As I sat at my PC at gone midnight last night, doing email catchup, reviewing comments to various blog posts and RSS feed scanning, I thought – this is ridiculous. I have various software tools that are supposed to help me be more productive and all I’m doing is spending more time on a never-attainable […]
Category: Web/Tech
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #38: June 2, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments (on how to track podcast listeners); fighting email spam – an open source PR project; US government PR gaffe; blogging as a corporate job; more podcasting developments; Boeing’s test pilots’ blog; stealing RSS content. Show notes for June 2, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a […]
Flaky Gmail servers
I’ve been seeing this more frequently in recent days: This is a Gmail error message which pops up from your system tray in Windows when the Gmail notifier – a very useful tool – can’t connect to the Gmail server, with the little icon in the system tray showing an exclamation mark. I realized just […]
PubSub tool measures links in RSS feeds
Blog matching service PubSub has introduced LinkStats, a very cool statistics tool that enables you to see the inbound and outbound links to and from your (or any) blog. Once you enter a blog URL, it will return the results for the past 30 days. Not only do you get a text table listing inbound/outbound […]
Where to get your podcast listed
If you’re a podcaster, you’ll know about some of the places to get your show listed. iPodder.org for one. Podcast Alley and Podscope are two more. But did you know that there are at least 30 places where you can submit your podcast for inclusion in an online directory or search engine? Robin Good has […]
EPIC update 2015
Is this a vision of the very near future? Brazil, 1984, Blade Runner and The Matrix all rolled up into one? Or perhaps an Elliott Carver-esque future but without the mainstream media (or James Bond)? Whatever you might think of how we all will publish and consume news and information in the coming years, and […]
Konfabulator 2 rocks
This says it all about the folks behind the latest version of Konfabulator, an application that lets you run a wide range of programs called widgets on your desktop. (Tech explanation: it’s a JavaScript runtime application that runs little mini-programs, ie, the widgets, on the Mac and Windows operating systems. Also see this explanation in […]
Microsoft tech webcast bonanza
If you can’t get to TechEd US, Microsoft’s annual get-together of IT professionals and software developers, there is a way you can still be part of it. Angus Logan in Australia has a list and links to all the webcasts that will be done from the event which started yesterday and runs until 10 June. […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #39: June 6, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments (on starting a podcast; Boeing’s blogging guidelines; full-time vs. part-time blogging; broken headsets; PR advice for the US government); keeping political commentary away; what’s next for Europe?; Lee’s 4 learnings; finding out who listens; podcasting growth and Apple’s lead; new books on podcasting; guest co-presenter for the next show; some of […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report: Podcast #40 – June 9, 2005
Content summary: Introducing our co-host, Sam Whitmore; Listeners’ comments (on a new iPod-focused wiki and the work involved in creating audio comments); consequences of the isolation of print publications from their online staffs; Neville’s introductory comments from London, including a discussion about an airline survey; the hard-dollar return from online sales and its potential to […]
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 […]
Don’t become an RSS extract
Catching up with RSS feeds since being away for much of the past week, I read BL Ochman’s Why Full Posts in RSS Feeders Don’t Make Sense with some exasperation. As the writer of only three blogs with summary content in an RSS feed that I still read, BL’s argument for not publishing full content […]
Reboot7 talk
Reboot 7.0 took place in Copenhagen last week, an event I’d have loved to have been at (if I hadn’t been presenting at the Communication Directors Forum, I would definitely have been there). Already plenty of talk about presentations, conversations, etc, which you can track via the Technorati tag. That page includes links to other […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #41: June 13, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments (on the linear nature of podcasts, RBLs, organizing thoughts about podcasts); guidelines for employee blogging; the Communication Directors Forum; communication measurement; what if the novelty of blogging wears off?; blogging and engagement; sans-serif or serif fonts?; rebuilding trust; blogs for tourism; the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference; IABC International Conference; Global PR […]
Now 3,600 internal blogs at IBM
Fredrik Wacka posted a great snapshot report yesterday on internal blogging at IBM: Through the central blog dashboard at the intranet W3, IBMers now can find more than 3,600 blogs written by their co-workers. As of June 13 there were 3,612 internal blogs with 30,429 posts. Internal blogging is still at a stage of testing […]
The next wave in video communication
I received a press release in my email overnight from Stuart Jacobson at Santa Cruz Networks announcing vSkype, what looks to be a very cool tool for holding video conference calls via Skype. Skype Journal has the scoop on the story, though, with a detailed post last night by Bill Campbell: Today Santa Cruz Networks […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #42: June 16, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments (on the ROI of intranet blogging, on vidcasting and file storage, Firefox tabs, organizing podcast thoughts, PRs who don’t focus on what’s happening online); sans-serif or serif fonts?; what if the novelty of blogging wears off?; is a corporate blog an oxymoron? Business Week integrates online and print; PR gaffes #2 […]
vSkype rocket
Launched in beta just three days ago, the vSkype video conferencing plug-in for the Skype internet phone sevice has certainly grabbed the attention of an awful lot of people. From an email conversation last night with Stuart Jacobson, vSkype CEO: […] You might be interested to know that we have had ~50,000 downloads in 36 […]
Ride the podcasting long tail
According to new forecasts from The Diffusion Group, a US-based consumer technology research consultancy, demand for time-shifted digital audio files – that’s ‘podcasts’ to you and me – is expected to grow from less than 15% of portable digital music player owners in the US in 2004 to 75% by 2010. The firm says its […]
FIR Interview: Josh Hallett, Hyku – June 17, 2005
In this edition of For Immediate Release podcast interviews, Neville enjoyed a 40-minute conversation with Josh Hallett, CEO of Hyku LLC. Topics and themes discussed include: consulting on blogs and other new-media channels; how blogs are being used in Florida, eg, in education, local government; mainstream media and blogs; working with PR and marketing firms; […]