NevOn

Twiddling thumbs

Waiting for chkdsk to complete its diagnostics including a free space hard drive scan on a Windows XP computer is like watching paint dry. And about as thrilling.

Continuing my housekeeping mode from yesterday, I'm now spending too much time this morning trying to nail down an irritating little issue that seems to revolve around Norton Internet Security (cathartic rantlet on my MT blog).

So rather than just twiddle my thumbs while I wait, let's have a quick look around the PR blogosphere to see what's going on at the moment:

Looks like a real hornet's nest has been stirred over PR measurement. This stems from a post by Katie Paine where she expounds on her new PR Value Ratio measurement concept. My podcasting co-host Shel Holtz supports Katie's theme (we discussed it in show #98 of our bi-weekly podcast), and takes John Wagner to task on his dissenting views about PR measurement. John weighs in with a robust defence.

This is a terrific topic for some trenchant debate. No doubt we'll see the conversation continuing (maybe I'll contribute a eurocent or two's worth of opinion once I've absorbed the full conversation flow: sounds like a promising thought for post New Year's Eve partying tomorrow, depending on the Alka-Seltzer XS quotient).

Next, Alaska Airlines and their growing PR crisis if commentaries in the blogosphere are any indicator. This is about the blogger who was on the flight a few days ago which suffered cabin decompression. (Shel and I discussed this, too, in show #98.) Very interesting comments in one of Jeremy Hermanns' (the blogger concerned) posts - 125 at the last count.

How will this play out for Alaska Airlines who clearly have not grabbed any communication initiative here? At the very least, lots of bloggers won't be flying with that airline in future. Watch this space.

Ah, chkdsk has now finished its 45-minute diagnostic. Jeez! At least it gives the hard drive a clean bill of health. And in case you're wondering how I can be writing this post when the desktop PC's undergoing a disk check, I'm using my laptop ;)

So, back to housekeeping and nailing down Norton.

Taking Swicki for a spin

One of the topics Shel and I discussed in show #98 yesterday of The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast was Swicki.

Shel's been experimenting with this new search engine on his blog and thinks it's pretty good. So I decided to give it a try and see for myself how good it is.

My first question is - what is it and how is it different to normal search? From the website:

A swicki is new kind of search engine that allows anyone to create deep, focused searches on topics you care about. Unlike other search engines, you and your community have total control over the results and it uses the wisdom of crowds to improve search results. This search engine, or swicki, can be published on your site. Your swicki presents search results that you're interested in, pulls in new relevant information as it is indexed, and organizes everything for you in a neat little customizable widget you can put on your web site or blog, complete with its very own buzz cloud that constantly updates to show you what are hot search terms in your community.

Sounds promising.

Creating a swicki for this blog that's running on TypePad was very easy - you don't need access to the templates, just create it in a new TypeList. You can see it here in the right-hand column a couple of clicks down.

If you use it, do let me know what you think of it. I'll be doing the same.

Organizing for the New Year

Housekeeping's on my mind today.

After enjoying Christmas in the UK with family, and being almost wholly switched off from the blogosphere for the best part of a week, I'm finding it quite refreshing to sit in front of my desktop PC today and think not about blogging but about hardware, software and sorting out a few things.

So with clients on holiday and little work pressure for another week or so, I'm focused on spending some quality time on re-organizing my computing environment as well as playing around with some cool toys I picked up while in the UK.

First up, putting in place a better file backup system than I currently have. I bought a new external hard drive, a Western Digital Essential External USB2 Hard Drive, 160 gigs capacity (but will that really be enough?). My first purchase of a WD hard drive: I've always bought Maxtor until now. Mind you, I'm still keeping it in the family.

Already installed - literally, just plug it in - and the first full system backup done with Norton Ghost.

Ghost isn't the software I'll use for regular file backups, though. A great review in PC World magazine took me to SimpleTech and their StorageSync product which fits the bill nicely for easily backing up documents, images, podcasts, video, etc. I'll also be able to access the WD drive from other PCs on my network.

Which takes me to my next housekeeping task - sorting out my home network.

