NevOn

Microsoft snaps up Teleo

The instant messaging market just shifted up a few gears with the news today that Microsoft has acquired Teleo, the Skype-like internet phone/chat service.

In a press release this morning, Microsoft said it plans to use this acquisition as a means to greatly extend the capabilities of MSN Messenger. An announcement on the Teleo website said:

[...] Microsoft plans to incorporate and expand upon Teleo’s technologies, integrating them into the MSN services infrastructure, with plans to ultimately deliver new VoIP consumer applications in future releases of MSN services, such as MSN Messenger.

Teleo has been in beta since it launched earlier this year (that beta programme is now discontinued, according to the website). I tried it in February and it did look very attractive as an alternative to Skype at a time when Skype's offering lacked much of what it now comprises.

Microsoft's new tool is a bit different to that of Google who launched Google Talk last week. The difference is that while Google Talk enables you to connect to other users via your PC for free voice and text chatting, it doesn't have real phone calling capability, ie, the ability to make and receive phone calls from regular phones such as you can with Skype and its SkypeIn and SkypeOut offerings.

Teleo, on the other hand, has many similarities to Skype including that phone-calling capability.

That gives a pretty clear idea on what Microsoft is thinking as CNET News' story indicates:

[...] Microsoft has its eyes set on something more like Net phone company Skype's service, however. A key part of Teleo's technology is focused on making calls from a computer to an ordinary telephone, a feature that company executives said would start finding its way into MSN Messenger before the end of 2005.

What's next? What about Gizmo which I experimented with last month? Maybe Yahoo will come knocking on that door.

Blog Day connections

Today is BlogDay, the day when it's great to be part of a way to make some new connections.

So I decided to link to some blogs that I've not directly connected to before, all from my PubSub and Technorati watchlists that show bloggers who have linked to some of my posts during the past month.

Here they are - five blogs that I suggest you visit, take a look at what the bloggers have to say and maybe join in their conversations:

• The Ted Rap - Ted Demopoulos' thoughts and musings on information technology, security, business and more.
• Sue's Place (Southern Rants) - Where Sue can be Sue and rant in a southern voice when she feels like it.
• NetWizz Jungle Blog - the blog in French of some cool graphic designers in Paris (already a connection: they designed the graphics for Blogging Planet, among others).
• The Closed Circle - Dave Briggs'  online diary. (Nice WordPress blog.)
• Below The Fold - media, politics and culture in the modern age by Gary Goldhammer.

Blog Day is the initiative of Nir Ofir, the Editor in Chief of an Israeli portal, Tapuz.co.il. So that makes six connections ;)

[Technorati: BlogDay2005]

Hot recording Google Talk

I installed Hot Recorder on my new Dell PC today, which I use for recording occasional Skype conversations for the For Immediate Release podcast.

Hot Recorder is a great application, as I enthused when I first discovered it in May. As a software-based option for recording phone interviews over Skype for use in podcasts, I think it's the best out there.

Two things I noticed with today's install. I have the paid version but had to download it again as I couldn't find the original download. First, the Hot Recorder installer is marked as version 2.0.1, although the app still describes itself as version 2.

Just as well as then I noticed something quite interesting - an option to configure Hot Recorder to work with Google Talk, as this screenshot of the popup menu in the system tray shows.

So you can make and receive Google Talk calls and record those conversations. Not only that, you can also set up a voice mail facility in Hot Recorder that acts as an answering machine for Google Talk and record your own playback greeting. Very useful as Google Talk is currently rather bare bones.

The Hot Recorder Help page has been updated to include commentary about the app's integration with Google Talk (which I guess would explain the 2.0.1 version number).

From what I can tell, this is the first third-party application developed for Google Talk. The first of many, I'd say. Still not a Skype killer, though.

Speaking of Google Talk, Chris Pirillo has some suggestions for what Google should have named their VoIP application. I think GTalk is the best one.

Heed some good PR advice, Dell

In show #63 yesterday of For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, I commented on the latest news in the Dell hell saga as reported by Jeff Jarvis.

While the situation looks hopeless, I'd like to think that Dell's corporate communicators and PR teams just need a little more pushing to the fountain so they can see where the water is.

Steve Rubel swiftly does this today with some sound PR advice to Dell on how they can engage with customers and influencers in the blogosphere.

