Andrew Lark

Red Herring CMO Conference...

I'm posting a little light - down at the Red Herring CMO conference. And, a bit of Deja vu - same place many of the big dot.com conferences took place during the boom.

You Mean the President Wasn't Really Elected?

The NYTimes reveals all.

New Trends In Online Traffic

According to The Washington Post, "Visits to Sites for Blogging, Local Information and Social Networks Drive Web Growth". If you are looking to build your ROI model for launching your enterprise into blogging and beyond, this makes the case pretty well:

While growth is slowing at most top Internet sites, it is skyrocketing at sites focused on social networking, blogging and local information.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that your little blog (or my little blog for that matter) is going to come close to rivaling the growth of MySpaces. The point I am making is that what this research tells is that to be successful as a publisher or marketer you don't have to be blogging - but you have to be participating in this medium and its relatives.

Bag Obsession...

I admit, I'm obsessed with briefcases and bags. An obsession only rivaled by office stationary... Anyway, look at these beauties...

popurls

I'm liking popurls. Cool aggregation and triangulation site. Feeds from Digg, Slashdot, Google, and flickr. Link love to Steve for the pointer...

Blinks: The Marketing Biathalon

• Dilbert on marketing biathletes
• Bruce Sterling's state of the world address SXSW '06 - worth a read

Blinks:

• Naked Answers from Werner Vogels - refreshingly blunt says Nicolas Carr... I can see both sides of this one. I do think Scoble and Shel deserve a huge amount of credit for creating the book and evangelizing blogging. Sometimes important conversations get lost in the way and tone with which questions are asked. The response on Naked Conversations was appropriate.
• And while visiting Rough Type, Nicolas has this to say on the legal risks inherent in blogging. Shel doesn't think so but I do believe Mr. Carr makes some valid points here as it relates to corporate blogging. Buried in the comments are some good links including one from Scoble himself. The point here is that these are what Nick says they are - risks. Risks are what we take whenever we communicate. Any communicator/blogger with a modicum of intelligence will assess the risk and make a call before spouting forth.
• "To me, asking why you should use blogs is like asking why you should answer the phone." Dave
• Guy on Apple at 30

Crazy Australians...

You've probably seen those Outback TV ads which suggests Australians are more advanced because they are a day ahead... well, not these guys who decided to steal critters from the local zoo...

"The original plan was to steal a koala - that's what they were going to use to swap [for] the drugs,'' Mr Kemp said.

"[But] apparently [the koala] scratched the shit out of them.''

"The blokes have quite a lot of scratches and lacerations caused by the koala.''

The thieves then decided to take a crocodile instead.

"I don't know what makes someone go, 'Oh we tried to steal a koala and that didn't work so lets go and steal a croc.' "

Police believe the crocodile was taken in the early hours of Saturday morning but Mr Kemp remembers seeing it on Sunday morning.

He thinks it must have been taken on Monday morning when another drama occurred at the zoo.

"One of the wombats got bitten by a snake. No one can officially remember seeing [the female] crocodile on Monday."

Some stories are just too good...

Blinks: Tufte's Sparklines & More

In a snipet from his upcoming book Tufte speaks to: Sparklines (Intense, Simple, Word-Sized Graphics). Worth a read, if not just to look at the elegant graphics. Strangely, most communicators are word people. We speak in words and draw/write in words. Taking a look at this concept it could be a pretty good framework for putting images back into our communications.

Other stuff:

Who's Building the Next Web? - Next Frontiers - MSNBC.com
Newsweek discovers Web2.0 and puts it on the cover.
More on Google Finance. I still don't like it.

A Blog Isn't A Press Release...

You guessed it, it's a blog. When you blog it is certainly content for the media to use - but it ain't a release. Although some blogs are increasingly reading like press releases... :-).

Blogs make news. Press releases make news. Things can result in a similar outcome, but be different.

Where Steve and I do agree is enough is enough on the old "die press release die" debate. So, rather than fuel the flames on this one all I'm going to say is scour through my blog for multiple entries on this.

A press release performs a technical communications function that is necessary to delineate official and non official communications. That it is sadly abused and often ill executed is a different issue.

