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.)

Salesforce.com and Six Apart outages: What's the difference?

The anger and frustration over the TypePad service outage last week was an interesting phenomenon. Bloggers are passionate and opinionated!

So when I read an InfoWorld story about Salesforce.com's service outage yesterday, I wondered what bloggers were saying.

A quick Technorati search on the term "salesforce.com+outage" turned up just 10 posts. In contrast, a Technorati seartch on the term "typepad+outage" turned up over 240 posts, the majority of which appeared very quickly indeed after the outage.

Likewise, little mainstream media coverage on the Saleforce.com problem compared to the TypePad one. And a post on SalesForceWatch.com says there was little communication by the company about the outage (sounds familiar) with more info coming from users (ditto).

Why so little blog commentary? Don't Salesforce.com users care as much as TypePad users? Maybe they're not as passionate? Maybe they don't blog. Or is it because this is about a formal, structured customer relationship management system as compared to an informal, social communication medium?

Answers, please, on a postcard to the usual address ;)

Video publishing and other cool things

Interesting developments with video, blogs and mobile phones.

Videos of the panel sessions at Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris earlier this month are now available from Vpod.tv, a new video publishing venture from entrepreneur Rodrigo Sepúlveda. You can stream the video (amazing quality) or download the files (big, +/- 200 megs each).

(Now's your chance to relive, or see for the first time, the famous Mena and dotBen spat in high-quality video - wind forward to about 17:25 in this video.)

Vpod, or "video publishing on demand," looks a very interesting concept. I'm finding it hard to find any detailed info about it, though. The bare-bones website via a Frappr group gives you an opportunity to sign up to test the offering, which I've now done.

One of the panelists in the podcasting/videocasting session I moderated at Les Blogs 2.0 was Gabe McIntyre, the man behind Xolo.tv and the video bloggers forum. Amsterdam-based Gabe produces a regular video show and interviews some interesting people. Will this develop into a European Rocketboom?

There's YouTube, a kind of Flickr-for-video concept, where anyone can upload video for anyone else to view. With this free service, you can blog the videos you take with your digital camera or mobile phone. This is a serious venture with financial backing from venture capital firm Sequoia Capital.

Finally, news via entrepreneur and Maxthon partner Netanel Jacobsson of a hot new video service for mobile phones from Samsung Mobile that will be launched on 24 December.

The service, called AnyFilms.net, has two primary offerings - short movies by up-and-coming directors to download for viewing on certain models of Samsung mobile phones, and interactive movies where you determine the storyline. Although it's not yet been launched, the website is already live.

I agree with Net - this could be very big indeed:

[...] The success of iPod Video combined Video Podcasting is obviously spinning off to our mobile phones. And that’s easy to understand, video is hot, videos produced by users themselves is even hotter - and when all this will be possible on handsets with high-quality digital video cameras - enabling users to create their own films on the fly - upload and share them - this market is just going to explode. For what is more compelling? A Blog, a Podcast or a Videocast ?

Net has the full scoop here.

The angels of the north ride again

Following the success of last month's one-day conference at the University of Sunderland on RSS, blogs and other new media tools, the event is going on the road with another conference in February.

Delivering The New PR – How Blogs, Podcasts and RSS Can Work For You (PDF) will take place on Wednesday 15 February 2006 at the Lancashire County Cricket Club at Old Trafford near Manchester, England. One of the holy grails of English cricket!

The same team as before will be leading the discussions - Philip Young (the event architect), Chris Rushton, Tom Murphy, Elizabeth Albrycht, Stuart Bruce and me, Neville Hobson. I'll be focusing on podcasting for business.

Here's what's in it for you:

[...] Conference delegates will leave with practical information that provides tangible, deliverable business/organisational benefits including :

• Awareness of potential opportunities/threats of web logs for public and private sector PR teams.
• Access to the latest, comprehensive research into how newsrooms want and use PR -sourced information.

The conference is open to all communications professionals and will be equally relevant to practitioners in the public, voluntary and private sectors. Although conference themes and materials will include hands-on practical information, sessions are aimed at decision-makers with a strategic overview.

Participating costs £125 +VAT for CIPR members; £145 +VAT for everyone else. You can sign up online via the event manager, Don't Panic Projects (what a great name). Limited places so sign up early.

