Excited about your new Facebook page but don’t know what’s next?  What does a truly advanced company look like in social business?  They can say yes to seven or more of these ten criteria.

We’ve been interviewing the most sophisticated brands in the world when it comes to social business for our upcoming report on “Enterprise Social Strategists Role”.  We’ve come to learn which companies are advanced and why.  Secondly, I meet a variety of companies who tell me they are “Very advanced, having done this for a few years, and have dozens of Facebook efforts” but when I ask them some specific questions on their sophistication, they often retract their statement.

How to tell if your Company is Advanced: 10 Criteria Of Social Business Maturity.
Corporations that have these and other following elements in place, may truly be sophisticated when it comes to social business:

1. Clear understanding of their customers socialgraphics. Clear understanding of how their customers use social media by knowing the socialgraphics of your customers.  Granular knowledge of where their customers are, which behaviors they use, who they trust for information, and how they influence their peers in the context of their own products.
   The true test? Your company can adjust budgets of your integrated social strategy based on data –not gut feel.
2. Your organization is in Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic formation. Social technologies enable all employees that want to talk to customers to do so.  This means a massive change inside of your organization to get ready.  Your company is sophisticated if you’ve organized in the Hub and Spoke, Dandelion, or Holistic and all employees clearly know their role, process, and contact points.
   The true test? A product crises has emerged on YouTube on a Friday evening before a three day weekend and you can sleep peacefully.
3. Corporate website integration: Social sign on. When customers come to the corporate site, they can see which one of their friends uses which product, and what they think about it.  Common technologies would include OpenID, Facebook Connect, and other social sign on technologies.
   The true test? You can disable your corporate registration page and use social logins instead.
4. Personalized corporate website based on social data. When a prospect (someone who’s never logged into you website before) arrives to your corporate website, they receive a customized experience based on their social IDs.  This would be based on Social CRM infrastructure, social sign on technology and a large inventory of personalized content.
   The true test? The voices of the consumers real world friends emerge above that of the brand right on the corporate website, see Levi’s foray.
5. Thriving advocacy program: customers are actively selling on your behalf. The sophisticated marketing program isn’t really the company talking much at all, instead they’ve a thriving advocacy program and word of mouth program that encourages customers to recruit prospects for them –all unpaid.  Learn how to do this, by reading this piece on Forbes.
   The true test? most leads are coming in through existing customers –not your sales team.
6. A community of customers supports each other, reducing support center calls. A company that has a thriving branded community where customers are self-supporting each other with little aid from the brand or the support team is a sign of a sophisticated social support program.
   The true test? A majority of customer support issues are resolved by community faster, with greater satisfaction than your dedicated support team.
7. Anticipation of prospects and customers using Social CRM technology.  Brands can anticipate before a customer has a problem, or grab leads “right out of the air” by using brand monitoring software, intelligent keyword monitoring and responding to be faster than real time using Social CRM strategies.
   The true test? sales and marketing are getting leads before the consideration phase, and the support team reduces inbound calls by triggering the community to resolve a potential issue before it’s escalated.
8. Innovation of new products with customers using web collaboration.  Companies that use these same tools to glean input from customers (ethnographic data collection) or create private communities, or use collaboration and innovation tools like Ideastorm or Uservoice and build new products and services demonstrate true sophistication.
   The true test? faster time to market on products because consumers have dictated the specifications, and less inventory as the product is built on spec.
9. Supply chain is influenced by social data in real time. Social media isn’t just about marketing and support, but is very valuable in listening to customer signals then to anticipate which products, services, and teams should be when and where.
   The true test? Your company is sophisticated if you’re using social data to adjust your supply chain in real time based on customer signals from checkins, tweets, and plancasts.
10. Real time reporting of revenues, costs and efficiency:  I’ve met with some of the most advanced teams, and they have clear reporting and can measure the increased revenues (over the total cost of the program) to tell their executives the true ROI of their business program.
    The true test? Real time dashboard measures the health of all social channels revenues, CSAT, sentiment and overall program costs.

We’ve done research on the roadmap for companies to reach these 10 levels of nirvana, but have found few companies that have done a few, or even a majority of them. If you know of any companies that have achieved five out of ten of these criteria, we’d love to know, please leave a comment.

An amusing tale comes to us by way of this week's Private Eye: it seems that the official Downing Street Twitter account has run afoul of the social network's rules. @number10gov has been banned from following any more users after it became the third highest follower in the world. The account currently follows 472,453 people, meaning that (assuming an average 4.5 tweets per user per day) whichever luckless sod is monitoring it sifts through an astonishing 2.25 million messages daily. Government IT boffins have blamed a rogue auto-follow setting for the snafu. But who was the perspicacious sage who coined the memorable phrase, "too many tweets might make a twat", in a radio interview last year? Step forward, Prime Minister David Cameron.

As part of the London Bloggers Meetup ‘bean themed’ meme that’s doing the rounds, here’s my attempt to win a luxury beanbag from Ambient Lounge.  Ambient Lounge’s designer bean bags are hopefully worth the effort that went into compiling this list of bloggers and their ‘bean’ equivalents. Random…

If London Bloggers were beans… what would they be?

TikiChris would be a Polynesian Green Bean

Because ‘Tiki’ refers to large wood and stone carvings of humanoid forms in Central Eastern Polynesian cultures of the Pacific Ocean. The term is also used as it relates to M?ori mythology where Tiki is the first man. If you know Chris (and you’d have to have been blogging in an isolation tank not to know him), Chris is definitely the First Man of the London blog scene, which is why I’ve made him the first in this list. For those of you interested in finding out how to make a tasty Polynesian Green Bean Salad, look no further than here. Warning: Yum Factor 10.

You can find Chris’ blogs here: http://tikichris.wordpress.com/

Epicurienne would be a Mexican Jumping Bean

Putting aside the fact that the last time I saw Epic was over dinner at a fab Mexican eatery (the name escapes me) where we shared a few frozen Margherita cocktails with our new spouses… Epicurienne is always fun, full of energy and relentless in her bounciness – much like a Mexican jumping bean or Jairo jumping bean which is a seed pod through which the larva of a small flea has chewed. The seed does not actually jump so much as wiggle because when it gets in a hot place the larva snaps its body hoping to roll to a cooler place. Spend an evening with Epic and you’ll see her wiggle as the temperature rises and she’ll be the one to follow on for a cool after-partaaaay.

Read Epicuriennes’s delicious blog here: http://epicurienne.wordpress.com/

Niamh from Eatlikeagirl would be an aromatic dish of Irish Beans

Healthy, honest, rustic, homely and unspoiled. That’s Niamh in a nutshell – unpretentiously delicious. Her love for all things food have won her many-an accolade including her recent listing on The Times Newspaper’s 40 Blogs That Really Count.