I also agree with Tom - it's time for a rethink of the mainstream release - I like his ideas. But maybe where we diverge is that I like the idea of reinventing the release, not killing it. It remains an important communications tool.

Kevin has some good thoughts on this as well.

WSJ On Reputation

WSJ has a piece on corporate reputation focusing on Microsoft. It also flags the reputation conundrum - great reputation doesn't equate to great stock performance.

"A good reputation doesn't guarantee results. Microsoft's share price has been stagnant even as its reputation has been on the mend. But reputation can be especially important in recruiting and keeping employees, executives say."

Richard Edelman is quoted:

"Moreover, Mr. Edelman believes, Microsoft benefits from a "halo effect" of the independent Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. It is hard to appear evil when you give $6 billion of your own money to combat disease -- even if the money was earned in part from anticompetitive practices."

Branson On His New PR Pro

Finally, some brevity in the world of PR! Richard Branson comments on the appointment of his new PR Pro:

“As my memory is so bad our primary criteria in selecting a replacement for Paul was finding someone who answers to the same name. Paul Charles fits the bill admirably and is apparently not too bad at PR (although we’ll soon train that out of him). ”

Thanks to David Henderson for the link.

Are You Generation C? Are we masters of the Youniverse....?

... or are you a HEDI? Entertaining read...

GENERATION C

Aka Masters of the Youniverse. The C stands for content, but it may as well stand for control freak. Rarely satisfied with their lot, this tribe (mostly male, mostly 25-40) "create their own content". It's also C for conceited, as they all think they're hot enough to write a novel, make an iMovie, be a garage-band star, become a citizen journalist (blogger). In fact, they're the personification of gravanity (graffiti meets vanity) - the arrogant desire to make your mark in the public domain. Some fancy themselves as minipreneurs and indulge in eBay trading. Others settle for insperience - bringing luxury experiences into their homes via cineplexes, boom-boom rooms and spa-ties.

Heading to Demo

I'm off to DEMO in the morning. LogLogic will be announcing lots so stand-by. Will post from the show.

ValleyWag

So, Nick Denton is lifting the lid on the Valley with ValleyWag... plenty of juicy gossip...

Another Media Disgrace

The NYT reports that the ex-chief of HealthSouth (he claims unknowingly) paid for positive coverage:

Throughout the six-month trial that led to Richard Scrushy's acquittal in the $2.7 billion fraud at HealthSouth Corp., a small, influential newspaper consistently printed articles sympathetic to the defense of the fired CEO.

Audry Lewis, the author of those stories in The Birmingham Times, the city's oldest black-owned paper, now says she was secretly working on behalf of Scrushy, who she says paid her $11,000 through a public relations firm and typically read her articles before publication.

It's just stunning that this kind of stuff keeps happening without any kind of ability for censure by industry bodies - both media and PR. I'm sure there are as many frustrated journalists as there are PRs who are sick of having their profession tarnished by this kind of behavior.

Sweet Squeet

This is cool. Get your RSS feed as an email. I'm using this to get RSS feeds of news releases etc. in email on my Crackberry. I just don't have the time to look at another interface on that little screen, so the more I can get in email, the better. Squeet is sweet.

Getting to #1 On Google...

Read Harry's post on how he got to be #1 on Google. Lots of SEO wisdom and smarts:

"I'm telling you this so that you will:

1. Integrate your weblog into a coherent and scalable sales process that tightly conforms to how your ideal prospect actually buys, and ...
2. Invest in a URL that clearly telegraphs your unique selling proposition to that prospect..."

    Technorati : PR, SEO

Tom On Things Learnt...

Tom has a great list of things learnt in 2005. I especially like his first three:

1. Blogging is the most honest form of self-promotion bar none because if you can't walk the talk you won't get the clicks.

2. Content will be king because all those links have to point to something of value--otherwise they are pointless.

3. Every company is part media company--it is both publisher and publication and tells stories all the time.

Aside from being a pretty good bloke, Tom was one of the first hacks to jump ship and become a fulltime blogger.

