snapshot of Lee and his team’s journey since that’s what space limitations of the print journal permit (and the online version mirrors; though with the site redesign I’m told we’ll have more opportunity to “explore the space”). The press page of Aase’s personal SMUG site highlights additional Mayo social media achievements and contains more detailed examples of the tools in use.

SMUG, or Social Media University Global, is Aase’s personal contribution to the social media community. He started his “Lines From Lee” blog in July 2006 and in January 2008 morphed it into SMUG. Lee says SMUG allows him to unleash some creativity. “I’m the chancellor,” he notes for example, and his “Old Main” campus facility is actually a photo of his house.

Lee initially used his blogging as a way to get hands-on experience with social media and, over time, was asked by colleagues to give a Facebook 101 course. Eventually he received more complex questions so he designed a 201 course and subsequent curriculum.  ”This set me about using the college course format to organize all the material,” he explained.

SMUG is a helpful site for communicators or anyone wanting to learn more about popular social networking formats, and it seems to be building community too with activities like voting on logo designs for the “University,” and of course blog comments and insights from students. Definitely worth a look when you’re able.

How about you? Are there some go-to sources you consider essential for keeping your social media mindset sharp?

My article, “Brand aid: Creating opportunities in your customer community,” appears in the June print and online editions of PRSA Tactics.  It looks at how public relations practitioners can identify interesting stories and conversation material by monitoring various aspects of their organization’s online communities, or really any Web communities where their customers and prospects congregate. I’m interested in any additional suggestions you may have regarding PR’s use of, or involvement in, customer communities.

There are several folks who I would like to thank for their assistance.

My appreciation as always to the Public Relations Society of America and the Tactics editorial staff. Also, thanks to Mike Hardy who took time to speak with me about the Pitney Bowes customer community, as well as Dan Ziman, Neil Beam and Jeff Porter at Lithium Technologies for sharing background on the inter-workings of successful communities. Finally, big thanks to Susan Etlinger at Horn Group who provided some PR agency perspective for the piece.

Next up for me: I’d like to write an article about measuring the impact of social media use. I’m looking for suggestions regarding the types of metrics to establish and the best tools to track them.

The “Socializing Industry Analyst Relations” article I wrote for PRSA Tactics published online today. It also appears in the December print edition which mails to PRSA members and Tactics subscribers.

The piece reviews suggestions for applying social media specifically within the analyst relations (AR) discipline. These can also be broadly considered by all professional communicators.

My thanks to Carter Lusher of SageCircle and Scott Nelson of Gartner for making time to interview and be quoted. Each had good insight to share. More so than space allowed – which is often the case when I have opportunities for interesting conversations like these. I’m hanging on to my notes and their numbers for a potential sequel down the road!

Thanks also go out to John Elsasser, Randi Mason, and the PRSA Tactics/Strategist staff at the Public Relations Society of America for having me contribute to our profession’s body of knowledge. Ok, that may sound a bit formal, but I like how it rings. And in normal speak, I’m having fun writing.

I encourage visitors to check out the article at: http://www.prsa.org/supportfiles/news/viewNews.cfm?pNewsID=842347715

See you next week.