Irish beans are essentially baked beans but usually with less added sugar compared to traditional American and British baked beans. You see, she’s naturally sweet enough!

Naturally sweetFor those that know Niamh, you’ll testify to her all round oveliness and passion for blogging. Thanks Ireland – we’ll be keeping her in London forever.

Read eatlikeagirl’s  gastronomical adventured here: http://eatlikeagirl.com/

Lolly from BlogTillYouDrop would be French Beans

Too obvious? Perhaps. But hear me out… Varieties of les haricots verts have been bred especially for the flavour, or sweetness of their pods (and yes, like her name… Lolly too is a big sweetie!). And mirroring Lolly’s blog, French beans have a universal distribution – consumed by cultures all around the world and appreciated by all.

Discover Ooh La La Lolly here: http://www.laurenceborel.com/ or read the London Bloggers’ interview here: http://www.londonbloggers.net/422/the-blogger-interviews-laurence-borel/

The MyChemicalToilet blog’s author Stuart Waterman would be a humble tin of Rijoles Beans

The UK’s best known music event blog, whilst seasonal in much of its content focus is the Daddy of the festivals. So too is the tin of rijoles beans according to the Dry Bean Festival which takes place in the US of A every year in the town of Tracy, California. Now that’s one festival I’m sure Stuart would love to let his loyal readers know about. Although I think he’ll have to provide his own music for this get-together (beans-induced-bum-trumpet=flatulence anybody?)!

For the best, most up-to-date, from-the-horse’s-mouth festival news, read Stuart’s musings here: http://www.mychemicaltoilet.com/

Tom from the Ridiculant would have to be a laughing bean

What’s a laughing bean? Well if you’ve ever read the excellent Ridiculant column (nay, PAGE) in the morning Metro newspaper then this is the kind of shizzle that the talented Mr Phillips writes about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daWKQI29gpU

For more web-sized delights, visit the Ridiculant online: http://theridiculant.metro.co.uk/

The Sluttilicious Sian Meades from Sianyland and Domestic Sluttery fame would have to be a portion of Jimmy Beans Gourmet Coffee Beans covered in luxurious chocolate

http://www.jimmybean-online.com/

OK, so not as high end as fashionista Sian’s Jimmy Choos, but Jimmy’s Gourmet Coffee Beans are every bit as delectably scrumptious as the designer yumminess that she usually writes and tweets about.  The philosophy is simple: take something special, coat it in something even nicer – and there you have it – the embodiment of lushness. The same goes for Siany!

Follow her devilish exploits here: http://www.sianyland.com/ and http://www.domesticsluttery.com/

Ged Caroll the Renaissance Chambara Man would have to be an Edamamme Bean

Firstly, I’ve yet to meet anybody in London who is so up to speed on Japanese culture. Edamamme has affectionately become known as the Hoxton Peanut – as sushi bars around London stock up on the morish snack. You can have it with salt or with dried chilli – just pop the pods and munch. Like Ged’s daily link summaries (you must subscribe to these), a bowl of Edamamme can be a satisfying meal in itself and once you sample the goods, it’s difficult not to crave more.

If you haven’t read Ged’s blog – stop reading mine straight away and go and see how a pro does it: http://renaissancechambara.jp/

Malcom Eggs from The London Review of Breakfasts can only be baked beans (what else!?)

Immortalised by the Johnny Cash song Beans for Breakfast, no full-English would be complete without a portion of baked beans (Heinz or any other brand).

“Wish you’d come back and wash the dishes, I’m a hungry nasty lonesome man
Caught a cold with the window open, crow droppings o my window sill
Probably got histoplasmosis, got no gun or I would kill them crows
Beans for breakfast once again, hard to eat ‘em from the can.”

Now that’s proof that the late Mr Cash certainly had a way with words, but if you want to meet a modern day wordsmith who knows a thing or two about where to have the most important meal of the day, you just need to visit this site: http://londonreviewofbreakfasts.blogspot.com/

The clever fella behind the Londoneer Blog would have to be a Pearl Bean

Never heard of pearl beans? Put away your Oyster Card, the reason I chose the pearl bean for the Londoneer is a reference to the Pearly Kings and Queens of the old East End. Pearly Kings and Queens, known as pearlies, are an organised charitable tradition of working class culture in our great capital.

The Londoneer also mentions the Hackney Pearl cafe in a recent blog post about Urban Picnicing (http://thelondoneer.blogspot.com/2010/08/urban-picnic-hackney-wick.html), so I thought I’d be all clever and assign him the pearl as a bean.

Anyway, if you want to discover London from the point of view of someone who lives and breathes it, go here: http://thelondoneer.blogspot.com/

Annie Mole would be a Castor Bean

The castor bean is sometimes called mole plant from the practice of placing castor bean seeds in mole runs where the rodents will hopefully eat the seeds and perish. When you spot a castor bean growing in the middle of someone’s lawn, you can bet that the moles missed one. Now I have to declare that I am not advocating the poisoning of moles here – and in particular, if anyone even suggests being horrible to the wonderful Ms Annie Mole then I’ll confiscate your iPhone Tube Map for a whole year.

Annie Mole’s London Underground blog is so famous that if you google it, it often appears above the official TfL London Underground website! The blog has been going since 2003 and it reveals a wickedly funny look at all things Tube based.

Submerge yourselves here: http://london-underground.blogspot.com (don’t forget to Mind The Gap).

Steve Waddington would be a Runner Bean

Apart from the fact that Steve is one of the co-managing director of Speed, the London based PR agency launched in March 2009 he also joined Admiral PR & Marketing as non-executive chairman in January 2010. The guy’s got insight that even Gandhi would bow down before, and his Speed and agility earns him the title of chief Runner Bean.

http://wadds.co.uk/ and http://www.speedcommunications.com/blogs/wadds/

Will Corden couldn’t really be anything other than a Splendid Espresso Caramba Bean

(given the fact that he works at my old agency Splendid Communications)

Sadly our paths never crossed as I had moved on before will began his time at Splendid but judgng by his blog, the coffee bean is an apt moniker as his content is full of energy and provides mental stimulation with every read.

Discover Will’s World for yourself here: http://willcorden.wordpress.com/

David J Lowe is definitely a Locust Bean

He’s fast becoming one of my favourite Londonites – a seriously intelligent guy with a lot of creative business ideas which make you want to shake him in hope that some of his knowledge will accidentally spill out of his big brain and hit you on the way out. Why the Locust Bean? Well having had the pleasure of having dinner with David on a couple of occasions and hearing him talk about the future of tech marketing, it’s clear that this guy’s gonna clean up the market. Not just clean up, but create a powerful swarm of creative consciousness that will be visible from afar.

