It’s amazing what a little snow will do to mess up your best-laid plans. Today I was due to be away in the UK for a couple of days, mixed business/pleasure trip. Things didn’t quite go as planned. Because of the poor weather we’ve been having during the past few days (here are some photos […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #12: March 3, 2005
Show notes for March 3, 2005 Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 33-minute conversation recorded live from a hotel room in Chicago, IL with recorded input from Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Download the file here (MP3, 13.3MB), or sign up for the RSS feed to get it and future shows automatically. […]
Use Gmail as a hard drive
A nifty idea – set up your Gmail account so that it lets you use Gmail as a place to store things: files, games, music, images, programs, whatever you want to store: GMail Drive creates a virtual filesystem on top of your Google GMail account and enables you to save and retrieve files stored on […]
BBC call for ‘citizen journalism’
If TV broadcast networks hope to have a future, they must decentralize and "democratize" their most jealously-guarded public service – placing news production literally in the hands of consumers. So says Pat Loughrey, BBC Director of Nations and Regions, quoted by InternetWeek in speaking on Wednesday at the DVB World 2005 conference in Dublin: [This] […]
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 […]
IBM has 2,800 internal blogs
Like many companies, especially in the tech industry, IBM is no stranger to public blogs with more than 20 employees listed at the developer blogs’ portal. What I doubt is known at all is how deeply IBM has embraced blogging within the organization. According to Philippe Borremans, PR Manager at IBM Belgium & Luxembourg, writing […]
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 […]
BBC News editor starts some conversations, but it isn’t blogging
Peter Clifton, editor of the BBC News website, has started writing commentaries that “looks back at the week in the newsroom – and tackles some of your questions.” I’ve seen a couple of blog posts about this, which talk about it as blogging. Well, by any stretch of the imagination, blogging it certainly isn’t. This […]
Yak shaving and other blogosphere tales
Today’s one of those Sundays when yak shaving seems to be the order of the day. A day of catching up with much-neglected email and prep for the week ahead. Trouble is, I’m a piler not a filer when it comes to email. So first I need to engage in some yak shaving. What is […]
PDAs will become irrelevant
InternetWeek: PDAs are moving toward irrelevance, a new study by In-Stat released this week says. […] The devices are entering a stage of serious decline. In-Stat reported that PDA shipments in 2004 were only 8.7 million, compared to 10 million in 2003. The study predicted a negative annual growth rate of 21.5 percent through 2009. […]
The globalization of English
Newsweek has an excellent feature article in the 7 March issue (this week) of its international edition on how the English language is evolving and changing the way we communicate. The article says "non-native English-speakers" worldwide now outnumber native ones 3 to 1. In Asia alone, Newsweek says, the number of English users has topped […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #13: March 7, 2005
Content summary: A discussion about IBM’s 2,800 internal blogs – how do they enable collaboration in the workplace?; and a 38-minute conversation with Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s "geek blogger" – on evangelism, anti-marketing, blogging, RSS and reading feeds, email mailing lists, relationships with colleagues, internal blogs at Microsoft, The Red Couch book project, a blogging ombudsman, […]
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 […]
CNET’s guide to blogging misses the mark
CNET News has published a guide to blogging in the workplace in frequently-asked questions (FAQ) style. Unfortunately, this is not one of CNET’s better efforts to address a topical issue (see this guide to RSS for an example of a really good CNET guide). The FAQ include some comments that are just plain wrong. For […]
IABC Chair blog can succeed
Fellow IABC member and blogger Allan Jenkins posted a scathing commentary about IABC and Chairman David Kistle yesterday (and has attracted a bit of flack in the comments to his post as a result). What especially caught my attention in Allan’s post was his comments regarding the IABC Chair blog. Allan writes: […] While an […]
Two surveys about RSS
RSS services company Nooked is sponsoring two surveys about RSS. The first, for analysts, journalists and bloggers, aims to learn more about how these groups of influencers use RSS. The second, for public relations and marketing communicators, aims to determine the rate of adoption of RSS in the PR/marketing arena. As an added incentive to […]
Cisco breaks new ground with government affairs blog
Networking company Cisco Systems launched their first public blog last month. It’s a very interesting blog as it’s not the type of blog that would immediately spring to mind. Called the High Tech Policy Blog, it’s owned by Cisco’s Worldwide Government Affairs department and clearly forms a key element of the company’s overall lobbying and […]
Coming soon – Skype voice messaging rollout, SkypeIn numbers
More interesting developments with Skype. Stuart Henshall reports in the new Skype Journal that Skype’s voice messaging service currently in beta trial could be rolled out soon. New information on Skype’s website has pricing details: The price for Voicemail is 5 Euro for a 3 month subscription or 15 Euro for a 12 month subscription. […]
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 […]