So if you're in the north of England and want to find out how you can integrate the new media ecosystem with your PR (or just savour the cricket atmosphere even in February), this will be a great learning experience for you.

Write and post to your blog from Performancing for Firefox

This is very nice indeed - Performancing, an extension for Firefox 1.5 that enables you to use write a post and publish it to your blog just by using Firefox.

It may be just an extension but it's a pretty powerful one. It's a full-featured editor that presents you with the kind of editing interface that makes it easy for anyone to write and publish a post (and you can also switch to code view if that's your preference).

Setting it up is simplicity itself - run the config wizard, answer a couple of questions, provide your blog log-in info and you're done. For configuring a TypePad blog, you then get your full list of categories - essential to have that.

So, very impressive after a quick run around the block with it. The only thing I can't see functionality for is including trackback URLs. Maybe I'm just not seeing where that is. If it's missing, then that's a big negative. No spell checker either. But it is a beta.

I've written and published this post using Performancing. This gives Flock a run for its money, no question. How does it stack up against offline editors like ecto or BlogJet?

I'll play with it some more to get a sense of that.

[Edit] Ok, I'm editing from within TypePad. The post did publish fine but it did not carry through the categories I'd set. Those categories were shown in the post in the list of posts but did not appear in the published post. So manually fixed. Same problem I experienced with Flock last month.

One other thing, too - no means of pinging.

Still, a very impressive tool.

Looking to the next billion internet users

The internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users, says web usability guru Jakob Nielsen. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, mostly in Asia, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

Nielsen's latest Alertbox report yesterday is packed with useful information and fascinating statistics on the growth of the internet and what that means for literally every person on this planet.

Highlights:

- According to Morgan Stanley estimates, 36% of internet users are now in Asia and 24% are in Europe. Only 23% of users are in North America. [What about Latin America? Africa? Some ideas of stats for those geographies here.]

- It took 36 years for the internet to get its first billion users. The second billion will probably be added by 2015, ie, in just ten years; most of these new users will be in Asia. The third billion will be harder, and might not be reached until 2040.

- Overall, the internet's growth has been truly remarkable. Ten years ago, the 'net was mostly used by geeks; now it's the default way to do business in many countries. In Nielsen's US and European B2B studies, many business professionals said they visit a company's website as the first step in researching potential vendors.

- The billion-user internet is a highly diverse environment that has moved far beyond the elite in Silicon Valley and other global technology hubs. There are hundreds of millions of old people online, and there are even more users without fancy graduate degrees. Users are not like you, and the difference between elite and mainstream users is getting bigger every day.

- US market share and Silicon Valley buzz will become less important than international use as the metric for judging the potential of companies and technologies. The Mac, for example, already matters less than you think. Although it has a prominent role in the US, it's hard to refer to a company with single-digit market share as "dominant." In Asia, the Mac is practically nonexistent.

And Nielsen's concluding point:

Putting aside the details of how to make the multi-billion-user Web work, the very fact that it's realistic to expect a second billion users points to interactive media's compelling value. People all over the world are experiencing unprecedented levels of empowerment: being able to do things is why the Web has grown so fast, and will continue to grow for years to come.

Read the full report.

Biz-Tech-News: Headlines 20-Dec-05

• Australian Daylight Savings Changes for Microsoft Windows for the Year 2006
• Happy Web 2.0 holidays from Google
• Heathrow gets third hotspot option
• iPod headphones may damage hearing
• Jeff Jarvis officially has more influence than Dell does
• On Mac, Skype Sucks CPU
• Outage Update and Keeping Updated
• Paris Metroblogging live
• Quick thoughts on the Google/AOL Deal
• Softbank, Yahoo link up with video service
• State of the Future and a Call to Action
• Technorati adds new features
• The 10 Hottest Minds in Hollywood
• The Engadget Interview: Rob Glaser, founder and CEO of RealNetworks
• Toyota on target to overtake GM
• Wikipedia Erects Accuracy Firewall
• World Economic Forum Survey: Trust in Governments, Corporations and Global Institutions Continues to Decline
• Yahoo! Small Business Hosting's Deceptive Advertising

(Post quickly created from RSS feeds in FeedDemon using the linkdump stylesheet.)

