Although the recent Facebook privacy issues generated quite a buzz, the growth of social media and popularity of GPS gadgets are pushing the boundaries of our privacy. I was initially very skeptical about Foursquare, but it apparently has 1.6 million members now, who voluntarily post their whereabouts. Given that so many of us now have cell phones with built-in GPS, it is difficult for marketers and advertisers to ignore these new opportunities.

Obviously, there is a fine line between leveraging location-based data and invading privacy - even though marketers insist they still need your permission to access personal information. The growing popularity of social media and smartphone applications that ask for your location does not seem to have raised much concern for the average user of social media. In fact, despite recent privacy issues, Facebook has only lost around 30,000 users

According to a recent article from The Wall Street Journal, companies do not always disclose what they do with consumers' personal data once they have access to it, and the majority of location-based applications lack privacy policies. As more consumers are willing to share their personal information down to their whereabouts, it creates serious issues and questions. As consumers become transparent in today's "privacy-less" world, marketers also need to become transparent when it comes to collecting and using such information. Thankfully, the VC investment in privacy-related start-ups has increased, which makes me optimistic about confidentiality boundaries in the future. In the meantime, I am seriously considering joining Foresquare.

Last night I was with some friends who were bemoaning the fact the NY Times is going to start charging for content. It starts with the NY Times and then before we know it all kinds of media outlets will be asking us to pay to read their stories, they argued. My friends complained that this move is taking us back in time. This is the age of the Internet after all... information should be free!

I could not disagree more.

Personally I will pay for my NYTimes.com subscription with pleasure. I believe the move by the NYT to charge readers is critical step in the right direction for journalism. Good journalism comes at a price. Quality stories by thoughtful, experienced reporters cannot be generated for free. As someone who spends much of her day talking to the media, I see first hand how reporters are spread far too thin. They are covering so many beats, so many different subjects, it is simply not possible for the coverage they generate to include the rich research and expertise required for consistent, high quality reporting. What’s worse, we are seeing some of the best journalists out there being laid off because of the high salaries they have earned after years of dedication and success in their field. Sadly, many of those reporters are leaving journalism to pursue new fields.

The question is: Do we want the field of journalism to be dominated by reporters who are spread too thin? Do we want even our nation’s highest regarded publications written almost entirely by entry-level writers who fit the budget but will seek to move to a more lucrative field as they mature in their career?

The flow of information is the lifeblood of our society. I, for one, would like that information to be thoughtful, well researched and delivered by a journalist who is well paid for her experience and expertise. So the NYT can count on me to be their first full paid subscriber.

*Update: It appears that this strange set of circumstances was not an orchestrated PR move after all. This story is definitely far from over!

The big story this week is undoubtedly the leak of the iPhone 4G, which was reported on Monday by Gizmodo. As the story goes, an Apple software engineer brought an iPhone 4G prototype into a bar disguised in a case to appear like a regular old iPhone 3G (sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, no?). The engineer, who was celebrating his birthday, had a bit too much to drink and left the phone at the bar without realizing it. This is where things get weird. The person that came upon the phone somehow noticed something unusual about it and sold the phone to Nick Denton, CEO of Gawker Media, parent company of tech blog Gizmodo. Denton, who had previously put up an offer of $100,000 for an advance look at the iPad, apparently paid just $5,000 for this iPhone 4G prototype.

What are the odds?

The real story here is how Gizmodo came to possess this next generation iPhone in the first place. Apple is notorious for almost conspiratorial levels of secrecy around new product launches, and has not even confirmed the existence of an iPhone 4G model despite media musings around the phone’s development. So it is more than just a small mix-up when one of their engineers drunkenly leaves a carefully disguised test model of the phone in a bar. Certainly, this could be a particularly unfortunate case of carelessness on the part of a young engineer whose days at Apple could now be numbered. But it could also be that the phone was leaked by Apple intentionally to drum up some major publicity and gauge consumer reactions to the new release.

As more details emerge, it is beginning to look more and more that the leak was a true result of human error, and not a sly move on the part of Apple’s PR machine. Gizmodo reportedly received a letter from Apple attorneys requesting the immediate return of the phone, and Gizmodo has complied. With this strange tale at its apparent end, there is one thing that is clear. Whether or not the leak was intentional, this entire saga has left Apple fans clamoring for more details about the phone’s release, and has only served to enhance the cloak and dagger mystique that the marketing geniuses at Apple have cultivated for so long. And I think we all know that you can’t buy that kind of publicity.

Kudos to TechCrunch for properly handling a situation that could have snowballed into a crisis. As always, the right PR decision is to be up front and address the situation immediately.

- Beth

Welcome to InkLing, the new InkHouse blog where we will answer your questions. The world of PR and marketing changes virtually every time I turn around. This is both exciting as new media afford new vehicles for communicating with target audiences, but they also create a lot of noise, making it sometimes difficult to raise your message above the din. Here, we will do our best to help navigate the twists and turns with posts from various members of the InkHouse team. We want to answer your questions, which you can send to us at inkling [at] inkhouse [dot] net.

Our first question is one we hear all of the time from new startup clients in particular –

TechCrunch covered us! Now what?

Many start-ups dream of coverage in TechCrunch, Gizmodo and many of the other major blogs, and this is a good goal. They also dream of amassing thousands of Twitter followers who will make the company an overnight hit. Don’t get me wrong, Twitter and top blogs reach an important, large and connected community of early-adopters and influencers (see TIME’s list of the top blogs of 2009). They also provide an important vehicle for communicating core innovations and market traction such as venture financing, usage data, etc.

However, mass consumer adoption requires a broad range of PR tactics, including early traction in the blogsphere and social media. We must think about how the average consumer finds information and reach those people where they are, not just where we are. This requires you to know exactly who your target audience is. Are you trying to reach females between the ages of 18 and 24 or is it an older, more liquid audience of males ages 30-45 who earn $100,000 or more?

To extend your story beyond that of a cool start-up to one that has real relevance to everyday people requires an entirely different approach to PR that looks past the technology to the person using it. The story that gets you in TechCrunch is most often not the story that will get you on the Today Show. Consumer outlets want consumer stories – they want to know how Jane Wilson in Tulsa used a new Web service to connect with her long-lost friend in San Diego. They want to know how Steve Munro created his own business using another new service and paid off his mortgage in three months. They need the drama that can only come from the human stories.

The lesson: build out your story for early adopters and business audiences using metrics, proof points, financing news and anything else you can to demonstrate market traction. But when it comes to truly building your consumer-facing venture, look at your customers and find the stories that make your company come to life.

- Beth