Also, Locust Bean Gum can induce sneezing fits which is lucky as David’s blog is called Sneezy Head: http://sneezyhead.wordpress.com

Chris Reed (a.k.a. The Ginger Monkey) is a plate of Talsani (Green Beans with Ginger)

OK, so you see what I did there? I Googled “Ginger”+”Bean” and came up with Talsini (http://www.aayisrecipes.com/2009/11/05/green-beans-with-ginger-beans-talasani/). Big whoop. But wait… upon closer inspection, there lies a hidden depth to my bean selection process…

Chris Reed – PR by day. Web evangelist by night. Music fan at the weekend. Full time ginger and dad. In short, Chris is a man of complexities rivalled only by an exotic Bangladeshi dish like Talsani. Fiery chilli, fresh green beans, finely dissected onions, soothing ginger… look no further than his brilliant blog and you’ll see where these layers of flavour manifest themselves: http://thegingermonkey.blogspot.com/

Mauricio Samayoa is the undisputed King of the Green Coffee Bean

The time that Mauricio spent working in El Salvadore (yes, LinkedIn is wonderful) is part of the inspiration for this bean selection, which is a native crop in that part of the world. But aside from the geography, Mauricio is well suited to the smooth, suave, richness of character that is associated with the Salvadorian green coffee bean.

If you want somebody who is extremely knowledgeable about word of mouth PR, he’s your man. There’s nothing green about this seasoned comms guru. As well as being one of We Are Social’s busiest bees, Mauricio is also a new dad, which means that the coffee sure comes in handy after those sleepless nights!

Read Mauricio’s blogs here: http://www.mauriciosamayoa.com and http://www.theguanaco.com

Michelle Lyons is a Castanospermum australe (Austrailian Black Bean)

This Antipodean beauty is a wonderfully complex bean which was used extensively as a cabinet timber.  Cabinet? How apt, considering Michelle’s impressive experience in Government comms – most recently within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The castanospernum austral has a beautiful exotic flower which sums up Michelle to a tee.

Read her work here: http://michlyons.wordpress.com/

Rachel Clarke would have to be a Stringless Bean

No, not as in silent violin… as in she ‘aint no puppet on a string! Rachel’s vast background in comms means that she is the go to person for excellent strategic advice. She is vocally eloquent in her writing style and her posts do pack a punch. That said, she’s also bloody nice. Really nice. So much so that I always tend to hover around her like a mosquito with personal boundary issues at the London Bloggers Meetups. Great conversation guaranteed.

As well as catching her regular appearances as a news reviewer on Sky News, you can see what she’s all about here: www.digitalstuffing com and www.blog.bibrik.com

Godwyns Onwuchekwa is undeniably a Velvet Bean Extract (Mucuna Pruriens)

His skill for penning Erotic fantasies in poetic form makes him Mr. Velvet in my book. The Mucuna Pruriens is also a well known aphrodisiac – useful after reading some of his steamy posts!

Read his work for the Justice for Gay Africans Society here (really great site): http://jfga.org.uk/blog/

Tom from tiredoflondontiredoflife.com is a Guarana Bean

For those of you who tend to steer well away from energy drinks, Guarana is a bean found mostly in Brazil and it has 3x the amount of caffeine as coffee. Chemically it is very similar to coffee beans but much more potent. Which is why, if you’re tired of life in London, Tom’s blog will definitely provide an instant pick-me-up with lots of great ideas of things to do and see in this great capital of ours.

http://www.tiredoflondontiredoflife.com/

Zoe Bran would be a handful of Mescal Beans

Mescal whaaaaat? Mescal Beans are also called sophora secundiflora beans, Colorines, Frijoles, Red Beans or Texas Mountain Laurel. Mescal Beans grow as a shrub that has violet flowers and these bright red highly toxic seeds or beans which have been used in jewellery and crafts for centuries. In addition to this they have also been used for hallucinogenic purposes by tribe shamans. It is said that one bean can cause a death of an adult individual. Not that Zoe would advocate that on her blog. She focuses on the healing aspect of Shamanism.

Prepare to be wowed here: http://www.shaman.uk.net/

Julie Bodart wins the much coveted title of Cocoa Bean

Coming from Belgium, she has the claim to the bean from which chocolate is made. Mmmm…. Yum. Apart from being Belgian Julie blogs about all things digital comms.

Read her views here (they’re very good): http://www.juliebodart.com/#f55/wordpress

Lewis Webb would have to be Java Decaff Smooth Roast Coffee Beans

If there were an election tomorrow to vote for the King of suave, Lewis would win hands down. As well as being one of the main organisers of Shoreditch Twit, Lewis also spends his days at Ketchum, coming up with creative digital PR campaigns for some amazing brands. You can’t get smoother than Lewis. FACT. He’s decaff too, because the guy’s unflappable. He’s just cool… personified.

Learn more about the Webb master here: http://www.lewiswebb.com/

The wonderful RadioKate would be a six bean casserole

The fact that Kate was campaigning hard to save BBC Radio 6 from closing down, makes her a good contender for this feast of a meal (http://www.bigoven.com/recipe/165075/six-bean-casserole). Just like the dish, RadioKate’s blog always provides wholesome views which are at times extremely inspirational. Read her recent post on all the Good Things she’s done this year: http://radiokate.com/2010/07/27/good-things/

http://www.RadioKate.com

Ben Matthews is a Bright Bean Salad

As the founder of BrightOne Communications, nobody could doubt Ben’s ‘Bright’ credentials (he is very, very, very smart). This Bright Bean Salad recipe is very easy to follow and can be put together in no time. http://www.ifood.tv/recipe/bright_bean_salad

You can reach Ben at BrightOne Communications: http://brightone.org.uk/

Abul Hussein is going to have to go down in this list as Greek fassolia gigantes beans

No, I’m not making it up – there are actually beand called fassolia gigantes… and yes, they do come from Greece. But why pick these for mobile blogger Abul? Well he goes by the name of Adonis in blogging circles and those of you with some classical knowledge will be aware that Adonis is a Greek God  (the young lover of Aphrodite, no less) so what could be more fitting than humungous Greek beans!?

Abul is also a GIANT of the blogging world. Read his work here: www.adonisdemon.com and www.adonismobile.com

The delectable Liz Ayan is a bean-counter. No two ways about it

I don’t mean that in a boring Accountant way, but more as an accolade and testament to her blogging work within local government. In times when every penny counts and budgets are stretched tighter than a gnat’s chuff, Liz seems to cut through the red-tape and put things into some framework that makes sense. It just does.