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #95: December 19, 2005

Content summary: Latest survey on corporate blogging; the declining trust in corporations; Google buys AOL stake; Pheedo study on ads in RSS; Gmail on cell phones; Topix.net accepts user content; Steve Rubel quits Across the Sound; Lee Hopkins' report; listeners' comments discussion (why blogs and wikis are so good; a Christmas list for communicators); does blogging equal transparency?; the TypePad communication crisis for Six Apart; upcoming interview; the music.

Show notes for December 19, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 95-minute conversation recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Download the file here (MP3, 38MB), 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:

• 00:28 Shel introduces the show; what the show’s about; how to contribute your comments; upcoming interview on Wednesday December 21 with Andy Abramson on Nokia's blog relations campaign; update on the FIR Frappr community

News Briefs:

• 02:37 Latest corporate blogging survey highlights commercialization and ghost-writing as major concerns by PRs and marketers
• 07:37 World Economic Forum survey on the declining trust in government, corporations and global institutions - the results aren't good
• 11:56 Google buys stake in AOL; changes afoot with how advertising may be incorporated in search results and elsewhere
• 16:22 Pheedo study shows stand-alone ads in RSS feeds are highly influential on click-through rates
• 19:11 Gmail now available on your mobile phone
• 22:58 Topix.net acccepts user news contributions - a further sign of convergence between mainstream media and citizen journalists
• 24:57 Steve Rubel steps down from Across the Sound - what impact will the loss of one of the two co-hosts have on the podcast?

From Our Correspondent Down Under:

• 28:58 Lee Hopkins reports - a proud father with a hoarse voice; a wrong font and bad syntax; aligning all the pieces of the puzzle for 'nuanced communication'

Listeners' Comments Discussion:

• 38:28 David Phillips with the reasons why blogs and wikis are so good and such a threat to the control freaks
• 42:29 David again, with an audio Christmas list for communication professionals

Features:

• 47:39 Does blogging equal transparency? An issues discussion on the IABC Chair blog
• 58:31 The consequences for Six Apart following the TypePad service outage on December 16 - what happened, customer relationship issues, Six Apart's communication efforts (including podcast interview), blogger conversations; comments from Sebastian Keil and Dennis Howlett; what now for Six Apart: business issues and the role of communication. Tell us your views on this issue.

Outro:

• 90:45 Neville wraps the show; how and where to send your comments; reminder of interview on Wednesday December 21 with Any Abramson; where to find the show notes
• 91:54 Outro podsafe music via the Podsafe Music Network - Did You Think by Adrina Thorpe

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are 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 22...

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

TypePad's indelible record

Noodling around the web and the blogosphere in preparation for tonight's podcast discussion about Six Apart's TypePad outage last Friday, I noticed that in the majority of blog posts I scanned, the bloggers concerned were apologizing for their blogs being offline.

"Indelible record" is the phrase that immediately springs to my mind. All those hundreds of posts that a) each talk about the TypePad outage and b) apologize for it means that it should hardly surprise any one that, when they do their Google searches for TypePad- or Six Apart-related content in weeks and months (even years) ahead, such negative-commentary posts will show up high in those search results.

Not the kind of search engine optimization you would have in mind.

And just look at the blogosphere spike in references on Friday to TypePad as shown in this Blogpulse trend graph:

This is a long term, and undoubtedly damaging, consequence for Six Apart of last Friday's outage.

Technorati: typepad

Life is not a box of chocolates

So you're a customer, you're seriously angry and you have a blog. No prizes for guessing what you do.

You blog it, as Guillaume has done today:

[...] I am furious to a point you can't possibly imagine, but thankfully I live in Paris, and I am going to go back to the shop, and let me tell you I am going to write here exactly the way they are going to react. Hope they know what customer service means. Hope also they heard about the blogosphere...

Following with interest, Guillaume.

Clearly you have The Social Customer Manifesto pinned on your notice board ;)

Six Apart: Perceptions and the role of communication

This is clearly not a good time for some companies offering blogosphere services.

Last week it was Six Apart's nightmare with the TypePad service outage for almost a full day. Now it's the turn of del.icio.us which is still suffering in the aftermath of a power failure at their datacenter last week.