Heed the advice, Dell. Not because it's free - it's simply good advice.

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #63: August 29, 2005

Content summary: Listeners' comments discussion (pitching journalists; IABC recognition; great iRiver recording; how email spies work); blog etiquette: Steve Rubel and Jeremy Pepper trackback stand-off; Max Hansen's second report from Blog Business Summit; the latest on Dell hell; Lee Hopkins reports from Australia; communication channels in organizations in times of change.

Show notes for August 29, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 79-minute conversation recorded live from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and almost live from Concord, California, USA.

Download the file here (MP3, 33MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. (For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as the free iPodder, DopplerRadio or iTunes 4.9, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

In this Edition:

Intro:

• 00:29 Neville introduces the show; what the show's about; how to give your feedback; what's in this edition

Listeners' comments discussion:

• 03:27 Heidi Miller's tips on researching and pitching journalists
• 04:43 Jerry Stevenson compliments Shel on his IABC Fellow award; his cool iRiver, email tracking and how spying works, usability and blogs (Neville adds comment on this point re his Movable Type experiment)

News and Features:

• 15:02 Blog etiquette and trackbacks: when does it become spam? Shel analyzes the stand-off between Steve Rubel and Jeremy Pepper last week and offers a clear opinion; Neville counter-argues with a contrary opinion
• 30:47 Max Hansen's second report from Blog Business Summit - themes that emerged: trust between top management and employees who blog, and blogger privacy
• 40:15 Dell hell - after a conversation with Dell's PR person, Jeff Jarvis gives up on Dell's lack of willingness to engage with and connect customers in the blogosphere
• 48:57 From Our Correspondent Down Under: Lee Hopkins - tweaking Firefox with tabs, professional associations and social media, training bloggers in media relations, what your website says about you, podcasts and 'grey power'
• 57:33 Employee communication after an acquisition - what channels are appropriate during times of great change? Considering an employee's preferred sources of information and the actual source is key to effective communication

Outro:

• 72:02 UK holiday weekend; how to give your feedback (new email address: fircomments@gmail.com); the music

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show:

Listeners' comments discussion - Heidi Miller, Chris Marlowe, Hollywood Reporter, Eric Schwartzman, Amy Gahran, Jerry Stevenson, iRiver IFP-890, Dallas IABC, Microsoft Outlook, Thunderbird, NEO Pro, Movable Type, TypePad, Six Apart, WordPress.

News and Features - Steve Rubel, Jeremy Pepper, Wikipedia definition of trackback, Six Apart technical specification on trackback, Max Hansen, Blog Business Summit, Robert Scoble, Janet Johnson, Marqui, Steve Ballmer, Rebecca Blood, The New PR Wiki, Dave Taylor on the blogger being sued, Creative Commons, Jeff Jarvis, Dell, Jennifer Davis, Media Guardian, Lee Hopkins, Alexandra Samuels, Firefox, Allan Jenkins, Robert French, IABC, PRSA, AAAF, Donna Papacosta, Podcasting News, Better Communication Results latest podcast, Shel's post about TJ Larkin's IABC presentation, Towers Perrin, FIR interview with Angela Sinickas and Tudor Williams, TJ Larkin's response to Shel's post.

Outro - Edinburgh Festival, PodcastNYC, Again (Remix), Billy Klippert, Orange Record Label, For Immediate Release, A Shel of My Former Self, NevOn.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com (new email address), or call the Comment Line at +1 206 984 0931. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 5Mb attachment, please!). We'll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

So, until Thursday September 1...

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel's and my podcast blog.)

Survey: RSS on the rise among key influencers

Last week Nooked, the RSS search engine and directory of corporate RSS feeds, published the aggregated results of two connected surveys they conducted in March.

The first survey aimed to learn more about how industry analysts, journalists and bloggers use RSS; the second, to determine the rate of adoption of RSS in the PR/marketing arena. Nooked said 200 people took the surveys.

The conclusions:

1. Journalists and analysts are demanding RSS feeds. RSS adoption is on the rise amongst key influencers and early adopters who have moved beyond the “RSS for beginners” stage and now demand information be delivered to them through a clean channel, in a specified location with specialist content.
2. RSS must become part of the communication arsenal for PR and marketing professionals. RSS is a new technology and is not a replacement for email, instant messaging or phone communications but a way to enhance and complement existing communications activity while achieving 100% deliverability of demanded messages.

