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 […]
Category: Communication
Get used to transparency, IABC
In yesterday’s edition of The Hobson & Holtz Report, our bi-weekly podcast show, Shel and I talked a little about IABC. We’re talking about IABC a lot these days. Our conversation was a further extension, so to speak, of the critical post by Allan Jenkins that he published last week. Like Shel and I, Allan […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #16: March 17, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: on PR ethics, slowing down podcasts, learning the ins and outs, listening to a ground-breaking first podcast, music and intersection with the past; Podshow.com and lowering the barriers to entry; folksonomies and categorizing your information; new communication channels too early for Europeans; iPodder new release and FeedDemon’s podcasting. Show notes for […]
Are communicators in Europe ready for blogs?
Yesterday’s announcement that the New Communications Forum 2005 conference in Paris next month has been postponed is a huge disappointment. After the resounding success of the first Forum in the US in January (some highlights here), everyone involved was looking forward to a similar experience in Europe. Posted on the Forum blog, the announcement included […]
A popular post can be a double-edged sword
What on earth’s going on? was my reaction at about 3.15pm when I happened to notice the little ‘Visiting NevOn’ Geoloc map showing 26 simultaneous visitors to this blog. I quickly grabbed a screenshot, shown here. The little green circles (or ‘throbbing green doughnuts’ as one visitor has commented) show the countries where current visitors […]
Illustrating unfiltered conversation
Last week, I posted critical commentary about Anita Roddick’s website which I’d discovered when researching information about the enterprise software market (no, there’s no connection between the two – the links you follow when researching on the net can lead you to some interesting places). Anita Roddick is well-known as the founder of The Body […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #17: March 21, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: on suggestions for how to comment, video and vlogging trends, differences between internal blogs and bulletin boards; interview – an open conversation with Steve Rubel; discussion about the interview; planned changes in show format for future interviews. Show notes for March 21, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & […]
New GM podcast hits the right spot
GM posted a new podcast to the GM FastLane Blog yesterday – and hits the right spot with content, production and presentation that validates the concept of this rapidly-emerging medium as a business communication tool. In the style of talk radio – the show is described as ‘FastLane Radio’ – the 12-minute podcast is a […]
The labour of love and tough choices
Reading Robert Scoble’s post this morning that he’s giving up doing his link blog brings home in a very direct way some harsh reality about this blogging caper. It takes up a lot of time! If you run a blog as a labour of love, you will face a crunch sooner or later as you […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #18: March 24, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: on reporting rather than commenting, bulletin boards and blogs, listening on the bus, not listening on the run, fixing a mashup; blogs and communicators in Europe; changing demographics for media; GM’s new podcasts and other podcast developments; open source marketing; IABC; Robert Scoble and time challenges for bloggers; Creative Commons tool […]
The ideas of individuals make a team effective
One of the blogs on my regular RSS reading list is Creating Passionate Users, a collaborative blog by five authors at Head First Books from O’Reilly Media. In a real gem of a post, Kathy Sierra talks about how one of us is smarter than all of us, meaning that it’s not the consensus decisions […]
An open conversation with Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion
Last Monday 21 March, Shel and I interviewed Steve Rubel for The Hobson & Holtz Report bi-weekly podcast. Steve is Vice President Client Solutions at CooperKatz, a New York PR firm, and author of the Micro Persuasion blog. He is arguably the most prominent and influential blogger in the PR profession either side of the […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #19: March 28, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: keep it up, ego boosting and a listening experience; video news releases and responsibilities; relying or not on third-party web services; new tool for tracking where a conversation goes; the Disney mouse that roared; asking the blogosphere for input on policy; the risks of writing and posting without due diligence. Show […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #20: March 31, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: audio comments and a few written ones, too, on VNRs, multimedia search, and new blogs; Elizabeth Albrycht’s advice column; Nielsen-Norman’s top 10 intranets; Microsoft’s newly named stripped-down Windows XP for Europe; new bloggers at GM’s Fastlane blog; Yahoo 360; faux blogs; and monitoring employees’ online behavior. Show notes for March 31, […]
Podcasting the news on the Pope
The health of Pope John Paul is looking increasingly grave, according to all news reports. Things are not looking good at all. One medium I will be following closely is the Catholic Insider, the podcast blog by Father Roderick Vonhögen, catholic priest of the Archdiocese of Utrecht here in The Netherlands. As I write this, […]
Taking Yahoo 360 for a spin
What a dilemma – six invitations to sign up to Yahoo 360°, the new social networking offering from Yahoo that launched in beta earlier this week. Which do I choose? So as not to offend anyone, I’ve accepted the first one I received based on the email date/time stamp. And that was from Mike Manuel. […]
Business cards that gape the void
Great! I’ve just received my repeat order for business cards featuring this Hugh McLeod cartoon on the back. I first ordered these cards just before last Christmas. Just like that original order, this repeat order exceeds my expectations in terms of good-value quality work, reliability of the vendor (StreetCards in London), and simply great and […]
Preparations for Global PR Blog Week 2.0 have started
What Global PR Blog Week 2.0 is an online conference on how new media technologies are changing the practice of public relations and corporate communications. We’re talking weblogs and participatory journalism, wikis, podcasting, and RSS – but the list of topics is open. Global PR Blog Week 2.0 will follow the success of last year’s […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #21: April 4, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments: podcast annotating, indexing and navigating; running VNRs and press releases is shoddy journalism; mainstream media is not the way to go with youth messaging; searching blog feeds for photos, audio and video; Print media will still be around for a while; Darren Barefoot’s not smoking the podcasting dope; Catholic Insider at […]
UK general election called
The UK general election will take place on Thursday 5 May, confirming the date which has been widely rumoured for weeks. Prime Minister Tony Blair made the announcement from Downing Street a short while ago. If the governing Labour Party wins, it will give Blair his third successive term in office as Prime Minister. So […]