If you try and access the popular social bookmarking service now, you'll get an error message. The del.icio.us blog has a couple of posts explaining the problem and what they're doing to fix it.

In both cases, are these simply the kinds of technical problems you can't really foresee no matter how good your forward planning is? Or are they the result of poor forecasting and business planning? And what about communication?

On the face of it, the issue facing del.icio.us does look as though it's just an IT disaster. Their blog posts make that quite clear (and take a look at the comments to those posts - overwhelmingly supportive).

In Six Apart's case, some people are arguing that their service problems are the result of pretty poor business and IT management and should have been anticipated and, therefore, prevented. Others are saying it's the type of technical disaster no one could have foreseen and criticisms are unfair.

Whatever the reason, many TypePad users will be taking stock of what happened last week and making some decisions on what they want to do - stick with the service or find an alternative which, for some, will be a move away from hosting. For others, it will be to a different hosted service (prediction: the new WordPress.com hosted blog service will be a particular gainer here).

For businesses, though, the picture's not so clear cut. Perhaps, as some are saying, TypePad just doesn't cut it for business no matter what Six Apart is planning for the future.

I'm in the process of moving from TypePad to a new blog running on a server that I manage. I planned this move back in July so it's certainly not a decision I've taken because of the TypePad issues last week and in October (although last week's outage has most definitely influenced my planning to complete the move more quickly).

I'd originally intended to go with Movable Type but decided instead on WordPress for my primary new blog. (And, by the way, I'm not deserting TypePad after my move - I'm fully paid up through next August so I plan to keep my new moblog going on TypePad.)

Which brings me to communication.

It seems to me that Six Apart's communication during and after last Friday's service disruption left a lot to be desired. I'm speaking now as a TypePad customer and user. So communication as in what you saw on your screen when you tried to access a TypePad blog during the outage or log in to your TypePad account (you couldn't do either for much of Friday).

Neither comforting nor helpful for many customers, provoking concern, worry and anger.

More importantly, though, what should and could Six Apart have done better or more effectively to let the world know what was going on in a rapidly-evolving situation? Anil Dash made some observations on this during a podcast interview (MP3, 11Mb) with Technorati's Niall Kennedy (transcript here).

Was this enough? Will it make a difference to anyone's perception today on the reliability of TypePad? Mixed views in the blogosphere, it seems. And what should Six Apart be doing now?

Shel and I will be discussing this and related points in today's edition of For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast which we'll be recording early evening Amsterdam time.

Tune in and then tell us what you think.

Getting back up to speed with TypePad

A welcome sight for every TypePad customer - you can access the TypePad service again and you can update your blog to reflect accurate content.

(Quick jump: I've included some tips below on how to republish your blog and how to make a backup of its post content.)

If you didn't visit this blog at all yesterday, you won't have noticed the lack of latest content nor that the blog was offline for much of the day as a consequence of the complete outage of TypePad service for about 18 hours. As I have a WordPress blog in addition to this one on TypePad, I was able to post during Friday, including further commentary about this matter here. (Take a look at the comments in both of those posts.)

From a quick scan around this morning on what bloggers are saying and what some mainstream media are saying about yesterday's service outage, it's pretty clear that Six Apart have quite a job on their hands now to rebuild some credibility as to the ongoing reliability - perhaps even its viability - of the TypePad service.

More on this later.

In the meantime, I'm sure one question on every TypePad customer's mind will be - did I lose any of my stuff during this loss of service?

According to Six Apart, no. I'd agree with that view purely from what I'm seeing on this blog. Everything is there and now up to date (but see below). If you have a blog with lots of photos - a photo album, for instance, or a moblog like mine - you'll likely encounter lots of blanks where you expect to see your photos.

Don't panic, though - all the data is still there, according to Six Apart. While they will be working during the weekend to get everyone's blogs up-to-date, you can do this yourself by republishing your entire blog again, as follows:

Republish your blog

1. Log in to your TypePad account.
2. Click on the names of one of your blog accounts (or the only one). You should now be at this location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name].
3. in the Weblog Editing Shortcuts column on the right, click on the link under Design that says "Edit your current design." You should reach a page entitled "Edit current design for [blog name]."
4. Location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name] > Design.
5. Scroll down that page until you see at the bottom two buttons: "Preview" and "Republish weblog."
6. Click the obvious one!
7. You'll get a pop-up window with a drop-down list of choices. Make sure that list says "Publish all files" (it should as this is the default choice).
8. Click on "Publish."
9. Wait until it's done and then visit your blog to check. All should be up-to-date. You might need to force a refresh so that your browser reloads the blog from the server rather than from your browser's cache. In Windows, you can do this by pressing F5 or holding down the shift key as you click on the refresh icon in your browser.