Visit the Nooked blog to see detailed commentary.

Mark your diary for Les Blogs 2.0

Following the success of Les Blogs, the one-day conference that took place in Paris last April, Loic le Meur is organizing Les Blogs 2.0 which will take place in Paris as a two-day conference on 5 and 6 December. I'm honoured to be working with Loic and others in an advisory role to help plan this event.

Loic's already got one keynote speaker lined up - Robert Scoble. More news soon on other names as well as information on venue, proposed programme, cost, signing up, etc.

A wiki will be up soon. Meanwhile, note the dates for your diary - 5 and 6 December.

Blog spam is relentless

Since I implemented comment and trackback moderation on this blog a couple of weeks ago, the amount of spam I've been getting has steadily increased. Now it's averaging between three and five such hits every day. May not sound much at all in the context of the overall blogosphere, but that adds up to at least 21 a week, 84 a month and over 1,000 a year. Multiply that by just 1,000 of the 14 million or so other English-language blogs out there and you can see the scale of this problem.

The current average will go up a bit now as yesterday I received 12 in one day, all re sex and pills from the same spammer at IP address 84.242.95.27 which, according to the nifty ForMyIP.com, is located in the Czech Republic and belongs to an ISP called Karneval Media S.R.O. Needless to say, he's now a banned IP address.

What's good, though, is that none of the crap will ever see the light of day on this blog because of moderation, part of the raft of service enhancements for TypePad blogs implemented by Six Apart last month. It is a bit time-consuming to have to go into TypePad and delete the stuff from the pending queue, not to mention wasted bandwidth usage, but that's preferable to having to do it after the event which would be the case without moderation.

What I find a bit curious is that nearly all spam during the past month or so has been targeting posts I've written during the first quarter of this year; hardly any spam aimed at recent posts. Is that signficant of anything? Maybe the spammers or the auto-senders think older posts are less likely to be on the current radar screen of the blogger. But I really have no idea!

I'm sure we'll see more bloggers putting up defensive walls though devices like comment and trackback moderation as well as with some intelligent tools that can filter inbound comments and trackbacks looking for key phrases and other indicators of spam.

It doesn't stop the spam but at least with such protective measure in place, you get the satisfaction in knowing that your blog won't be an unwitting channel for these odious peddlers.

New Movable Type disappoints

I've spent a bit of time this weekend upgrading my Movable Type experimental blog to the latest MT version 3.2 released on 25 August.

Installation of the new version was pretty smooth, no real issues with it, thanks to the excellent installation guide in the new 3.2 manual.

I do have issues, though, with expectations on what you should reasonably expect to be able to do with your blog after installing the new version of the platform.

As I've commented in my other blog, I'm pretty disappointed with the hurdles I'm now jumping following the upgrade.

I'd certainly expect the release version of a blog tool like this it to be a lot easier to dive into after installation and do what you want to do with the new features and functionality that supposedly are ready and usable. And I'd certainly expect the help system to be a bit more complete - every question-mark link I clicked on from within my MT installation got to the online MT help system with pages saying "Coming soon..." That's just not good enough.

So I'm spending far too much time scratching my head and trying to figure out why something doesn't work. It looks like quite a few others are doing their own head-scratching as well.

As a complete MT newbie, maybe my expectations on what I can do with 3.2 out of the box, so to speak, are a little unrealistic. Yet I would argue that Six Apart has set a high expectation level on what almost anyone keen to use the tool should be able to do relatively easily.

Am I being wholly unrealistic in my expectations for Movable Type 3.2? An unfair critique of Six Apart?  I want to use Movable Type. But maybe I should just go with WordPress - that seems far easier to use.

[Technorati: Movable Type]

Biz-Tech Headlines 27-Aug-05

• As Blogging Grows, Companies Eye Legal Pitfalls
• BBC plans to put channels on net
• Blogger sued for comments others left on his blog
• Getting Real About Podcast Adoption
• New Web copyright tool to exclude non-IE users
• NewsGator Opens Online API to Public
• PayPal co-founder readies photo-sharing service
• Personal Search Site Adds Blogs
• Pixar Faces Informal SEC Probe
• RIP, Rio: A Digital Music Pioneer Dies

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