Read Liz’s insights here: http://www.lgeoresearch.com

Melinda Seckington is a Geeky Bean

End of. She just is: http://geekybean.com/

See why, here: http://missgeeky.com/

Cristiano Betta is a Kopi luwak bean

As a new cat owner, Cristiano may be aware of the infamous civet coffee which is affectively known as ‘cat poop’ coffee where the coffee bean is ingested by a civet cat and then pooped out to make apparently superior blend of coffee. Sounds lovely.

As a developer, Cristiano must already be used to burning the candle at both ends and as such would know a thing or two about the importance of good quality java.

Read his blog here: http://blog.cristianobetta.com/

Melanie Seasons has to be a Red Noodle Bean

Firstly, I have to say that Melanie is one of my new favourite bloggers of all time. Ever. She’s fab. Her blog fakeplasticnoodles is part of the inspiration for this choice of bean. Secondly, Melanie describes herself as a ‘red’ person: http://www.my-homebased-business.com/personality-type-color-red.html

If you want to know why I rate her work, just read some of her blogs: http://fakeplasticnoodles.com/ and http://omnomlondon.com/

Mex Ibrahim is a hiccup inducing portion of Spicy Beans

How else would you make Tex-Mex platter? http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/spicy-beans-tex-mex-recipe.htm

Mex (and yes, three letter names ending in ‘X’ are all the rage, I hear) is a major force in community management blogs. What Mex doesn’t know about social media quite frankly isn’t worth bothering with.

If you want to be kept up to date with latest online trends, sign up to her bits and pieces here: http://meccaibrahim.co.uk/

She also blogs elsewhere…

Gillian Edwards is definitely a Jelly Bean

Writing under the Minxology title, Gill is fun, fruity and very sweet. Having worked with Gill many moons ago, I can safely say that if you’re looking for someone with a diverse skill-set and lots of creativity – Gill’s your gal.

Explore her Minx-like exploits here: http://minxology.blogspot.com/

Ruthy Isadore is a chick pea

Yup, it’s a bean – not a pea! Ruthy is a real gem of a blogger. She’s so full of life and is a refreshingly bubbly member of the London blogging set who is guaranteed to have you smiling within the first few seconds of meeting her. She’s a fun, chick with a wonderful sense of hummous(!)…

Find out more about Ruthy here: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/ruthisadore

Matt Churchill is a (Seldom Seen) KidneyBean

The man behind the Seldom Seen Kid is a purist in his approach to working digitally. As a blogger, and generally subversive type, being honest, transparent and holistic in what he does both personally and professionally, is very important to Matt.

As well as writing about digital campaigns, Matt is also a keen music aficionado, and his blog often contains some great insights into the musician’s mind (e.g. http://geetarchurchy.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/inside-the-mind-of-a-music-blogger/).

Seldom Seen but Often Read: http://geetarchurchy.wordpress.com

Kai is a Fava Bean kinda guy

Because he’s so reliable that you can always depend on him to help out as a fava (favour). Tenuous bean naming? Perhaps. But the truth remains that Kai is a real gent and has a solid reputation within the London blogging circuit as a bit of a party animal. He’s the guy who looks seemingly sober when you meet him at the end of the night but looks can sometimes be extremely deceptive!

Kai is a kickass product designer, focused on user experience. Take a look at his work here: http://kaigani.com/

Matt Brown is a Soy Bean

For those of us who regularly read theLondonist.com, you will be familiar with Matt’s scientific knowledge.  Here’s a  scientific fact for Matt : In 1932-33 the Ford Motor Company spent approximately $1,250,000 on soybean research. By 1935 every Ford car had soy involved in its manufacture. For example, soybean oil was used to paint the automobiles as well as being used as fluid for shock absorbers. Ford’s involvement with the soybean opened many doors for agriculture and industry to be linked more strongly than it ever had before.

If you want a less nerdy read on scientific matters, read Matt’s work at: http://londonist.com/

Peter Marshall is a Camera Bean Bag

When I met Peter Marshall at one of the London Bloggers Meetups a while ago, I was impressed with his immense passion for photography. I shouldn’t have been surprised, as Peter is one of London’s best photography bloggers. Which is why he deserves a camera bean bag (http://www.camerabeanbags.co.uk/).

Plus – he’s a really genuine guy with a lot of interesting stories up his sleeve. If you see him at the next LBM, buy him a pint.

Read his blog here: http://re-photo.co.uk

Andy and Katie Bargery are a pair of Black Eyed Peas

London’s blogging equivalent of Posh and Becks, Katie and Andy are the founders of the amazing London Bloggers Meetup and are the unsung heros of many a great blogger party.

Yes, they’re both as cute as a pair of baby panda bears, but that’s not the logic behind the Black Eyed Pea reference. They’re both Black Eyed Peas because when the next LBM comes along, we’ll all be singing…

This song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSD4vsh1zDA

Read their blogs here:

Me

Oh… and finally, If I were a bean I could only be this guy:

See you next week at the London Bloggers Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/blog-395/calendar/14537348/ on September 8th.

[It's Bean Emotional]

Press Complaints Commission confirms it was told two months ago that journalist was under investigation over new claim

The News of the World is facing a fresh allegation of phone hacking against one of its journalists, the Press Complaints Commission confirmed today.

The commission was informed by the paper just over two months ago about the allegation, and the journalist involved has been "suspended from reporting duties".

Stephen Abell, the PCC director, confirmed today that the press regulator was informed in by the paper in June "of the existence of the recent allegation of phone-message hacking against the reporter". Abell said that the PCC was prevented from launching its own investigation because the allegation was "the subject of legal action".

The new claim was revealed late yesterday in a New York Times article on the News of the World phone-hacking affair. The paper reported that the News of the World was conducting a new phone-hacking investigation and had suspended a reporter, after a "television personality" had been alerted by her phone company to a "possible unauthorised attempt to access her voicemail" and the number was traced back to a journalist at the paper.

Bill Akass, the News of the World managing editor, confirmed in a response to the New York Times that an internal investigation was under way and that a journalist had been "suspended from reporting duties".

It is understood that the News of the World was first made aware of the phone-hacking claim around Easter this year and that the internal investigation is ongoing.

"A serious allegation has been made about the conduct of one of our reporters. We have followed our internal procedures and the reporter has been suspended from reporting duties, and a very thorough and extensive investigation carried out into that allegation (involving, for example, external forensic specialists)," Akass said.

"The allegation is the subject of litigation and our internal investigation continues in tandem with that, which means I am unable to comment further. If the conclusion of the investigation or the litigation is that the allegation is proven, the reporter will be dismissed for gross misconduct without compensation.