Technorati : Blogging, PR

Big Brand Campaings On The Way...

Will be interesting to watch how SBC/ATT and Intel handle their new brand efforts and what, if any, role Participatory Communications will play in that. The WSJ covers how Intel is about to embark on a major transition:

The changes include a new version of the company's blue logo -- without the dropped "e" that has long been a part of Intel's branding -- along with a new tagline "Leap ahead," which emulates such campaigns as "Think different" from Apple Computer Inc. or "Just do it" from Nike Inc.

Intel will no longer use the well-known "Intel Inside" logo but is keeping the related marketing program that provides incentives to companies for using its products. - WSJ

Technorati : BLogs, Brand, PR

Alaska Air's Near Disaster Unfiltered...

I Hope Jeremy has big bandwidth and a big server because his account of the Alaska incident is scarry - and it's going to attract zillions of eyeballs. Via Jeff Jarvis. Compare his account with news reports- some of which are featuring Jeff's photos.

"Citizen Journalism" in action. Jeremy P makes a really interesting point that one lesson for any PR practioner facing a crisis is that you are going to need to manage transparency. It seems that Alaska employees are going nasty-comment-happy on Jeremy's (the Jeremy on the plane) blog. Assuming he would never know I guess, they commented away. Jeremy simply looked at the originating IP addresses, which were from Alaska. And he was gracious enough to suggest that they might have been hackers using Alaska's IP addresses. Not likely mate!

So, if your communications policy doesn't cover commenting on blogs as an employee - then you might want to make sure it does.. and then make sure employees know it. And, if your crisis communications plan doesn't feature monitoring of and communications with the blogosphere - better get on that as well.

Technorati : Alaska, Blogs, PR
Del.icio.us : Alaska, PR, Travel

The Great Triangulation...

Awhile ago I wrote about how one of the key tenets of the Participatory Age is "triangulation". Using Google or Yahoo, you can pretty much triangulate any content on the web, skirting around the charging (business) models and formats in which the orignial content resided. Content gets repackaged and "place shifted" (taken from one format, say, a chapter of a book - and represented, say, in an online guide).

Steve has a great example of this in his post on O'Reilly's Hacks Books. I'll leave it to you to read - you'll get the idea pretty quick. The other value of triangulation is the other content that gets connected to what you were orignially looking for.

Lafley On Marketing

Thursday's edition of the FT had some telling quotes from P&G Chief, Lafley:
<blockquote>"Just as I believe the consumer has power in the purchase chain, I think the consumer has the power in the consumption and media and message chain. So she's the boss - or he's the boss. And so the world is shifting from a 'push' to a 'pull'. She and he have a lot more choices."</blockquote>

The Handmade Diary

OK, so I've got a stationary, notebook, pen fetish. If i stopped buying now, I wouldn't ever need another. My justification is the perpetual fight against clutter and time... It's great to read about a fellow sufferer...

John, "...having unhappily put up with an unwieldy multitude of diaries, address books and notepads for years, Mr. Berendt caught the Gutenberg spirit three years ago and indulged in a little obsessive-compulsive print project of his own. He printed up all the letters and numbers he would need to spell out the months and days of the week (no need for K, X, Q or Z) and sent them to a company that makes rubber stamps to order."

A lovely story from the NYTimes...

Cool Skype Phones...

One of these for Christmas please... Have been hunting for a Skype phone that supports Mac and these look great.

    Technorati : Skype, VOIP

The Elements Of Typographic Style Applied to the Web

Worth a read... a classic applied to the Web. Richard describes it as follows:

Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style is on many a designer's bookshelf and is considered to be a classic in the field. Indeed the renowned typographer Hermann Zapf proclaims the book to be a must for everybody in the graphic arts, and especially for our new friends entering the field.

In order to allay some of the myths surrounding typography on the web, I have structured this website to step through Bringhurst's working principles, explaining how to accomplish each using techniques available in HTML and CSS. The future is considered with coverage of CSS3, and practicality is ever present with workarounds, alternatives and compromises for less able browsers.

    Technorati : Blog, Fonts, Typography, Web

Got Puggle...

