WebitPR's Kick It event -- an overview

Last night I was at the WebitPR Kick It event in Shoreditch, east of the City of London.

WebitPR are the kings of online press distribution and monitoring, particularly when it comes to Web 2.0. It’s them you turn to if you’d like to get your release out to tons of interested journalists, publications and bloggers. They’ll also let you know what’s being said about the release too. A critical requirement for any public relations firm. Ostensibly, the evening was a celebration of Webit’s continued success — and, at the same time, a super opportunity to play Foosball.

The venue specialised in foosball tables. Teams of two foosball players were solicited for a foosball world cup. There were three of us there from SMS Text News — myself, Alex and Ben Smith. We have two Bens at SMS Text News. One is Ben Smith, the author of extensively researched and considered mobile perspective. The other is Ben Harvey, who writes our Friday 3pm column, much loved by many SMS Text News readers (with the exception of the Portugese Government and various other institutions Mr Harvey has knocked to the floor with his verbal assertations).

Time for a picture.

It wasn’t long before the E61s came flying out. I snapped this one of (left to right) Patrick Smith of Sonus PR, Alex and Ben, all on their Nokias checking mail.

Patrick is still hugely enamoured with his device — he demonstrated it’s rather beautiful screen by showing me a picture of his photogenic son Joshua:

Screams were eminating from the back of the venue when I arrived and said hello to the WebitPR team. I caught sight of Giles Shorthouse and finally said hi. We’ve been corresponding for ages by email but hadn’t ever done the name-to-face thing. Likewise with Zoe — from whom I regularly receive many Webit updates across the week. I bumped into new hire, Philip Lunn who, when I demanded what handset he was using, showed off a sporty looking Sony Ericsson K610 featuring a fetching picture of his girlfriend, Emma.

Screams continued to fly across the venue from the foosball tables in the background as I bumped into Stephen Davies of PR Blogger fame (You know you’ve made it in social media when the first ‘Stephen Davies’ link on Google points to your site). Stephen is the chap behind the uber-famous and utterly well-read prblogger.com. He’s also the Social Media Manager for Webit and told me that “Webit have got big plans in the upcoming weeks. Stay tuned.” Very interesting.

Here’s a pic of Stephen capturing the foosball mayhem:

I couldn’t ignore the regular screaming coming from the back of the venue. I finally found out that it was from the SonusPR girls, Helen and Lauren. They were having a wicked time having discovered their foosball skills were pretty good. With each goal they scored, they threw their hands in the air, screamed for joy and totally intimidated their competitors.

Sonus thrashed Roy and Ellen from Edleman PR 8-3. I had to get a quote from Edleman on that. I sat down next to Roy, Ellen, Monica and Mats. They admitted defeat and gave this explanation:

We have limp wrists and we are in no way a representation of the rest of the Edleman foosball team.

They weren’t wrong as Edleman put on a strong showing across the night. What a shame for them, though, that, as the representatives for Motorola, they all have to walk about with some of the shittest handsets on the planet. Poor Roy showed off his Razr, while Ellen admitted to having an SLVR. They agreed with me that the new Bourne Identity handset, the K8, is a much better looker. Mats and Monica fared better in the handset department, both sporting Sony Ericssons and a Blackberry between them.

It’s always interesting seeing what handsets the folk in High Tech PR are using. Take Kaizo PR, for example. I bumped into Simon Gomes who swears by his ultra old, but ultra reliable Nokia whilst his colleague James Mitchell looked on in horror.

Here’s a snap of Simon’s handset as proof…

Then, at the other end of the spectrum is Helen Gough, one half of the Sonus PR team, who wasted no time in showing off her gorgeous new U600 Samsung:

“It’s PINK!” she explained, when I asked what prompted that particular purchase. Good call. It’s a handsome looking phone.

In going along to the Webit PR event, I expected to come into contact with a lot of public relations professionals who worked with some exciting mobile companies. I wasn’t disappointed. I connected with Jason Bird and Francesca from Say Communications (Patrick from Sonus confused me a little by repeating the word ‘communications’ at Francesca over and over when she was telling me her company name. It took me a while but I got it!).

There was, by the way, a saddening lack of awareness on the part of many public relations professionals I spoke to about the possibilities of web 2.0 and social media. I took every opportunity to berate anyone who would listen, demanding to know why they weren’t distributing their releases with Webit via Webit’s new 2.0 social interface.

This is version 1.0. Version 2.0 is coming soon. I’ve a lot more to publish, including more photos and videos. Check back shortly.