A little good PR never hurt in helping a company die gracefully once its time has come. Pets.com, which announced plans to put itself to sleep Nov. 7 after failing to
find funding, threw a bone to Alaskan dog mushers last week, donating its remaining 21+ tons of dog food to help dogs that might otherwise have starved this winter, AP reports.
The Web isn't exactly a democratic medium yet, according to Mark Kitchens, assistant press secretary and director of Internet press for the White House (well, for a little
while longer). As keynote at last week's PR NEWS Strategic Online Communication seminar in DC, Kitchens told attendees that online elections are still a ways off.
Individuals with household incomes under $25,000 constitute only 9.7% of Internet users, although they are the fastest growing user segment. Roughly 70% of Web users fall in
middle- to upper-income brackets, he said.
Lawrence Haas, a one-time spokesperson for Al Gore, joins Manning, Selvage
& Lee as SVP and director of public affairs....Margaret Griffin and Deb
Leider Livingstone are named deputy general managers in Edelman's Chicago
offices...Ray Thomas leaves post as VP global communications in the Data General
division of EMC Corp. to join Brodeur's Boston office as SVP.