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #98: December 29, 2005

Content summary: Say goodbye to 'Intel inside'; Swicki search; businessman wins spam email lawsuit; PR Value Ratio measurement concept; Podzinger out of beta; listeners' comments discussion; pithy online communications; CEO tagging; PR issues for Alaska Airlines; the music.

Show notes for December 29, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 60-minute conversation recorded live from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Concord, California, USA.

Download the file here (MP3, 24MB), 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 Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

In this Edition:

Intro:

• 00:27 Neville introduces the show, what the show's about, where to send your comments
• 01:28 Relaxing during the Christmas/Hannuka holiday: blogging, movies and Broadway

News Briefs:

• 04:01 Say goodbye to 'Intel Inside' as Intel prepares for a new corporate identity
• 10:09 Shel's experimenting with Swicki search
• 15:13 Businessman wins first-of-its-kind spam email lawsuit
• 17:20 Katie Paine's PR Value Ratio communication measurement concept - an effective measure? Shel's keen but Neville's cynical (and John Wagner says PR shouldn't waste its time on measurement)
• 25:34 Search podcasts with Podzinger, now out of beta
• 27:39 A shoutout from Katie Paine (coincidentally)

Listeners' Comments Discussion:

• 27:52 Tom Raftery enjoys listening to FIR in his car but has one complaint

Features:

• 31:10 Do communications online need to be more pithy?
• 34:33 Tagging into the mind of the CEO - Neville's keen but Shel's cynical
• 41:44 Blogging Alaska Airlines' flight emergency - looks like big PR issues for the airline

Outro:

• 52:44 Shel wraps the show; a week from today is show #100; how and where to send your comments; where to find the show notes
• 55:07 Outro podsafe music via the Podsafe Music Network - Sparkle Star by Bubble

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are now posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the home page for info.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com, or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803. 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 Monday January 2...

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

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #97: December 26, 2005

Content summary: A tag-based search engine, hijacked blogs, censorshop at MySpace, Typepad and Salesforce.com apologize for outages, the New York transit strike, the French parliament encourages Web piracy, a cell phone movie contest, listener comments, and more.

Show notes for December 26, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 62-minute conversation recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and almost live from Wokingham, Berkshire, UK.

Download the file here (MP3, 25.1MB), 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 Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

In this Edition:

Intro:

• 00:30 Shel introduces the show. Neville's not with us today. Where to send comments.

News Briefs:

• 02:02 Wink is a new search engine based on tags
• 05:26 Blog posts are being stolen and put on blogs that make money through Google Ad Words
• 09:24 MySpace censored references and links to YouTube
• 15:28 SixApart apologizes for its outage, provides compensation, and promises improvements to communication channels
• 18:45 Salesforce.com apologizes for its outage, offers no compensation, and points the finger elsewhere
• 21:25 Neville checks in from the UK
• 22:41 The New York Transit strike results in increased visits to Internet poker sites
• 26:37 France welcomes download piracy
• 29:35 Neville checks RSS feeds using FreeNews on his Nokia N70
• 31:05 A contest for high school and college students seeks short films shot with cell phone cameras

Listener Comments Discussion

• 37:10 A shoutout from Heidi Miller
• 37:32 Sallie Goetsch on ghost-written blogs
• 38:16 Shel broadens the topic to include links in blogs based on Shel Israel's slam on Richard Edelman's blog
• 39:24 Shel discusses the idea of rules governing what's right and wrong in blogging
• 43:06 Sallie Goetsch on women, gadgets and age
• 49:15 Les Posen's audio comment on Microsoft's product placement efforts on "The Apprentice"
• 58:39 Shel responds with thoughts on integrating product placement with open source marketing
• 51:29 John Umbaugh comments on what he gets out of the show
• 52:52 John offers some constructive criticism for the show; Shel responds

Outro:

• 57:28 Shel closes the show with reminders to send comments and notes that the show notes at on the show blog and cross-posted to Shel's and Neville's blogs
• 59:14 Outro podsafe music via the Podsafe Music Network - Artist: Amplifico; Track: "All Your Sins"

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are now posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the home page for info.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com, or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803. 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, December 29...

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

Christmas wishes

This blog and the blogger are taking a break for Christmas. Back here just in time for the New Year.

Not wholly disconnected, though. I'll be mobile. Still a fascination for my Nokia N70 and what I can do with it that goes far beyond just making calls.

