STANDARDS

Like good PR is grounded in fact; tech is grounded in standards. Simple, all of tech is based on a circuit. As my father would say, “the light’s on or the light’s off.” Similarly, a website is either compliant or not. How we judge that is called "validation."

Validation is “the process of checking if something satisfies a certain criterion. Examples would be: checking if a statement is true, if an appliance works as intended, if a computer system is secure, or if computer data are compliant with an open standard. In computer programming terminology, validation refers to the process of controlling that data inserted into an application satisfies pre determined formats or complies with stated length and character requirements and other defined input criteria.”

Whose standards? Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international industry consortium with more than 300 members. Simply put, the W3C guidelines for markup determine how hypertext documents should be marked up and how the receiving device should display that markup. The specs specifications were written to ensure interoperability.

Why do web standards matter? Most Web documents are written using markup languages, such as HTML or XHTML. These languages are defined by technical specifications which are composed of a formal set of machine-readable grammar and vocabulary. It is important because it IS the language of the Web. It’s as real and as “valid” as any human language, French, English, Italian, Russian, etc. And because of its universality, some would argue that it's even more important.

Bottom line: for a PR person boasting expertise in all things Web 2.0, fluency in this language is essential. Anything less is tantamount to so many PR practitioners that feign expertise in communications and cannot write themselves out of a wet-paper bag. The word “fraud” applies.

THE “F-LIST"

For the record, our “F-list" is based on a certain set of criteria. Note, as virtually all PR blogs we tested were klugy (pronounced "CLUE-gee", slang word meaning makeshift, inefficient, inelegant as in, "That patch to the software is a real kluge."), we needed to limit our list to the select worst. As such, we set the cutoff at 100 technical errors. To ensure objectivity and accuracy, we used the W3C Markup Validation Service (located at http://validator.w3.org/) to evaluate our contestants .

We found the biggest boobs to be:
- Constantin Basturea http://weblog.basturea.com/ Failed validation, 140 errors
- Phil Gomes http://www.philgomes.com/blog/ Failed validation, 171 errors
- Shel Holtz http://blog.holtz.com/ Failed validation, 176 errors
- B.L. Ochman http://www.whatsnextblog.com/ Failed validation, 201 errors
- Jeremy Pepper http://pop-pr.blogspot.com/ Failed validation, 222 errors
- Steve Rubel http://www.micropersuasion.com/ Failed validation, 324 errors
- Scott Baradell http://www.ideagrove.com/blog/ Failed validation, 679 errors

Note, for kicks and giggles, we took a look at some of their respective archives. For August Rubel failed validation with 854 errors. Barradel failed validation with 1633 errors. If this were a true contest, Baradell would surely be the biggest boob.

But there are not going to be any awards here. This is a lesson. What we find particularly interesting is that PR’s three BIGGEST “celebrity” bloggers are the biggest offenders.

Again, it's particularly ironic in that technology expertise is what they profess. Rubel often promotes Edelman’s supposed media lab. In his words, “In the me2revolution ‘lab’ at Edelman we basically study new technologies that will impact marketing communications, incubate programs that leverage them, all with the intent of generating conversation.” Steve is also the Digital Columnist at AdAge where he writes articles like, “Why it’s good to be a little geeky.”

Scott, on the other hand, is so bold as to actually offer tech services apparently. “The Idea Grove can modernize your Web site in a jiffy; Just e-mail us.”

And Pepper makes his expertise clear on his blog, “When I write here, I will try to set an example to clients, colleagues and other bloggers - PR or otherwise - on what I view as best blogging practices.”

What do we take away from all this? Big boobs are terribly popular but require a lot of attention and are ultimately really bad for your back.

EDITOR’S NOTE

Note, the numbers above are subject to change.

Also, we are sad to report that Debbie Weil just missed the cut by two. I am sure she’ll have better luck with her Corporate Blogging Book.

Lastly, for the record, Strumpette is 100 percent compliant. Sorry boys, we do not have big boobs. And no matter how hard we pray, I am afraid that's not going to change.