The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #101: January 9, 2006

Content summary: Wal-Mart and a blog crisis; relaunching The Observer and the role of the companion blog; banned words for 2006; is Google Pack for the enterprise?; ZenCast’s new definition of podcast; Lee Hopkins report; listeners’ comments discussions (competitive PR advantage, congrats on 100 and 101 shows, RSS and podcasts in job hunting, call to […]

Keep cool with egoSurf

Via Steve Rubel, news of egoSurf, a tool that searches Google and other engines against your name and blog or website, and calculates your ego ranking. Naturally, I gave it a go. it says my ego ranking is 11,845. Is that good? Can I exchange those points for a free flight to New York? That […]

The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #102: January 12, 2006

Content summary: Annoying anonymous comments now illegal in the US; political podcasts in the UK by Prime Minister Tony Blair and Conservative leader David Cameron; US army hires Haas MS&L to pitch editorial content to bloggers; Dan York’s report; listeners’ comments discussion; the music. Show notes for January 12, 2006 Welcome to For Immediate Release: […]

Biz-Tech-News: Headlines 13-Jan-06

A JotSpot For Excel Apple’s New (Corporate) Tune Body scanner unveiled at station Disruption in mainstream media but where is the disruption in the mainstream PR industry? Europe’s ‘Google killer’ goes into hiding Google offers personal home page for mobile phones How Brands Evolve, Visually Invasion of the privacy snatchers New PR blogs (a bunch […]

The Quaero oxymoron

If you’ve been following the story of the Franco-German Quaero project – a planned European multimedia search engine, the answer to Google and brainchild of the French government – you’ll know that European politics have contributed to the mire it’s been in for some months. The Quaero website used to be online and provided useful […]

The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #103: January 16, 2006

Content summary: Podcast print magazine to launch; Dutch publisher to publish newspaper with blog content; Power PR makes accountability "guarantee"; gaining first impressions about websites in the blink of an eye; Wikipedia reveals plagiarism by journalist; Lee Hopkins’ report; the pros and cons of offline blog editors; listeners’ comments discussion (the rescue of advertising; meeting […]

Intelliseek acquired, forms part of new VNU-backed company as VNU looks to be acquired

Two of the leading companies in tracking and analysing what consumers are talking about online have joined forces to create, in the words of the formal press release, the new global standard for measuring and understanding word-of-mouth behavior and influence. Market intelligence firm Intelliseek has been acquired by word-of-mouth research and planning company Buzzmetrics. The […]

FIR Interview – Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek – January 17, 2006

Following today’s joint announcement by Intelliseek and Buzzmetrics on the merger of those two firms into a new company backed by media group VNU, Shel and Neville spoke to Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek’s Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer. Conversation points: The joining together of Intelliseek and Buzzmetrics; VNU and being acquired; developments in tracking and […]

FeedDemon 2 beta is out

If you use the FeedDemon RSS reader for Windows, you should definitely take a look at the first beta of the forthcoming version 2. As a long-time FD user and currently on the 1.6 beta (version 2 will repalce 1.6), I’ve installed it. Wow! Definitely worth having. More later. See developer Nick Bradbury’s post for […]

The Hobson & Holtz Report – Podcast #104: January 19, 2006

Content summary: An upgrade for Skylook, IABC opens a members-only place for “buzz,” IABC Belgium President Gerry Murray starts a podcast, Shel and Neville talk about corporate blogging (should the CEO blog?, ghostwriting, time-wasting, risks from employee blogging, using a blog in place of PR), listeners’ comments discussion (spam, online editors, PR as relationship management, […]

The podcasting opportunity for mainstream media

BBC News: Almost two million BBC radio podcasts were downloaded during December, with the corporation’s breakfast programmes the most popular with listeners. […] Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive, said: "It’s fantastic to see how the demand for radio downloads has grown since we first offered them in 2004. These figures underline […]

Listen to your hard drive and weep

Weird noises from your hard drive and you’re not sure what they mean? Well, you know they mean something bad is undoubtedly about to happen, but how do you find out what, exactly? Go to this Hitachi page and check out the .wav recordings there of various noises you might hear that likely indicate a […]

The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #105: January 23, 2006

Content summary: The Bad Pitch Blog; blogging Gonzo the Whale; Washington Post comments brouhaha; science blogs as a vehicle for selling ads; thoughts, commentary and a question from The Copenhagen Bloggers; Lee Hopkins’ report; Shel’s and Neville’s podcast interviews; listeners’ comments discussion (stop talking about rewinding; adopting intelligent evaluation for PR; IABC, corporate blogs, CPRS); […]

Biz-Tech-News: Headlines 24-Jan-06

Amazon to Broadcast Weekly Internet Show And now, News – We’re taking Google News out of beta! (Krishna Bharat/Official Google Blog) Apple iTunes users growing fast BlackBerry Gets Google Talk and Google Local Business communications: RSS vs. E-mail CNET News.com for Jan 23, 2006: Is Blackberry on the brink? Drug Companies’ Bad Case of PR […]