"We have a zero-tolerance approach to any wrong-doing and will take swift and decisive action if we have proof of any wrong-doing."

Abell said: "The PCC was informed by the News of the World in June of the existence of the recent allegation of phone message hacking against the reporter. This is currently the subject of legal action, which has prevented the PCC from becoming formally involved at this stage.

"However, once the legal action has been concluded, the commission will consider the matter further. It was right that the News of the World disclosed the existence of this claim to the PCC, and we will address the issues when it is possible for us to do so. The PCC has made publicly clear on a number of occasions that phone message hacking is deplorable and that view – of course – remains."

The News of the World's editor, Colin Myler told the Commons culture select committee last year that he had introduced new procedures to avoid a repeat of this behaviour. Myler became editor in 2007, when Andy Coulson resigned over the Clive Goodman phone-hacking affair.

Myler told the committee that all staff were ordered to follow the PCC code of conduct and warned that failure to comply could result in disciplinary proceedings. Stricter controls on cash payments and sources were also introduced and all staff had to attend workshops on the PCC code, he added.

The committee called several current and former executives from the News of the World's publisher, News International, including Coulson, last year as part of its inquiry into privacy, press standards and libel.

This fresh round of hearings was prompted by the Guardian's revelation that News International had paid £700,000 to settle a breach of privacy claim from Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, after a private investigator working for the News of the World hacked into his phone.

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[Updated at 1:05 p.m.] Mariner Energy, owner of the production platform, said in a press release that no hydrocarbon spill has been reported after an initial flyover of the incident.

"Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident," the statement said. "The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken. During the last week of August 2010, production from this facility averaged approximately 9.2 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and 1,400 barrels of oil and condensate."

The company also said no injuries have been reported.

[Updated at 12:48 p.m.] David Reed, a paramedic on board the Rowan Gorilla II oil rig located 14 miles from the platform that exploded told submitted an iReport saying he saw all thirteen workers rescued from the water.

“We were up here in the radio room and all of sudden we saw a whole bunch of smoke coming from the platform," Reed said. "Shortly after all the radios started lighting up like a Christmas tree. They called any helicopters in the area, any boats in the area to respond, they were saying there were people in the water. There were multiple people in the water.”

See Reed's iReport of what he witnessed

WWL: Coast Guard reporting production platform incident

WDSU: Production platform explodes in Gulf

iReport: Did you see the explosion? Share images

[Updated at 12:32 p.m.] White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Thursday that the federal government has "assets ready" to respond to any environmental problems resulting from the explosion of an oil platform off the coast of Louisiana.

[Updated at 12:31 p.m.] All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.

"We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution," the statement said.

[Updated at 11:53 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that 12 people from the production platform are in water immersion suits as they await rescue.

Colclough told CNN there are reports the production platform, which is for both oil and natural gas, is still on fire.

"We don't know what caused the rig to catch on fire," he told CNN, noting the incident is under investigation.

Asked about concerns regarding oil leaks or pollution, Colclough said "there are reports the rig was not actively producing any product, so we don't know if there's any risk of pollution."

Mariner Energy is a leading independent oil and gas exploration and production company in the Gulf of Mexico. About 85 percent of the company's production comes from offshore assets, with a growing share of that coming from deepwater developments.

The explosion comes nearly five months after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 people and causing oil to gush into
the Gulf of Mexico, leading to one of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history.

[Updated at 11:43 a.m.] U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Colclough tells CNN that all 13 workers involved in the production platform explosion are accounted for, but one person is injured.

Coast Guard Choppers are on the way to the site 80 miles south of Vermilion Bay.

[Posted at 11:33 a.m.] An oil production platform has exploded 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana, with 12 people overboard and one missing, the Coast Guard said Thursday morning.

Rescue attempts are under way for at least 12 people, Coast Guard spokesman John Edwards told CNN. 13 people were on board the production platform total, Edwards said, noting 12 have been accounted for, but one person was missing.

The accident took place 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana on the Vermilion Oil production platform 380, which is owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy.

The Coast Guard has multiple helicopters, an airplane and several Coast Guard cutters en route. It's unknown if there are any injuries.

We’re approaching the last bits of this enlivening conversations where Chris Beck, founder of 26dottwo (@26dottwo) and I examined the state and future of social media.

In this installment we review the various aspects and formalities of bringing a brand alive, truly alive in social media. Everything begins with establishing the rules of engagement in order to define the boundaries, context, and objectives for conversations. Guidelines such as “don’t be stupid,” “use common sense,” “stay positive,” is not the most useful approach to steering representatives or consumer experiences.

While many brands possess a brand style guide, many have yet to adapt it to the social Web. In chapter 12 of Engage, I introduce “The Brand Reflection Cycle,”an exercise inspired by personality cycles used in psychology. This is intended to help brand managers design the persona, voice, characteristics, and “soul” of the brand within these very human networks. These attributes are then embodied by those on the front lines of social networks to personify the brand and reinforce intended qualities.

This series was filmed at the new video studio at KickLabs SF where I spend time as an entrepreneur in residence.

Connect with Brian Solis on Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Facebook
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Please consider reading, Engage!: It will help you find answers to your questions…

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Get Putting the Public Back in Public Relations and The Conversation Prism:

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A picture is worth a thousand words. But if you include an entire database, make it interactive, and add filtering options, the word-to-picture exchange rate is even better.

Infographics at their best are more than just pictures — they can provide new understandings, succinct summaries, or just plain old fun.

In that respect, reading newspaper archives isn’t the only way to get a deeper understanding of current events. Infographics can help us get a better grasp on what’s going on.

Check out these 10 visualizations to learn more about the news with a quick look.

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1. Google’s Appetite for Acquisition

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Last month alone, Google acquired social-search service Angstro, visual shopping search engine like.com, and social currency company Jambool. Google has been on an acquisition binge for some time, and it’s getting tricky to keep track of its appetite.

This graphic shows a timeline of Google’s activity in three categories: “Building Revenue Streams,” “Cutting Competition,” or “A Little of Both.”

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2. Gay Marriage Chronology

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The campaign for gay marriage has passed a multitude of milestones over the last decade. Unfortunately for those trying to keep track of them, the victories and setbacks vary drastically by state. Decisions are reversed and in some cases overturned by higher courts, which makes progress hard to track.

This map from the LA Times shows the status of gay marriage in each state by month. Click on a state for its most recent ruling or watch the country change from being legally similar in its treatment of same-sex couples in 2000 to sharply divided in 2010.

