Skype has started a blog – and it looks very good indeed. This could be a great example of how a blog can play a key role in building and cementing positive relationships with customers. One of the ongoing criticisms of Skype has been the way in which the company really hasn’t engaged well with […]
Category: Marketing
A business model for podcasting
Software veteran Dan Bricklin (remember VisiCalc?) started podcasting last week: I’ve finally started my own podcast, "Dan Bricklin’s Software Licensing Podcast". It will be a series of interviews and perhaps other material that should be of interest to people who care about the legal and managerial aspects of software licensing in general, Open Source licenses […]
Boeing takes second step with 777 blog
Aircraft maker Boeing launched a new blog ten days ago – Flight Test Journal, a place where the engineers and test pilots of Boeing’s new 777-200LR Worldliner talk about their work in getting the world’s longest-range commercial airplane ready for commercial service. Only two posts so far, but it looks like the scene has been […]
Powerful lessons from eBay
This week’s Economist magazine features eBay on its cover and has a special report about the company, analzying its history, its business model and its future as it marks its tenth year in business. It’s a terrific report and well worth reading if you want to gain some knowledge about one of the most successful […]
Podcasting is no fad
A tip from Constantin Basturea led me to the new travel podcast site from airline Virgin Atlantic, launched last week. Produced for Virgin Atlantic by Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R and Manning Gottlieb OMD, and created by podcast producer Loudish, the first topics in a series of podcasts – guides to New York – is available […]
Blogs are about interaction and influence
Great article in The Independent newspaper yesterday about blogs and the business benefits by James Cherkoff, the advocate for open source marketing. It’s a good overview of what’s happening and makes the case well. None of it will be news to anyone in the business blogging community, but will be a great starting point for […]
Ballmer interview turns communication upside down
Watching Robert Scoble’s video interview with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is the confirmation for me that formal, pre-planned and carefully-controlled organizational communication has now reached an evolutionary end point. Traditionally, planning and managing communication in organizations is a function managed by people skilled in particular areas of communication (corporate, marketing, PR, investor, internal, etc). So […]
Blogger waging war on Land Rover
Yesterday I wrote a brief post about customer relationship issues and Dell and how an influential US blogger had vented his spleen on his blog detailing his negative experiences with the PC maker. I noticed a trackback ping to that post from another blogger who’s waging a war in a blog on car maker Land […]
An opportunity for Land Rover
It looks like all’s well for Adrian Melrose that ends well. Adrian’s the blogger who’s been waging war on Land Rover. In a post this morning on his war blog, Adrian says that he struck a deal with Land Rover yesterday on a replacement Discovery. While the main point in all this – Adrian’s desire […]
GM’s advice to would-be corporate bloggers
To any senior executive on the fence about starting a corporate blog, Bob Lutz, the Vice Chairman of General Motors, has one word of advice: Jump. Writing in Information Week, Lutz says a blog provides no better opportunity to engage in an open dialogue and exchange of ideas with customers and potential customers, illustrating his […]
Now a potential PR issue for Land Rover
It looks like Adrian Melrose’s sorry tale of his experiences with his Land Rover Discovery just took a turn for the worse. From a post this morning on Adrian’s blog: […] So after months of campaigning for Land Rover to take me seriously about the defects in my first Discovery 3 and to agree to […]
The multi-billion dollar Harry Potter phenomenon
Visiting the news shop in my local neighbourhood this lunchtime, I noticed the new Harry Potter book on display in the window. Heh! ‘Noticed’ isn’t the word – this display took up the whole window area. Other displays inside the shop as well with copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Princeeverywhere you looked. Today […]
The portable hot spot arrives
Last Thursday’s New York Times has a story about Junxion Box, a device that lets you set up a mobile multi-user internet connection anywhere you can receive data cellular (mobile phone) service. The NYT’s report says that the device, about the size of a shoebox cover, uses a cellular modem card from a wireless phone […]
Ducati sponsors motorcycle blog
Italian blog portal Blogo.it formally launched Motoblog.it today, a new consumer blog on motorcycles with Ducati as the launch sponsor. This is the first sponsorship for a commercial blog in Europe, says Blogo.it’s Luca Lizzeri, and the first big sponsorship for a blog in Italy. It also represents Ducati’s first step into the blogosphere. Ducati […]
Mobile phone growth key driver for videocasting
Mobile phone sales will exceed one billion handsets a year by 2009 as they become the most common consumer electronics device with 2.6 billion people worldwide using one by then, according to a survey by IT industry analysts Gartner published yesterday, says a Reuters report. Many of these devices will be smartphones with big colour […]
Blog campaign backs Land Rover into a corner
Adrian Melrose’s The Truth About the Land Rover Discovery 3 campaign has shifted up a gear – and Land Rover still don’t appear to be paying attention. This is to do with a very unhappy Land Rover customer and how he’s using his blog as part of his attempts to get satisfaction to his grievances […]
Anti-drug web ads grab attention
Eye-catching, isn’t it? I spotted this web ad on the US News.com site when reading an article about corporate blogging (a very good and well-written article, by the way: see separate post). The ad certainly grabbed my attention. Not only this one – the page also displayed two banner ads, one horizontal the other vertical. […]
Senior executive bloggers make the case for blogging
One of the most well-researched and -written feature articles I’ve seen in mainstream media about executive blogging is published in the 25 July issue of US News & World Report. Entitled Blogging Bosses, the 5-page feature on the website studies senior executives in US organizations with analysis and discussion on why they blog, the effects […]
Logo nostalgia
If you have fond memories of some of the greatest corporate symbols of the past century that are no longer with us, Logo R.I.P is a terrific website to visit for a trip down memory lane. This logo, for instance – the Robertson’s Golly, a famous symbol in the UK for a range of market-leading […]
Reputation at risk from third parties
A story in the Motoring section in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph highlights how simple things that go wrong can become the big things in a customer’s mind that marrs an overall positive impression of an organization and its brands. The story is about writer Patsy Weaver’s mixed experience on a visit to the Mercedes-Benz factory in […]