Top shelf booze and tuna tartar flowed freely last night at the annual movable media feast that is the Ken Sunshine holiday party, or, the Ken Sunshine & Shawn Sachs party as this is the first year Ken is hosting with a partner.

With a last-minute change (jokingly pawned off as a smokescreen to keep Rudy Giuliani from crashing) the party landed at Meatpacking hotspot One Little West 12th.

I spoke to the gregarious Sachs about the ‘plan’ for a party that put Ben Affleck, Pat O’Brien, John Mayer, media elite including Page6′s Paula Froelich & Bill Hoffman, the News’ George Rush, and GMA’s Monica Escobedo in the same mix as clients 1199SEIU, America’s Second Harvest, New York Organ Donor Network, Do Something and the Transit Workers Union.

(Hoffman, incidentally was overheard talking about the great items publicists could be pitching from books and such but don’t, and that “a lot of flacks should be sent to flack school.”)

According to Sachs, “It’s simple really, we let the staff invite whoever they want from the different parts of the business. Some agency holiday parties are staff only, we open it up to everyone, including other PR people we know. Other agencies have staff-only parties. Who needs to spend more time with people from the office?”

The other benefit beyond plying the media with posh nightclub surroundings is putting like-minded clients together, Sachs continued. “The Second Harvest people talked to Do Something about the current food shortage. They’re meeting today to see how they can raise awareness together.”

Others confirmed on the scene were Access Hollywood producer Jennifer Zweben, Pete Shapiro, former owner of the Wetlands, and new owner of Brooklyn Bowl, GMA’s publicist Bridgette Maney, and of course our boss, mediabistro.com founder Laurel Touby.

It’s that time of year again. Along with all of the holiday parties (we’re still recovering from one last night, more on that later) both media and pr people attempt to look into their crystal balls and predict “what’s next.”

The PR Meets Marketing blog recently posted their 2008 trends list, including some from Tom Pick of Web Market Central. We were reading along, mostly agreeing, until we ran into this: “PR professionals will reach out to bloggers in different ways, beyond just pitching press releases.” Our take: if it’s taken you until 2008 to realize you should be reaching out to bloggers in “different ways” you’ve got your work cut out for you.

On another note, Blip.tv spoke with BusinessWeek’s Jon Fine about his predictions for 2008. While taking funny jab at himself for being wrong on a few past predictions (cough, Katie Couric, cough) Fine does provide some interesting food for thought, including his prediction that Google will start buying content companies. You can view the video here.

What are your predictions? We’ll keep this list going as we roll into 2008, so send us links to your own posts, or email us: prnewser at mediabistro.com.

Continuing in our weekly series interviewing the movers and shakers in PR and media, PRNewser this week spoke with Marketwatch.com senior media columnist Jon Friedman. In his most recent column, “R.I.P., the American magazine, 1923-20__” Jon wrote, “this industry seems intent on choking itself to death.” We talk to him a bit more about that, working with “flacks” and his local sports affiliations.

What time did you wake up this morning?

5:45 a.m. (to get ready to go to a 6:30 a.m. spinning class at a nearby New York Sports Club).

Best part about covering the media beat?

Chiding and needling pompous people.

Worst part about covering the media beat?

Seeing how incredibly thin-skinned and image-conscious media people at all levels can be – they are much worse about protecting their reps than CEOs.

Giants or Jets?

Jints (with apologies to Brian Lewis and Peter Costiglio).

Yankees or Mets?

In Jeter I trust.

What blogs do you read?

Romenesko, Media Bistro, HuffPo, I Want Media, Jeff Jarvis, Gawker, The Borowitz Report, PaidContent and a few others.

Google is: NOT a media company (yet).

What led you to become a journalist?
Oh, the usual reasons, I suppose – the promise of obtaining the big bucks and the kind of status in society that would make beautiful women fall in love with me, ha ha – BUT SERIOUSLY, a) I simply always loved to write and b) I always wanted to know everything about a subject before anyone else did. That pretty much sums up what a journalist is all about.

What single person played the biggest role / had the biggest influence on your career?