So I expect to be Lifeblogging photos to my moblog. Reading my RSS feeds with FreeNews, a very neat RSS reader for mobile phones. I'll be surfing the web with the new Opera Mobile Browser, definitely the best browser for mobiles. Catching up with listening to some podcasts.

And I'll be spending a bit of time later next week on my new WordPress blog in preparation for the move there.

Most of all, though, now's the time for family and friends. So I really don't expect to be spending all the time with things like gadgets.

Unless Santa Claus arrives with something really cool. Like a new iPod, say... :)

Finally, do listen to If Every Day Were Christmas, a collaborative song by 32 singers from 9 countries - a group collectively known as Podsafe for Peace - all brought together by the populist phenomenon of podcasting and the desire to pool their talents for a worthy cause (remember Do They Know It's Christmas and We Are The World 20 years ago?).

The driver behind Podsafe for Peace is Adam Curry; read the press release for the full story.

As this song is podsafe, Shel and I played it as the outro music in show #96 yesterday of FIR:The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast. If you buy this song for just 99 cents US, all proceeds will go to UNICEF, which aids children in need around the world.

Best wishes for Christmas, everyone.

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #96: December 22, 2005

Content summary: GM uses video iPod in media relations campaign; a Christmas shopping tale; we're all tech junkies now; Eric Schwartzman's interview with Doug Kaye; listeners' comments discussion; measuring communication old and new; Dan York's report; the music.

Show notes for December 22, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 72-minute conversation recorded live from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Concord, California, USA.

Download the file here (MP3, 29MB), 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 Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon).

In this Edition:

Intro:

• 00:30 Neville introduces the show; what the show’s about; how to contribute your comments; Wednesday's interview with Andy Abramson; thoughts about what to do on our 100th show

News Briefs:

• 05:11 Weber Shandwick delivers a video iPod with pictures and video as part of a media kit for the Saturn Sky
• 08:23 Online shops experience a last-minute holiday shopping rush
• 10:09 The growth in online shopping
• 11:19 Women get more into high-tech gadgets
• 15:03 Ipsos study on addiction to high-tech gadets

Eric Schwartzman's Interview:

• 18:27 Eric interviews Doug Kaye
• 19:34 Formats: News podcasts vs. feature podcasts
• 20:15 Privitization of the Net
• 22:29 Licensed music on podcasts
• 24:04 How to get the entire interview
• 24:43 Neville talks about podcasts as conversations

Listeners' Comments Discussion:

• 26:46 Shel Israel gives us a shoutout
• 27:22 Michael Soulier comments on Google's ability to index sites (in reference to the European Publishers' lawsuit seeking to stop the practice)
• 30:17 Michael hates the word "webinar"
• 32.21 Michael comments on IT staff who want to control content
• 32:59 Michael points us to a Firefox extension that lets you customize Google
• 33:23 Michael Kirpatrick on the Peppercom survey and the lack of RSS feeds at the Daily Dog
• Clarence Jones discusses outages at Typepad and del.icio.us
• 42:32 Heather Hamilton on whether podcasters will fill the drive-time void left by Howard Stern
• 45:29 Craig Jolley discusses the "horizontal knowledge" article by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
• 47:52 Vishnu Mahmoud asks about PR performance measurement in new media

Features:

• 48:50 Neville and Shel discuss measurement vs. monitoring in public relations

A Report from Dan York:

• 56:07 Dan introduces his segment
• Dan liked our Show #91, the discussion of the future of public relations
• 56:49 Dan also liked our interview with Rick Klau and has some positive thoughts about FeedBurner's MyBrand
• 58:02 Dan's thoughts about My Journal's excellent record vs. Typepad's outages
• 59:21 Dan discusses the idea of the ultimate "subscribe" button for RSS feeds
• 60:26 Dan introduces Local Frappr
• 61:18 Dan likes the as well as Paul Figgiani's podcast, The Point
• 62:05 Dan has a good reason for Neville and Shel to keep the H&H Report under 75 minutes
• 64:12 Dan's background music was "If Every Day Were Christmas" by Podsafe for Peace
• 64:36 Neville comments on the not-yet-ubiquitous use of the Firefox RSS symbol

Outro:

• 65:66 Shel closes the show with reminders to send comments and notes that the show notes at on the show blog and cross-posted to Shel's and Neville's blogs
• 67:18 Outro podsafe music via the Podsafe Music Network - If Every Day Were Christmas by Podsafe for Peace (note, $1 purchase at Podsafe for Peace benefits UNICEF)

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are now posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the home page for info.

