The GM FastLane Blog is attracting quite a lot of commentary and opinion, with varying views being expressed on how effective it is as a means of engaging with GM’s customers. I’ve posted commentary, too, most recently on the role of PR in its development and some insights on how it started and how commenting […]
Category: Business
Search engine to acquire Bloglines
Search engine Ask Jeeves is rumoured to be buying Bloglines, the online service for searching, subscribing, creating and sharing RSS feeds and blogs. Two things make this news interesting from a communication viewpoint: The formal public announcement apparently isn’t due to be made until Tuesday, but was scooped by Mary Hodder in a post on […]
A snapshot of Google
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reports on Google’s meeting with financial analysts on Wednesday, the first such meeting since the company’s initial public offering last August. Earlier this month, Google reported fourth-quarter earnings that roughly doubled from a year earlier. The Journal’s report (and related reporting, noted below) is helpful in getting to know some aspects […]
GM experiments with podcasting
Not only is General Motors still at the leading edge with executive blogging by a Fortune 100 company, with their GM Fastlane Blog, but they’re also out in front in trying out other new communication channels. In a post yesterday GM offers two podcasts about the launch of two new car models at the Chicago […]
Six Apart may be acquisition target
A speculative story in InternetNews.com discusses the future of Six Apart, asking whether it’s a prime target for Yahoo to add to its portfolio of offerings. The article quotes David Hornik, a Six Apart board member and a partner in August Capital, saying, “Six Apart is not in conversations about being acquired by anyone.” Last […]
Business podcasting is taking off
It’s been interesting reading some of the reactions by business bloggers to General Motors’ first experiment with podcasting last week. This Technorati list has lots of blog commentaries, mostly positive, although most don’t discuss the podcasts from the specific communication point of view. Quick recap: GM produced two MP3 files that they mentioned in a […]
New media could be the saviour for old media
Business Week reports on interesting developments in the newspaper business in France: […] To survive, old-line papers are scouting for deep pockets. Libération found its savior in Rothschild. The conservative Le Figaro, hurt by a 3% drop in sales, was acquired last summer by defense tycoon Serge Dassault for an estimated $1.6 billion. So far, […]
Testing time for Sarbanes-Oxley
Judgment day is fast approaching for US companies grappling with the most complex and expensive provisions in the Sarbanes-Oxley accounting and corporate governance legislation. The Financial Times reports that up to 5,000 large and medium-sized public companies must give detailed summaries about the state of their internal controls in forthcoming annual reports. The reports must […]
Yet more signs for podcasting growth
BBC News: One in 10 adult Americans – equivalent to 22 million people – owns an MP3 player, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. […] MP3 players are still the gadget of choice for younger adults. Almost one in five US citizens aged under 30 have one. […] People are beginning to […]
Start up with unrealistic expectations
Insights into the world of start-ups from Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequioa Capital, one of the most successful venture capital firms in the world. The Financial Times interviewed Moritz and reports his views on some of the biggest successes (and not-so-successes) of the internet era, as well as the pursuit of the next big […]
Blogs and wikis change the dynamics of business
Tom Foremski, publisher of Silicon Valley Watcher and ex-FT correspondent, writes a terrific piece in today’s Financial Times on a new phase of the internet that’s emerging, fuelled by a new class of technologies coming out of Silicon Valley that don’t even have a name yet, but have the potential to be disruptive in their […]
Online media changes traditional demographics
The latest entrant to the world of blogs by mainstream media made its debut yesterday – The Observer newspaper in the UK has a blog. Not only a blog, but podcasts too. The Observer and The Guardian (which owns The Observer) are the only two national newspapers in the UK with blogs. And podcasts. Before […]
It’s about the communication, not the technology
Today marks the beginning of a new venture that brings together four European-based communication professionals to offer organizations something a little different in the field of communication consulting and communication technology. Elizabeth Albrycht, Christophe Ducamp, Guillaume du Gardier and myself have formed Blogging Planet, a new consultancy designed to help companies in Europe and the […]
Blogs keep your customers coming back
An article in today’s Wall Street Journal looks at blogs as an ideal tool to not only drive customers to your online presence but also give them good reasons to keep coming back. The Journal’s story is filled with case studies of successes, a great reference if you’re looking for hard evidence that blogs are […]
Microsoft brings in outside marketing expert for Longhorn
The Financial Times reports today that Microsoft has hired Michael Sievert, a marketing expert who was most recently chief marketing officer of AT&T Wireless, to be in charge of bringing Longhorn to market. Longhorn is the next generation of the Windows operating system, much delayed and now widely expected to be delivered in 2006. The […]
Observer blog is just the start
The Observer newspaper in the UK started a blog last weekend, as I commented on earlier this week. Interesting snippet about what may be coming next (and probably for The Guardian, too, which owns The Observer) from Cory Doctorow on Boing Boing, recounting discussion he had with Ben Hammersley, the journalist responsible for the blog’s […]
New domain address for NevOn
From today, this blog has a new address: http://www.nevon.net/ This reflects domain mapping I’ve implemented at TypePad. The underlying TypePad address is still there and will continue to work. Links to existing posts, the RSS feed, etc, all will continue to work. So you need do nothing if you prefer not to. One consequence of […]
The globalization of English
Newsweek has an excellent feature article in the 7 March issue (this week) of its international edition on how the English language is evolving and changing the way we communicate. The article says "non-native English-speakers" worldwide now outnumber native ones 3 to 1. In Asia alone, Newsweek says, the number of English users has topped […]
The age of media personalization
If the 19th century was the age of the newspaper and the 20th century the age of radio and television, this century will be defined as the age of media personalization, says Reuters CEO Tom Glocer. In a feature in the Financial Times last week, Glocer writes about a simple concept – forget the old […]
Skype is not yet ready for a blog
Stuart Henshall asks whether Skype should start blogging. Will Pate says Skype should. Will makes some very convincing arguments for why they should, including suggesting Skype hires a Chief Blogging Officer to be the new proactive interface between the company and its growing customer base. The CBO, and a blog, would play a major role […]