Many people you’ve never heard of acted as mentors to me – and still do; David Halberstam, for setting a profound example of how to produce great journalism, and Dave Callaway, my editor in chief at MarketWatch, for showing so much confidence in me as a columnist.

What media websites are doing well with interactive?

Msnbc.com was one of the very first news websites that truly understood the importance of visuals and graphics, at one point they had almost as many graphics people as writers. In my opinion it was probably the best news site for a time. They had a real vision for attacking the web news business. I think people have kind of caught up to them, but they were among the very first. Of course, the NY Times is good, the WSJ is good, and the Washington Post is good. It’s not a coincidence that the three best papers have the three best websites as well.

What about magazine sites?

Newsweek tries to do things right. Time is moving more towards that. But I wouldn’t put any magazine website in the category of “great.” They all started too late and unenthusiastically. They are making strides, however.

Are the magazines killing their product by going to far in either direction (print vs. online)?

No, because the idea is people consume both. But, the people at the top are not truly behind websites. It’s strictly a matter of finance. If they felt they were making BIG money online, they would be investing more there. It they found the holy grail online they would find put more money there.

From a PR perspective, are you getting more pitches this year than last?

More pitches this year.

What do good PR people do?

PR people solve problems. They do things like get you bios quickly, and don’t try and influence my point of view. They are well organized. The best PR people think like journalists. They think in terms of story idea, writing style. That is the difference between a “flack” and PR person. I have a lot of respect for PR people, but not flacks. The best PR people think about the story ideas like I do. Most people think short term about getting story in my column and that is a mistake. I would rather have an association with someone over time.

But sometimes PR people are worried about going too far with proposing a story idea. What do you think about that?

They can’t go far enough.

How many pitches do you get per day?

I read about 10.

Do you have any examples of a PR person that emailed you and that sparked a story idea or they got into a story?

I won’t name the person, but the head of PR from major news magazine recently helped me by getting in touch with the EIC of a major news magazine very quickly. The person called back from a car on the way to airport. It showed extra attention, which I appreciated. In general, having a column gives me more independence because I can write what I want. So, I have a different need than other journalists who need PR help all the time. But in this case, this person gave me access to person making news, the EIC.

What are your biggest complaints about PR people?

They don think like journalists, they think like “flacks.” They present boring stories that they know my readers don’t care about. It is insulting to me and the publication. I write for my readers. Ultimately you want to be read by people. I like to someone to be on my level. There are good PR people out there, they know who they are.

Will Marketwatch.com change if WSJ.com goes free?

I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to speculate.

Are you looking into any trends for 2008?

No thank you. [Laughter]

So you don’t want to open up the PR floodgates?

The best way to reach me is through email. Phone calls are an intrusion from people.

If I don’t reply to you, you can assume I’m not interested. I do read every email I get.

Anything else you’d like to mention?
Thanks to PR people for all the help they’ve given me over the last year. Let’s continue to work together.

(image: Andy Plesser shooting footage for The New York Times corporate site)

I’ve been talking to people in the industry about the fight for marketing dollars recently between interactive agencies, PR firms, and other consultants. Where PR people succeed and fail–and this was the main theme of the Critical Issues Forum–is in their ability to tell compelling stories. My theory is the overall nut of marketing dollars will remain the same, while PR firms fight to keep what they have, or learn new methods and take a bigger chunk. Creating new media, specifically producing video for the web is going to be the nut the industry fights for.

While we try unravel the real PR motive behind the geeky voyeur-fest of Julia Allison and Jakob Lodwick’s video blog (if something in their relationship goes unblogged, did it happen at all?) we’re also chasing video work being done by PR firms on behalf of actual brands. J&J’s detractors and haters make for fun reading & viewing during coffee breaks though.

Check out this TV Week story about and those working in space including Ask a Ninja, Revver, Blip.TV, Gary Vaynerchuk, host of the wildly successful Winelibrary.TV vlog, and boutique PR agency head and Beet.tv vlogger Andy Plesser.