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3. IED Attacks from Wikileaks’ Afghanistan War Logs

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The frequency and fatality of IEDs (homemade bombs) in Afghanistan was highlighted when WikiLeaks published more than 90,000 secret documents about the Afghan war. Anti-war activists published this illustrative video that includes all of the incidents reported in these leaked documents.

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4. Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

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On April 20, an explosion on a BP drilling rig started what has become the largest accidental oil spill in history. Despite numerous strategies that were deployed to plug the leak, it wasn’t capped until July 15.

This video graphic by New Orleans online newspaper NOLA wraps timeline, graphic, and cumulative damage data into one easy-to-digest piece of media.

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5. CIA World Factbook Dashboard

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The CIA World Factbook has always been a great resource for putting news stories into the context of their geographic location. But now it’s also easy to get the information at a glance.

The World Factbook Dashboard allows you to color code the countries of the world by population, population growth, infant mortality, agricultural GDP, industry GDP, services GDP, total GDP, GDP/inhabitant, or inflation. Clicking on a country zooms in for more information.

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6. Geography of a Recession

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This map from The New York Times illustrates not only which areas suffered the highest unemployment rate after the recession, but also offers the option to filter data by metropolitan areas, areas with housing bubbles, rural areas, and manufacturing centers.

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7. Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Violence Map

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The Wall Street Journal updates this map constantly with violent conflicts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you want to learn about the day-to-day details of the war or understand its scope, there’s no better visual resource.

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8. What Does the Health Care Bill Mean to Me?

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Even if you read through every health care bill article, it could be hard to exactly pick out what the law would change about your insurance coverage and taxes. The Washington Post made it easy by providing this nifty tool. Input whether you have insurance coverage, your family size, your income, and your marital status, and it will tell you how health care reform will impact your life.

For the broader picture on healthcare reform, see this subway-style map from GOOD Magazine.

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9. Obama’s $787 Billion Economic Stimulus Plan

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The government is still busy spending much of the $787 billion it allotted for the economic stimulus in February of last year. This infographic effectively illustrates how that huge chunk of change is being distributed.

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10. American Casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Beyond

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This chilling interactive graphic from USA Today simply illustrates the deaths in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Information seekers can search deaths by personal factors like name, age, gender, race, or home town as well as by military service details, date, cause, or place.

CNN has a more elaborate version here.

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More Graphics Resources from Mashable:

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- 5 Fab Twitter Follower Visualization Tools
- 10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics
- 5 Amazing Infographics for the Health Conscious
- 10 Essential Free E-Books for Web Designers
- 12 Beginner Tutorials for Getting Started With Photoshop

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Reviews: Google

More About: afghanistan, bp, current events, gay rights, graphics, healthcare reform, infographics, iraq, News, oil-spill, stimulus, visualizations, wikileaks

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I’m doing more conference calls these days, but so is everyone else. It’s the perfect activity if you are working from home: your boss knows you are apparently doing something, but it’s the sort of activity that needn’t interrupt other home-office tasks – such as watching Homes Under The Hammer, or playing internet poker.

Another reason that I’m doing more calls is that, for decision makers who don’t like to make decisions, it’s the answer to every question:

Me: If penguins wore trousers, would they be better off with a belt or braces? They’ve got no hips, but no shoulders either.

Decision maker: I’ll set up a call

There are informal rules of etiquette for these calls. If you are new to conference calling, the most important thing is to have another activity – such as deleting spam, indulging in ritualised self-harm, or squeezing out quiet tears of rage – that you can perform comfortably at your desk during the call.

I almost finished that paragraph off with “…to avoid disappointment”, which is ridiculous. Conference calls are institutionalised disappointment. We tolerate them only because we don’t have to look each other in the eyes while we waste each other’s lives.

So, for newbies, this is what to expect:

Day minus 2: Marketing Person 1 decides we need a call to discuss the Penguin Pants Project Crisis that you have created. A flurry of emails results, during which we establish that there are no mutually acceptable times for the next three months. Eventually Alpha Male 1 sends an irritated email saying that his PA could possibly try to move some things around for him because he’s about to get on a flight to Singapore. PA instantly offers six available slots in the next 48 hours. The call is set up for the day after tomorrow.

D -1: Marketing Person 1 sends calendar notification to all announcing that The Bridge Has Been Set Up. It includes dial-in details for a list of 25 countries, not including the one you are in – but including Slovakia and Norway, where your company doesn’t have offices.

Day zero: Emails from three people asking if our call is still going ahead, because if not they have another call that’s quite important, but don’t worry they’ll cancel the other call, even though it’s quite important, if our call is still going ahead.

Time -55 minutes: Email from someone who is confused by daylight saving time, asking where everyone is.

T -15 minutes: Email from Marketing Person 1 to remind us that the call is in 15 minutes. Response email from Alpha Male 2 warning that his previous call with Important Customer might not finish on time to join our call. Try to get the ball rolling without me, he says, difficult though it might be.

T +2 minutes: After frantic and unsuccessful attempts to dial in, you call from your mobile using the Slovakian access number. It’s just you and a marketing intern on the call. The intern has been instructed by Marketing Person 1 not to say anything during the call. Small talk is difficult.

T +5 minutes: Someone who speaks no English dials in using the Norwegian access number. This may, or may not, be a mistake. Small talk not improving.

T +5 to T +15 minutes: A new person joins each time you get three words into a sentence. Fragments of speech about difficulty of using access codes, and weather in New York/Singapore/Slovakia, occur. Alpha Male 1 and Alpha Male 2 have not joined yet, but seven middle managers you’ve never heard of are present on the call. They seem to know each other, despite being based in different continents, and exchange opinions about previous relevant conference calls to which you were not invited.

(I hear the opinion that these call-hangers don’t contribute. If we look at the conference call as an attempt to make a decision, this is certainly true. On the other hand their real job is to send emails afterwards to a Senior Person which

1. Questions the wisdom of any decision, hinting that it might undermine Senior Person’s authority

2. Suggest Alpha Males 1 and 2 might be unhappy with the outcome agreed on call

3. Subtly implicate you as the cause of both

This makes sure that any decisions will swiftly be reversed, giving them the opportunity to build a career based on lurking destructively in the background.)

T +15 minutes: Alpha Male 1 joins from airport lounge, and asks us to recap summary of Penguin Pants Project Crisis. Marketing Person 1 attempts to do this, but airport announcements picked up by Alpha Male 1′s phone keep cutting in.

T +20 minutes: Alpha Male 2 joins, and tells us to carry on as if he wasn’t there.

T +21 minutes: After 10 seconds, Alpha Male 2 announces he hasn’t received the agenda for the call from Marketing Person 2. Intern is silently surprised when he is blamed by Marketing Person 2 for this. He is sent to email the document (which he doesn’t possess) so that Alpha Male 2 will have the opportunity to learn why he was on the call after we hang up. Alpha Male 2 asks that, in the absence of an agenda, Alpha Male 1 clarifies Marketing Person 1′s recap of the summary.