If you have comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for our future shows, email us at fircomments@gmail.com, or call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803. 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 Monday December 26...

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

A fortuitous move in a boom-and-bust tech business

Wall Street Journal: Seagate Technology has agreed to pay $1.9 billion in stock to buy rival Maxtor Corp. The transaction unites two of the biggest makers of computer disk drives, a boom-and-bust business in which Seagate has long played the role of consolidator.

I've bought and installed quite a few hard drives in my time. In nearly every case, I've always bought Maxtor drives as I've always felt they were the best brand. Better than Seagate, better than Western Digital, better than any other.

No real evidence to prove they were the best, purely perception and then experience with the brand.

Anyway, as the Journal says, hardware is boom and bust, a commodity business today, and the marketplace is a tough one:

[...] Disk drives are in heavy demand to store data in computers and a growing array of consumer products. But competition is fierce, forcing manufacturers to keep boosting the storage capacities of their products while driving down prices.

By acquiring Maxtor, Seagate hopes to drive a larger volume of products through its network of factories, boosting the utilization of those plants and increasing profit margins. The deal is expected to boost Seagate's earnings per share on a cash basis after the first full year of combined operations, they said, though Seagate may not retain all the revenue Maxtor now generates.

A tougher market still for traditional drive manufacturing with flash-based storage gaining market traction. So Seagate's acquisition could be fortuitous, says Business Week. Or maybe not if a differently-focused market assessment from Forbes is any guide.

I think BW has it right.

Window shopping

"Displax developed by Edigma combines rear projection holographic screens with finger tracking to bring interactive storefront displays to retailers and various commercial applications. Displax® - Interactive Window allows human interaction in a shop window, with multimedia applications, emission and record of sounds, detection of human presence in front of the display, etc."

Not exactly hot news as this product came to market in 2004 from the Portuguese company Edigma. But cool technology that you can just see soon making its way into the High Street.

The photo's hot, though.

(Via Marketingfacts.nl)

FIR Interview - Andy Abramson, CEO, Comunicano - December 21, 2005

In this edition of For Immediate Release podcast interviews, Shel and Neville enjoyed a 58-minute conversation with Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano, the PR agency behind the blog relations campaign for the Nokia N90 smartphone.

Download the conversation here (MP3, 23MB), or sign up for the Interviews RSS feed to get it and our future interviews automatically. For automatic synchronization with your iPod or other digital player, you’ll also need a podcatcher such as the free Juice, DopplerRadio, iTunes or Yahoo! Podcasts, or an RSS aggregator that supports podcasts such as FeedDemon. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, sign up for the full RSS feed.

About our Conversation Partner:

Andy Abramson is the founder of Comunicano, Inc, a boutique marketing consultancy geared to providing clients with a full service agency, senior advising and marketer-in-residence services to start-ups, companies in transition and established brands with regard to marketing, advertising, public relations, promotion, events and reputation management. He is also co-founder, President and Senior Strategy Officer of The Next Box, Inc, a virtual marketing service agency.

A veteran of the marketing and public relations industry, Andy has over 31 years of experience in all facets of marketing and corporate communications. In addition to his daily marketing and public relations activities Andy also co-hosts "The World Technology Round Up," a daily technology webcast that is heard via KenRadio.com and its syndication partners, by more than 200,000 daily listeners around the globe. He has also served as the BBC's Consumer Electronics Market analyst in the USA at CES, and was seen in 46 countries and 45 PBS stations, by more than 11 million people. Along with Rutkowski, Abramson co-hosts the annual San Diego Telecom Council's GadgetFest, each fall, a preview event of the newest and coolest consumer technology products around.

Often quoted both in the consumer and industry press, Andy authors VoIPWatch, a daily weblog.

Interview Segment Time Points:

• Detailed show notes to come.

Podsafe intro music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

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