I did precisely that for this blog and for my moblog (although the moblog didn't update all the pics - blank ones sport the legend "Image being restored this weekend"- so that will wait for Six Apart to complete their updating).

Next, do your own backup of the content of your blog. Here's how:

Backup your blog

1. Log in to your TypePad account.
2. Click on the names of one of your blog accounts (or the only one). You should now be at this location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name].
3. Above the blog name towards the top of the page, you'll see a row of links. The one you're looking for says "Import/Export."Click on that.
4. Location: TypePad home > Your Weblogs > [Blog name] > Post > Import/Export.
5. Scroll to the very bottom of the page, where you'll see a link called "Export Posts from your TypePad Weblog: [blog name]."
6. In Windows, right click on that link and choose "Save link as..." (Firefox) or "Save target as..." (Internet Explorer).
7. You're done.

What you'll have a is a plain-text file saved to your computer that contains all the text content of your blog, including all comments and trackbacks. What the file doesn't have is any image from your blog. But you have the originals on your PC, right?

Now, back to normal blogging!

Technorati: Six Apart, typepad.

The Hobson and Holtz Report - Podcast #94: December 15, 2005

Content summary: Personal video uploads at YouTube.com: the new 'Flickr for video'; self-destruct SMS messaging; the Structured Blogging Initiative; are Nielsen TV ratings headed for extinction?; Wikipdia gets high ratings for accuracy of science entries; listeners' comments discussion (PR and propaganda; show format and length; Nokia N90 blog relations campaign; emotional links; working with IT departments; blog fear of visibility); a meeting of communicators and discovering new media; Syndicate conference; Eric Schwartzman's interview extract with Marcus Chan, San Francisco Chronicle; the music.

Show notes for December 15, 2005

Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 68-minute conversation recorded live from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Concord, California, USA.

Download the file here (MP3, 27MB), 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:

• 00:25 Neville introduces the show; what the show’s about; how to contribute your comments

News Briefs:

• 02:40 Upload your videos to YouTube.com - the new 'Flickr for video'
• 05:33 Self-destruct SMS messaging on your mobile phone
• 08:50 The buzz about the Structured Blogging Initiative
• 12:26 Are Nielsen TV ratings headed for extinction?
• 16:03 Wikipedia rated highly by Nature magazine for accuracy of science entries

Listeners' Comments Discussion:

• 19:31 Howard Harawitz with more on PR and propaganda and asks what professional associations should be saying on ths issue
• 22:13 Gershon Schwartz offers some politically-flavoured thoughts on PR and propaganda, and adds that he enjoys FIR
• 25:44 Henry Abbott likes the show and supports our plan to keep it to an hour (!); some advice on radio presenting techniques; Urchin reports on inbound links
• 27:05 Jeff Clavier on the show's format change: "About time :)"
• 28:13 Brad Bellaver listened to the FIR interview with Sedgwick CMS, thinks an internal podcast was great for them, and asks: What has to happen to allow podcasting to be something communicators can really use as an internal and external  communication tool?
• 33:12 Andy Abramson on the Nokia N90 blog relations campaign (FIR interview with Andy coming up on Wednesday December 21.)
• 36:16 David Phillips on the emotional links between iPods, cell phones and people
• 38:29 Sallie Goetsch recounts her good experiences in working with IT departments
• 42:01 Heather Hamilton on the fear of making oneself 100% visible when starting blogging
• 44:21 A shoutout from Mike Manuel

Features:

• 44:42 Neville talks about 'light bulb moments' at a client meeting today
• 48:48 Shel visited the Syndicate conference and met up with lots of interesting people, including Eric Schwartzman
• 50:14 The Spinfluencer - Eric Schwartzman interviews Marcus Chan, podcast editor at the San Francisco Chronicle

Outro:

• 62:11 Shel wraps the show; how and where to send your comments; where to find the show notes; good info on RSS in last Tuesday's interview with Rick Klau of FeedBurner
• 63:24 Outro podsafe music via the Podsafe Music Network - From This Day by Rocket City Riot

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are 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 19...