T +25 minutes: Silence.

T +26 minutes: Alpha Male 1 remembers he muted his phone because of airport noise, and starts clarification again, which is twice as long as the recap, which was twice as long as the summary.

T +33 minutes: Alpha Male 2 remembers you are on the call, and asks you for the Penguin Pant Crisis action item options. You list the action item options as quickly as possible. You recommend that we decide, while we are on this call, which action item option to take.

T +35 minutes: Long silence.

T +38 minutes: Alpha Male 1 breaks silence by announcing they are calling his flight, so let’s pick this up next week. Call-hangers burst into life to say sycophantic goodbyes to Alpha Male 1, including jokes about performance of local sports teams. Marketing Persons 1 and 2 compete to thank Alpha Male 1 for sparing this time because they know how busy he is, but discover he has already hung up.

T +43 minutes: Marketing Person 1 proudly announces that she has been given access to Alpha Male 1′s diary to schedule follow-up call, and suggests a time. Alpha Male 2 says he knows that Alpha Male 1 is not available at that time, because Alpha Male 1 has offered to meet Alpha Male 2′s Important Customer. Marketing Person 1 says she has Alpha Male 1′s diary in front of her, and Important Customer is not in diary.

T +46 minutes: Alpha Male 2 says he knows that Alpha Male 1 is not available at that time, because Alpha Male 1 has offered to meet Alpha Male 2′s Important Customer. Marketing Person 1 says she has Alpha Male 1′s diary in front of her, and Important Customer is not in diary.

T +49 minutes: Alpha Male 2 says he knows that Alpha Male 1 is not available at that time, because Alpha Male 1 has offered to meet Alpha Male 2′s Important Customer. Marketing Person 1 says she has Alpha Male 1′s diary in front of her, and Important Customer is not in diary.

T+52 minutes: Alpha Male 2 politely points out that his agenda hasn’t come through yet.

T +54 minutes: Everyone agrees to pencil the meeting depending on Alpha Male 1′s availability. Alpha Male 2 points out that Alpha Male 1 is meeting his Important Customer during that hour, so we might be wasting our time.

T +57 minutes: Exaggeratedly polite goodbyes. Marketing Person 2 says we made some great progress today.

T +60 minutes: You are accidentally CCed on an email from call-hanger suggesting that you placed Alpha Male 1 in an awkward position, and that they should revisit any decisions offline before the follow-up call.

Filed under: Uncategorized, Words Tagged: Blame culture, office culture, whateverism

Thanks to a partnership with Vlingo, owners of Android 2.0 or higher-equipped phones can now check in to Foursquare and update their status on Facebook and Twitter simply by speaking into their phones.

To try it out, download the free Vlingo app to your Android handset.

Using your voice, you can then update your location status on Foursquare by saying “check into Logan Airport”, locate your friends with commands like “where are my friends?” and “who’s nearby?” as well as send shout-outs to your buddies (e.g. “shout at Logan Airport waiting to board a plane to San Francisco”).

That’s not all though. The latest version of the Vlingo app also lets users share the service with their friends with the click of a button and also update their status on Facebook, Twitter and/or Foursquare at the same time by saying “social update” and speaking the message.

Previous Vlingo features remain, too: you can still use the app to send text and email messages, search the web, use Google maps and more.

As for BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia S60 users – they’ll have to be patient for a while before they can start updating their status and locations with their voice.

Vlingo says it plans to roll out this functionality to other supported platforms in a future release but didn’t mention specific dates.

Do you consider voice-driven applications to be an ideal way to interact with mobile apps on your phone? Why (not)?

Apple announced on Wednesday a cornucopia of new hardware and software: sleek iPods, a brand new Internet-enabled video streaming device and new versions of its iOS software and iTunes 10. However, the most impressive to me by far was Ping, the music-only social network that Apple is opening up its 160 million existing iTunes users.

No, I’m not blown away by the 160 million number. What I’m impressed by is the thinking behind Ping.

Ping may function like a cross between Facebook and Twitter for iTunes by allowing you to follow celebrities, create social cliques and get artist updates via an activity stream. I think it could have tremendous impact on social sharing and commerce.

From a content perspective, there are three different types of media we love to talk about: movies we see, music we listen to and books we are reading. These are accepted social norms. In fact, many relationships are made on the basis of collective love of a movie and many friendships have started with mixed tapes.

It makes perfect sense for a music service to be social. I’m not alone: The popularity YouTube, the fast-growing MOG and the sadly defunct iLike and Imeem show that people gravitate towards music as a common, collective experience. A recommendation from friends on Last.fm often resulted in me buying many-a-few music tracks. My friends who listened to Thievery Corporation turned me on to The Broadway Project and Chris Joss, which I ended up buying on the iTunes store or via Amazon’s MP3 store.

This click-and-go-somewhere-to-download model of affiliate links can never match a unified experience. Amazon, for example, encourages bloggers and others to link to things they like and then get a piece of the action. This separates social from commerce and treats them as two discrete activities. On the post-Facebook Internet, I don’t think anyone can afford to keep these two actions distinct.

Ping, from what little I saw during Steve Jobs’ demo, allows a similar level of social interaction. It can tell me who my friends think are cool and the top 10 favorites of people in my social graph. Some of my friends are famous deejays. Others just have eclectic musical tastes. They can collectively sift through over 10 million songs and help with the discovery of music. This social-powered discovery is part of the biggest theme of our times: serendipity. About two years ago, when I wrote about serendipity, I said:

The problem is that there’s too much data coming online too quickly, and the traditional method of search that involves first finding and then consuming the information is not going to work for much longer. There just won’t be enough time for us to do that and still have a life. It’s a problem, and therefore solving it is an opportunity — a very big opportunity.

My belief has only been affirmed by growth in the amount of data available. With 12 million songs and 250,000 apps, the best way for Apple to enhance the iTunes store – aka its shopping experience — is through the use of social. Back in 2007, I argued that social networking was merely a feature that had to be embedded into applications to enhance their value. Apple has done a great job of that, but it’s also gone one step further, not only by adding a social networking layer to iTunes, but by meshing it with its commerce engine, the iTunes Store. And it’s made this experience available on both the desktop and its devices.

Apple received much of this social capability with the acquisition of Lala, an online music service, which as a standalone company used sharing of social objects to drive folks towards paid music downloads. Now Apple is only closing the loop by further sharing what users bought. I wouldn’t be least bit surprised if sales of music on the iTunes store rocket upwards, thanks to social discovery.

