Meet Allison Enright, Senior Editor of Internet Retailer
Tell us about your dream assignment.
What’s holding at the forefront of my brain these days is Google, and it’s not for reasons like paid search and product search that directly relate to my job here at Internet Retailer. I’d like to spend a day with Google’s do-gooders (do-Googlers?), meaning the people who make Google’s seemingly non-for-profit, but somehow globally beneficial, projects happen. For example, Google launched the Google Art Project about a month ago. It uses some of the technology it developed around Google Street View to catalog some of the world’s greatest art held in museums around the world. If you go to GoogleArtProject.com, you can view a bunch of galleries and zoom in on paintings and sculptures. It also links to wealth of info about the piece, the artist, its history, etc. I’m enamored by it. It just makes the world smaller and gives people access to things they may never see in such detail in real life. I mean, I’ve been in some of the featured galleries in real life, but I’ve never been able to see them up close like I can see them on the site, and definitely not from my desk! I don’t know who was behind it or other projects in development like it, but I’d love to meet them and hear how they came up with the idea and, more importantly, how they made it happen.
What is your PR pet peeve?
I have two. 1. Uninformed phone pitches that have little to do with the subjects we cover. You’ll get a lot further if you can show you’ve done your homework and have some familiarity with the subjects at hand. 2. E-mails that dangle a story but require you to e-mail back to get details. Provide it up front. Seriously, I will get back to you if I’m interested. If you just dangle a potential idea, you go to the bottom of my to-do list.
Top trend in the industry you’re currently covering or are interested in?
Right now the biggest issues I’m seeing are over behavioral advertising and online privacy. Mobile commerce is getting a lot of attention too.
Tell us a little about yourself.
Let me tell you, first off, that covering online retail is a dangerous, wallet-eating business. I’ve been to the far recesses of the Internet and it’s amazing what you can find out there. I joined the Internet Retailer staff last summer after 5 years at Marketing News, where I was a reporter and editor. My favorite part of being a journalist is that it allows me to call up people and pick their brains—and they usually like it. It does become a habit, though. Good for your job performance, but bad for first dates!
Interested in learning more about Allison? Email her at [email protected].
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Be sure to check back next time for another installation of “Meet the Media.”