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

FT: 'Tolerate some libel for the greater good'

There has been much written in recent weeks concerning the character assassination of John Seigenthaler over his biography in Wikipedia, prompting much discussion over the trustworthiness of an open information resource like Wikipedia which anybody can edit.

The character assassin was outed and Wikipedia is now implementing tighter controls over who can edit material.

The Financial Times has a report that includes a recap of the Siegenthaler affair, and looks at it from the libel point of view. The FT says that under the laws of the internet, Wikipedia cannot be held liable for any mistakes, even defamatory ones, because it is merely hosting other people’s speech which, the FT says, gives it immunity under the 1996 Communications Decency Act in the US.

Individual contributors are liable for what they say online, says the FT, but internet privacy laws make it hard to connect the address of the computer used to post the entry with the name and address of the real human being who typed it.

And the FT says this:

[...] But there is no easy solution to the problem highlighted by the Seigenthaler episode. On one level, it is a welcome reminder that no one should rely on Wikipedia without double-checking its facts through another source. That is easy enough to do, says Wikipedia’s chief legal officer, Jean-Baptiste Soufron. “Just Google it!” he says. And stung by the criticism, the Wiki itself is looking for ways to improve accuracy, including an online rating system that will be tested in the new year.

Politicians may be tempted to react to the incident with stricter regulation – especially if their own biographies are mutilated during next year’s elections, says Mr Seigenthaler. But there are great risks in doing so, says Mr Soufron: without immunity “there would be no Wikipedia – but there would also be no chat rooms, no internet at all”. Professor Ezor [director of the Institute for Business, Law and Technology at Touro Law Centre, New York State] agrees: “Every blogger who allows people to comment would also be at risk.”

The defamed deserve redress – but not at the cost of crippling the interactive potential of the internet. It is worth tolerating a little bit of libel, for the greater good.

The bold text is my emphasis.

My question is simply - what price freedom of speech? The FT has a thought-provoking report and a controversial idea, sure to create continuing debate.

Financial Times | Allow libel to slip through the net (paid sub)

Yahoo! hammered by users over poor successor to Konfabulator

In my post on Monday about software hits and misses, I gave the new Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 a definite 'miss' verdict for the moment as this version for Windows really doesn't appear to be worthy of unleasing on an unsuspecting public as this growing comment thread in the support forum clearly indicates.

When I posted on Monday, that thread had two pages of comments. It's up to five pages now where users are bitterly complaining about so many issues with this successor app to the really great Konfabulator product.

What's interesting is how many of the comments include highly negative opinions about Yahoo! and the perceived damaging affect its purchase of Pixoria, the original developer of Konfabulator, is having on application development. Undoubtedly there are some trolls in there commenting but, nevertheless, here you have lots of Konfabulator users - many of them passionate about that product - who are connecting the problems with this new version with Yahoo's take-over of the original developer.

I doubt there's any connection at all. But it's perception we're talking about here. This perception/connection situation prompted an embattled Ed Voas, the member of the original Konfabulator team in charge of the Windows version, to make this exasperated comment in response to one poster -

Why is this all about Yahoo!? Yahoo's purchase of K is not what caused your upgrade issues. We have always moved older Widgets to an Older Widgets folder when we are moving in the newer ones. That said, it was NOT supposed to move ALL of your Widgets out. I definitely apologize that this is happening, because it's just plain wrong. I was told that Update was working properly. I guess it was not, and it's not something I'm happy about either.

It looks like there are some major disconnects somewhere within Yahoo! application development. It also looks as though they are finalizing a quick fix: from a reply by Ed to another poster -

[...] In any case, I believe I have this fixed now and the fix will be in 3.0.1.

I wonder how many people will treat even the fresh installer with some caution in light of what's happened this week. I for one will get it when it's available but, before installing it, I'll be seeing what's being said in the forum. Meanwhile, I'm comfortably staying with Konfabulator 2.1.1 which works just great.

If I were Yahoo!, I'd be getting that 3.0.1 fix out there asap. There doesn't appear to be any meaningful commentary