Amazon, which recently started experimenting with Facebook Connect, has similar ideas, but its implementation leaves a lot to be desired. On Amazon, I’m reduced to reading reviews from absolute strangers for music. I have a handful of friends who have impeccable taste in non-fiction business books, are all members of Amazon, and they already use email to share new book suggestions with me.

What if they too could share their likes and dislikes via a social layer inside Amazon.com? Or what if I could follow my favorite authors and get updates on their books? Much like Apple, Amazon owns book-based social service, Shelfari, and should find ways to embed the social layer inside of all Amazon products and connect its tens of millions of users.

Like Apple, Amazon too has a lot more data about its customers and their behaviors and could create a compelling discovery experience. I believe with tens of thousands of products in its store, the retail giant needs to figure out ways to surface content and other offerings smartly.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d): Why Google Should Fear the Social Web

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As the fugitive businessman Asil Nadir flew back to Britain from his North Cyprus bolt-hole last week, Sean O'Neill, the crime editor of The Times, scooped Fleet Street by being the only print journalist on the plane. Yet those searching Google for the latest on the breaking story that morning would have found no sign of O'Neill's exclusive – only follow-up stories by rival news organisations such as The Guardian and ITN.

But the foreign secretary does not come out of this controversy too well either

Oh dear, what a shaming day for Fleet Street and the wider media world of telly which takes its cue from tabloidland and squalid tabloid values. I cringed when I realised that William Hague had been forced to issue a humiliating personal statement about his wife's fertility to prove he was not carrying on with a male member of his staff.

How did this come about? Chiefly because the rightwing blogger Guido Fawkes (Paul Staines) got it into his head that the foreign secretary's appointment of 25-year-old Chris Myers as a special adviser must have more to it than meets the smutty eye. Some people are just like that.

What gave the story legs – as we say in the trade – was an absurdly undignified photo of Hague walking along the Embankment – near the Foreign Office in Whitehall – in casual gear. It surfaced in the Mail on Sunday, which is like the Daily Mail, but without its sense of delicacy, reticence and moral consistency.

Hague was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, plus a version of that baseball cap that undermined his leadership of the Tory party. Oh yes, and wrap-around shades. It was a ridiculous photo and Hague looked a prat: people his age (49) should not dress as if they are 25 (though occasionally we all do), especially if they are foreign secretary.

Except that Hague wasn't. The photo was a year old, not that the papers that reprinted it pointed that out. I must admit, it made me laugh. I always used to say: "Hague will be better when he's older and has grey hair." But his severing of the Tory links with the European People's party (EPP) struck me as both cynical and foolish – done for internal party tactics – so I went off him. Luckily David Cameron is proving wiser on Europe now he is in office.

Anyway, Guido kept banging away and some of the papers "started digging", as we also say in the trade. Why had Hague been allowed to appoint an inexperienced third special adviser when Dave had (unwisely; he'll learn) capped their number at two per department? What expertise did young Myers have? Better still, was it true that Hague and Myers had shared a room occasionally during the election campaign?

It's all belatedly set out in today's Guardian. But the gossip had been doing the Westminster rounds for most of August and the FO issued a less-than-watertight statement that allowed several papers – I saw it in the Daily Mail and Times yesterday – to run denial stories.

Hague has been a target for lurid gossip for decades, some of the anecdotes damning and specific, but also improbable. Do you see Ffion Hague as the sort of woman who would agree to be a beard for a sort-of-gay husband's ambition?

I don't, but perhaps it's me who's naive. A Yorkshire grandmother, 90-ish, respectable and expensively Tory, told a friend of mine on the phone last night: "I'm sick of these men hiding behind bushes. Why don't they just come out?"

Because they don't have to if they don't want to, grandma. David Laws wanted to stay in the closet so as not to upset his Catholic mum. Fair enough, I say, though he laid himself open to the public funds charge, the ostensible reason for going after Hague too.

So should I have been round the FCO dustbins sniffing the sheets? Well, that depends on what you think is a legitimate matter of public interest.

By and large, I don't think people's sex lives are unless they are public hypocrites, funding their lifestyles improperly from the public purse, or want to put details into the public domain – as many people seem to want to do.

For instance, Tony and Cherie Blair's memoirs both contain a teeny bit more detail about their ongoing enthusiasm for each other than I might have wished. And I'm almost certain the model Jordan, aka Katie Price, cooperates with the tabloids (that's a joke, by the way).

But Hague? If he was indeed having an affair with Chris Myers – or his imaginary sister, Christine – and put him/her on the public payroll, that would be a legitimate target for fearless investigators such as Guido, who is neither as noble nor disinterested as he persuades himself is the case.

Is that likely? Ask yourself. Hague may have spotty judgment – on Europe or in hiring Myers at all. They are obviously chums and the Daily Mail quotes anonymous Tory colleagues today as saying he is "personally naive" and becomes "platonically infatuated" when he likes someone, as he rarely does. That figures; he was a strange lad when I first saw him, lecturing Margaret Thatcher from the podium at the Tory conference at age 16.

But not even Hague would do something so rash and improper – quite lethal to his political career – as hire a lover at the taxpayer's expense. He hired Myers. It must mean it was all innocent. Yes? No?

I know what you're thinking. The latest statement confirms that Hague and Myers occasionally shared a twin room on the campaign trail. It sounds like admirable austerity to me, saving the party cash. Politicians get attacked for extravagance. Now they get hammered for saving money. You just can't win.

All of which has ended up with Hague having to explain how he and Ffion have been trying unsuccessfully to have children for years. We can all see how sad that is for them, as for couples in their situation. But to reveal this to prove you are straight ... oh dear again. How much sadder and more undignified. Not that it proves anything.

As I type, John Humphrys is milking the tale with as much thinly-veiled enthusiasm as Radio 4's Today programme can muster. It's the high-minded broadsheet version of tabloid humbug and wouldn't have happened like this even a few years ago, not rehashing the gossip on the BBC or in the broadsheets. Even the FT carries Hague's denial on page one today.

On air, Mirror editor turned Guardian media pundit Roy Greenslade, who disagreed with my contention that the Laws affair was about sexual hounding, not about money, is huffing and puffing about gossip seeping from the blogosphere into the news pages and how difficult it becomes. Hmm.

Today's Daily Mail has turned the tale with characteristic nimbleness from gay sex into one of domestic tragedy: "Our baby agony, by the Hagues." For the broadsheets and the Beeb it's now about Hague's "judgment".

But what about our collective judgment? What about Guido's? When he wrote "one witness told Guido that the room sharing couple's body language at breakfast was eye opening" what was he thinking?