In this edition of For Immediate Release book reviews, Neville and Shel discuss "Naked Conversations: How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers," the new book on blogging and businesses by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel, to be published in January 2006. The Book: "With a foreword by Tom Peters, author of such […]
Category: Web/Tech
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #88: November 24, 2005
Content summary: The Washington Post offers content mashups, IBM lets employees podcast internally, recording with Waxmail, our review of Naked Conversations, Richard Edelman’s post on PR’s readiness for discontinuous change, it’s time for annual predictions, pro- and anti-IKEA websites, Amazon’s new product wikis, character blogs, a report from Dan York, why CEOs don’t blog, listener […]
Who cares about Windows XP N?
CNET News: A major U.K. retail store and three of the largest PC vendors worldwide still have no plans to sell the version of Microsoft Windows that does not contain its media player, five months after the version was released. Microsoft started offering Windows XP N, a version of Windows without a bundled media player, […]
The evolution of trust as led by Amazon
Daily Telegraph: A record number of Britons, fed up with the crush, bustle and hassle of the high street, will do their Christmas shopping online this month, according to new figures. Internet stores are expected to take at least £5 billion, a rise of 45 per cent on last year. The growth has been fuelled […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #89: November 28, 2005
Content summary: AOL Journals update, a cheat sheet lets customers circumvent your IVR system, an ex-Googler starts a blog, replacing press releases with blogs, the future of newspapers, Steve Rubel’s high-level discussion on TheNewPR, an open-source marketing example, listener comments, and more. Show notes for November 28, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson […]
Giving time and finding time
I’m currently in the UK, in London, where today I led a workshop for Melcrum on New Communication Technology: Add Value to Internal Communication with Social Media. This was a full-day workshop which provided a great opportunity to address topics surrounding organizational communication and new media tools in some depth. A terrific group of communicators […]
Social Customer Manifesto wins CRM award
Congratulations to Christopher Carfi – his The Social Customer Manifesto blog has just been awarded the ‘Best CRM Blog 2005’ accolade by the readers of SearchCRM.com. Well deserved, Chris! If you haven’t encountered Chris’ blog before, now’s a good time from the communicator’s point of view – it’s the place where you’ll find the social […]
NevOn joins Corante Network
I am delighted to report that NevOn – this blog – is a participant in the Corante Marketing Hub, part of the new Corante Network that launched today: With the launch and development of the Corante Network, Corante has partnered with scores of the blogosphere’s most respected thinkers and writers in specific categories to bring […]
IABC Europe conference kicks off
Arrived in Paris late last night, ready to participate in the IABC Eurocomm conference which formally kicks off today and runs through tomorrow. I’m moderating the opening session discussion panel on the giant global focus group. No prizes for guessing what this is about at a conference full of communicators! So, my fellow conversationalists – […]
The conversation is rapidly evolving
As I relax on my train journey back to Amsterdam aboard the high-speed Thalys TGV, I sit in reflective mode regarding this morning’s terrific panel discussion on the giant global focus group at the IABC Europe conference in Paris. Not long after the panel was over, Niall Cook posted a commentary to The Plenary Panel […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #90: December 1, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments discussion (changing intro music for FIR book review podcasts; working on new H&H Report intro music for show #100; World AIDS Day; Blog Marketing book for review; tapping into FIR; Sony BMG going down the drain; two sides of crisis communication; new media tools not so effective in parts of Asia; […]
Audacity releases upgrade of audio editing software
Audacity, the open-source cross-platform sound editor beloved of podcasters, has released an upgrade to its current version and a beta of a new version: Audacity 1.2.4 is a new stable version of Audacity, the free audio editor. It includes a couple of bug fixes and minor improvements and is recommended for all users. Audacity 1.3.0 […]
Growth of the global internet
It won’t surprise anyone to learn that the top language of internet users is English, according to stats from Internet World Stats: English represents the language of nearly one-third of all internet users, according to these stats. What’s especially interesting, though, is to see the growth rates of languages other than English during the past […]
The growing FIR community
I’m listening to show #90 of The Hobson & Holtz Report podcast as I complete the full show notes for this edition, recorded yesterday. This is a bumper show and, at 98 minutes, the longest one we’ve done yet. You’ll hear more from our listeners in this edition than from Shel and I. This really […]
At the bleeding edge with Skype 2.0 beta
I installed the new Skype 2.0 beta for Windows the other day – and uninstalled it yesterday. Lots to like about it, especially the video calling capability which worked faultlessly when I tried it with a Philips Toucam webcam. Overall, this new Skype version has a rather bright program interface for my taste plus pathetic […]
Les Blogs 2.0 kicks off today
The Les Blogs 2.0 conference in Paris formally starts today and runs until Tuesday evening. The event is completely sold out. Lots already been going on over the weekend, judging from the rapidly-growing Technorati tag list. What’s the event about? Absorb this, from Loic’s opening remarks: […] We believe there is a revolution going-on. We […]
Social search the ‘defining characteristic’ of next-gen web search
Good article in the Financial Times last week about Yahoo and what the company is doing in the face of the growing and stiff competition in the search business by the likes of Google and Microsoft. Thought-making sound bites from the FT article in discussing the role of Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo’s technology director search and […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #91: December 5, 2005
Content summary: A special edition: Neville and Shel discuss the future of public relations and the skills communicators will need to succeed in a forever-altered communication environment. The discussion includes listener feedback. Show notes for December 5, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 75-minute conversation recorded live from Concord, […]
Reflecting on Les Blogs 2.0
Worthwhile being there is how I’d sum up my experience of Les Blogs 2.0 in Paris on Monday and Tuesday. I didn’t get there for day 1, arriving only in the evening (and so made it to the blogger bash), but I did spend day 2 listening, learning and conversing. Meeting new people, and re-meeting […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #92: December 8, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ audio and email comments (a proto-vlog in Australia; the future of newspapers; IBM’s podcasting guidelines; what’s the best tool for starting an electronic conversation?; PR and propaganda; offending employees with guidelines for personal presentation; how HR can use blogs; more on the future of PR to add to show #91); Wikipedia dust-ups; […]