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 […]
Category: Marketing
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
An open conversation with General Motors
A few hours ago, Shel and I had the pleasure of an 18-minute conversation with Michael Wiley, Director New Media, GM Communications, at General Motors. We interviewed Michael for the 21 February edition of our bi-weekly podcast show For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report. In our conversation, we discussed the GM FastLane Blog, […]
More media moves into RSS
Following recent news that the Financial Times and The Economist now offer RSS feeds comes more news on other media developments with RSS. Steve Rubel reports that the Associated Press offers 17 RSS feeds. This is the first time AP stories are available directly on the web in RSS as opposed to running through Yahoo […]
Communicators give top marks to GM
On Monday, Shel and I interviewed Michael Wiley of General Motors in our bi-weekly podcast show on business communication and technology. During our conversation with Michael, we discussed a wide range of topics – the GM FastLane Blog, GM’s experiments with podcasting and GM’s plans for further developments with communication channels like blogs, podcasting and […]
CeBIT provides opportunies for engagement
A new wireless network roaming service will be available to visitors attending the annual CeBIT technology trade show in Hanover, Germany, from 10-16 March, InfoWorld reports. T-Systems International, the IT services arm of Deutsche Telekom, will provide a roaming service to subscribers of wireless network operators connected to its international roaming system, according to Christian […]
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 […]
There is no template for executive blogs
A story in the Financial Times earlier this week (title: “Why executives should steer clear of the blogosphere” – paid sub needed to read it) took a critical look at a few blogs by senior company executives, and mentioned a senior HP exec with a blog that I hadn’t seen before. The FT commented (some […]
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 […]
An open conversation with Robert Scoble, Microsoft geek blogger
Yesterday, Shel and I interviewed Robert Scoble, the Scobleizer, in our bi-weekly podcast show, For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report. In a 38-minute conversation, we discussed a wide range of topics, including evangelism, anti-marketing, blogging, RSS and reading feeds, email mailing lists, relationships with colleagues, internal blogs at Microsoft, The Red Couch book […]
Starting a conversation with smart women
Today I have the honour of being featured on Lip-Sticking in the first interview about Smart Bloggers. Yvonne DiVita recently interviewed me by email and posted that interview this morning. I had the great pleasure of meeting Yvonne at the New Communications Forum 2005 conference in California last January. Thanks, Yvonne. I think we’ve started […]
Off-target email marketing
I received a wonderful email offer today from eWeek. The type of marketing email that illustrates a keen awareness of how to make a complete ass of yourself, diminish your chances of success and ruin an opportunity for developing any relationship. As this image shows, a snippet from the email, they’ve offered me a free […]
Brits invade US again at SXSW
My RSS reader this morning is full of posts about SXSW, the South by Southwest Festivals and Conferences taking place in Austin, Texas, from 11-20 March. Most of these posts are about the SXSW Interactive Festival, which runs from 11-15 March. This event “brings together uber-geeks and digital innovators from around the world for four […]
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 […]
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 […]
BeOS gets a new life
Om Malik writes: Hey anyone remember the funky ole BeOS which became such a darling of the hackers, and died a horrible death with Apple chose to buy NextOS and bring back Steve Jobs. Well looks like it is not dead after all, thanks to a German software start-up, Yellow Tab. They have turned BeOS […]
Fake blog cheapens Diageo brand
In writing about how lame he thinks the Captain Morgan’s Rum fake blog is, Joël Céré says: I think it is less bad than the Mazda experiment as at least it allows for comments, and there are regular postings. Although there are some speculations on how such new blog got so many comments so quickly. […]