The UK general election will take place on Thursday 5 May, confirming the date which has been widely rumoured for weeks. Prime Minister Tony Blair made the announcement from Downing Street a short while ago. If the governing Labour Party wins, it will give Blair his third successive term in office as Prime Minister. So […]
It’s all happening in France
In February, I wrote about what some French newspapers are doing with blogs – Le Monde with its reader blogs and Libération with its journalists’ blogs. Last month, there was news that VNU France launched a consumer blog portal, following its launch of blogs for its journalists across Europe. Tech publisher 01Net also launched a […]
Questionable podcasting stats from Pew Internet
In show #21 of The Hobson & Holtz Report on Monday, Shel and I discussed research on podcasting from the Pew Internet and American Life Project that was released on that day. Pew’s research information we discussed included this statement: Some 29% of the 22 million people who own iPods/MP3 players have downloaded podcasts. That […]
Hardly a gap between Windows and Linux
Most US businesses say there is very little difference between the cost of maintaining a Windows versus a Linux-based corporate computing environment, according to a new study from IT industry analysts, the Yankee Group. A Reuters report via eWeek quotes Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio saying that the main cost difference is determined by the […]
PR satire blog shut down
If you try and get the Spin Bunny satirical PR blog today, you may get a ‘404: not found’ error. They’ve been legally shut down. The blog’s still up as I write this (although some links produce 404s) and the RSS feed was still working. The blog and the feed have this post: Official statement […]
Completing the circle
Jeremy Pepper in Scottsdale, Arizona, has finally got a trackback capability on his blog, Musings from POP! Public Relations. I’ve been trying to persuade him to do this because a) he writes some very good content, and b) I can’t connect to that content if I post something on my blog related to his writing. […]
The Dutch company where everyone’s a blogger
Fredrik Wackå posted a great report today about Macaw Nederland, a Dutch technology company and Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, whose 110 employees all blog. Fredrik says: At Macaw all employees have their own internal blog. They get it when they get their network, intranet and e-mail account. Not only do they have blogs – they […]
IABC blog relaunched
Yesterday, the IABC Café opened for business, with incoming IABC chairman Warren Bickford behind the bar and in the kitchen. The new name for the relaunched blog – and the strapline "A gathering place for professional communicators" – offers a clear and encouraging glimpse into how this blog might develop. In his first post, Warren […]
TV moves to the internet
BBC News: MTV is launching a free "channel" on the internet that will show some of the station’s TV programmes, including reality hit The Osbournes. The MTV Overdrive website will let users with high-speed computer connections watch music videos and extended programmes on demand. The website is currently being tested and will launch fully on […]
Real organization transparency
Companies everywhere talk a lot about how important their employees are and the contribution they make to overall success. But most companies don’t do this with the public openness and transparency demonstrated by CMS Cameron McKenna, an international law firm headquartered in London. The Financial Times reports that CMS Cameron McKenna is believed to be […]
The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #22: April 7, 2005
Content summary: Listeners’ comments (employee monitoring and performance; don’t write off podcasting; time-shifted podcasting, cars and home PCs; more on VNRs and responsibility, and audio search; smoking the podcasting dope down under); political scandal in Canada and media muzzling; update your crisis communications plans; Pew’s lost credibility; Macaw Nederland’s employee bloggers; IABC Café launches. Show […]
GM: Poster child for the executive blog
Since General Motors began the GM FastLane Blog in early January, it’s attracted considerable attention from business communicators. That attention has been sparked by who the bloggers are – senior corporate executives, starting with GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. The blog’s been under a continuous spotlight with a great deal of ongoing commentary and opinion […]
More Skype and more MSN
Internet phone service provider Skype has released a new update to version 1.2 of its desktop application for Windows. The new version offers enhanced user benefits including a centralized contacts list (meaning you can access your list of contacts from any computer you use to connect to Skype, not just the one you usually use), […]
Content plagiarism – is extra exposure worth going along with it?
Constantin Basturea writes that excerpts of postings from PR blogs are republished, with new permalinks, on a website with pages featuring Google ads and asks, Do their authors know about and approve this practice? The website in question is called PR Blog Watch, part of a website called 101 Public Relations. Constantin’s post lists 18 […]
BBC Radio launches tech blog, sort of
The BBC moves in mysterious ways regarding blogs, it often seems to me. Earlier this week, one of the BBC’s UK domestic radio stations, Radio Five Live, introduced a blog on the Up All Night radio show website. It’s called the Technology Blog with the strapline "Keep up with the latest gadgets, games and gizmos." […]
UK newspaper wants to host blogs
“We’re looking for people who want to keep a blog or online diary for the News & Star website,” says Nick Turner, deputy editor of the Cumbria News & Star newspaper in northwest England. In a report on Thursday, Turner said, “We would like to have a diverse range of voices on our website and […]
Prince of Wales “momentary lapse”
Just catching some of the TV coverage of today’s marriage of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles, I saw a brief BBC TV interview with the Prince’s communications secretary, Paddy Harverson. Amongst the tame chit-chat about today’s event (eg, was the Prince feeling nervous and how many letters of support there have been from the public) […]
Blogs as ‘editorial innovation’ for mainstream media
Catching up with some neglected RSS feed reading has resulted in a burst of blogging already today. About to take a breather when I came across a post by Suw Charman writing in Strange Attractor about the Blogs in Action seminar in London on 24 March. In her detailed reporting, Suw has done a terrific […]
Broadband in the UK leads the world
Daily Telegraph: [In the UK,] Southern Railway and T-Mobile will unveil details [this] week of the world’s first train wireless broadband service. The T-Mobile HotSpot service will allow up to 8,000 daily commuters on the London to Brighton route to access the internet. It will be launched in the summer. This item in a Daily […]
Microsoft’s Channel 9 and cultural rules
Channel 9, the social networking blog and wiki for Microsoft’s developer community and the outside world run by ‘5 guys from Redmond’, celebrated its first birthday last Wednesday. One of those 5 guys, Robert Scoble, deserves much credit in driving Channel 9 to its current prominent success level as a one-of-a-kind place that video showcases […]