Both Vaynerchuk and Plesser understand how to create interesting video on very specific topics, how to build a loyal audience, and prove that in the era of new media, you have to put your own face on it to be credible. Plesser has covered the web video trend like a journalist for years, which I’m sure was critical in landing corporate work for The New York Times.

And Vaynerchuk is the pinnacle of what I call the new, DIY PR. Consider this for a moment: how long many years would it take an agency to land Conan, Ellen, Nightline, New York magazine, weekly mentions on Digg Nation and hundreds of other placements using traditional media relations? Gary took his charisma, a heavy Jersey accent, a love of wine and pro wrestling, and a solid understanding of new media and turned it in to a retail empire.

(Disclosure: I worked for Plesser Holland from 2000-2006)

But shouldn’t it be the other way around, you say?  Not necessarily.  Bulldog Reporter’s Sally Falkow recently spoke with marketing guru Seth Godin, who said:

The main challenge for PR is that the Internet has made the model of pitching the media redundant. The best PR people are those who are counsellors to their clients, not publicity hounds. The way to win now is to represent the new media to your clients, not the other way round.

It’s true that when you really know a certain publication/writer that you can speak to your client with confidence about what will work best for both parties.  In essence, you are pitching the media outlet to your client.  Try that on for size!

My business, <name removed> has been working with a small PR firm for the past 2 years on a ‘fee per placement’ agreement. I have a line of new products and they would like to change this structure to a monthly retainer. Does moving to a monthly retainer make sense and how do I know what is reasonable to pay on a monthly basis?

Ok, so asking how much a monthly retainer one should pay, based on scope of work needed, is a totally reasonable question. But, we always cringe when we hear of firms who offer a ”pay per hit” arrangement.  What would you say when put in this situation?  Tell the potential client to skee-daddle, sign ‘em up, or somewhere in between?

I’m currently logged in to tech shop Horn Group’s overview webinar on social media. Above is a screenshot of how they see the social media universe: moving from creating content, to “promoting” it, to measurement. The moderator is citing some good stats from Forrester. Currently RSS is being more widely adopted across most demographics. And, only 29 of the Fortune 500 are blogging. If you have content, put it in a feed: “get it out there, allow people to discuss it. Socialize it, promote it.”

“Don’t just think of the wire as your only method of distribution.”

Social media newsroom: a list of press releases, a list of clips, links to your blog as well as blogs you follow. There are tech tools that allow this to happen. Make this a goal for Q1.

Should I blog? As the following questions: Time to commit? (a few hours per week). Are you willing to be openly criticized? Do you have an outward passion to share? (have the personality to participate, comment, and take the time to go offline and meet people) What’s the goal of your blog? (be honest about your motives)

What NOT to do: Don’t do it just to be “hot.” Don’t lie. Don’t just do it to try to go viral. Don’t do it without the knowledge of what it takes.

Now over to Justin, blogger from Intraware (a Horn Group client). “We’re small but public. Our investors are always looking for information.” Intraware launched a social network for athletes, Zathlete to expand beyond its core competency.

We’ll provide insights from this webinar as they become available afterwards.

PR Week: Sources not so reliable on News Corp./LinkedIn takeover talks

Catching Flack: Windfall of 2008 Tech Media Forecasts

Strategic Public Relations: In Your Face: Ad Placements of Tomorrow

Romenesko: Here’s the n+1 piece that convinced Gawker editors to quit

AARP today announced that tennis star Martina Navratilova as its new “Health & Fitness Ambassador.”  A WSJ article on the deal explains why retired athletes are getting more popular:

While many of the richest endorsement deals still go to young phenoms like LeBron James, who has a seven-year, $90 million deal with Nike, former players are getting far more attention than they used to.

It is in part a reaction to the wave of recent scandals in sports, in which players have been caught up in everything from steroid abuse to a gambling ring that bets on dog fights.

Companies “don’t want to get into a situation where [they] want to get out of a contract,” says Jim Andrews, senior vice president of Chicago-based sponsorship-research firm IEG, a unit of WPP. “That is far less likely to happen with a proven entity.”

So, while it’s easier for AARP to pick a retired athlete who can relate to their older demographic, all the younger skewing brands are going to have to keep taking risks.