Thanks to Stowe for The top ten "buzz words" to be added to the T9 dictionary (a predictive text input dictionary for users to tap into when texting on their mobile phones):

• Lifehack - a tool or technique that makes some aspect of one's life easier or more efficient

• Mashup - new information created by combining data from two different sources

• Placeshift - to redirect a TV signal so the viewer can watch a show on a device other than his or her television

• Playlistism - judging a person based on what songs are on the playlist of his or her digital music player

• Podjack - to plug the cord of one's digital music player into the jack of another person's player to hear what the person is listening to

• Puggle - a dog bred from a pug and a beagle

• Sideload - to transfer music or other content to a cell phone using the cell phone provider's network

• Vlog - a blog that contains mostly video content

• Vodcast - a video podcast

• Ubersexual - a heterosexual man who is masculine, confident, compassionate and stylish

Technorati : Marketing, PR

Into The Public Eye...

Transparency is always the best practice in any crisis and it seem that CBS is getting more transparent. Launched back in September and just spotted by me (sigh!) is CBS PublicEye blog- it shines a light on what goes on inside the CBS newsroom. You can take a peek inside an editorial meeting, see how the evening line-up is determined, or, follow a 'day in the life'of a Whitehouse story. Ok - so this is more about PR and education than it is transparency, but it is really interesting and worth a look.

    Technorati : Blogging, CBS, Communications, Marketing, PR

Back On Deck

Gidday! I just spent a wonderful week at Sea Ranch - turns out the side benefit of spectacular locations like this is no wireless or wifi. Just great waves, scenery, wineries and family. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

Time For NZ To Wake Up As Well...

BusinessWeek reports that Silicon Valley CEOs are issuing a wake-up call to America. The same call needs to be issued in NZ. One of the central gating factors is broadband - which is  a critical innovation enabler. It's just too expensive. It just takes too long to get installed. And once you've got it, punitive billing strategies limit use. It's not so great in the US either:

Jerry Yang, co-founder and chairman of Yahoo! (YHOO), pointed out that the U.S. remains far behind some Asian countries in broadband. Korea and Japan, for example, offer consumers far faster broadband connections than the standard in the U.S. 

 

That's a problem, said Reed Hastings, CEO of the DVD-rental service Netflix (NFLX). Hastings thinks the next phase of the Web won't arrive until people in the U.S. can get bandwidth of 10 megabits per second, or about 10 times the common rate here, at a comparable price. Only then, for instance, will people really be able to watch video online comfortably. But he says that's now three to six years off.

Just as these CEOs are doing, NZ needs to recognize that it isn't the threat isnt the US - it is Asia. Driving home, I can barely hold a mobile phone call in the Valley. During a week in China, I didn't drop a call. And my minutes cost me a fraction of what they did in NZ.

 

Dyson was the most direct:  "The country has grown lazy and complacent," she said. "We've created a country where we've outsourced the intellect to other countries." Instead of trying to figure out how to beat the Chinese, she said, we need to try to "beat ourselves and help the Chinese" succeed, so that the U.S. has that huge market to sell to, she said.

Buzz On Buzz Marketing...

Enjoyed a great panel discussion with Buzz Bruggeman from Activewords on buzz marketing. If you get a chance to hear him speak, listen. And try the product, it is great.

Some Great Sites...

These are worth a look.

A Sad Day

Peter Drucker died today - he was the real deal. A remarkable thinker, leader and brilliant educator. I was lucky enough to spend time with him several years ago at a corporate offsite and was simply astounded at his smarts and ability to set the room alight with anecdotes and thinking.

In a 1999 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Joan Magretta and Nan Stone wrote: "Before Peter Drucker, most people thought about their businesses with a manufacturing mindset, defining a business based on what it produced. Today, the marketing mindset prevails. It was Mr. Drucker's critical insight that instead of buying a 'product' the customer buys the satisfaction of a need." - WSJ

On Stuff...

Forbes has a terrific roundup of people chatting about important stuff. Like Communications.

Big Numbers From Technorati

• As of October 2005, Technorati is now tracking 19.6 million weblogs
• The total number of weblogs tracked continues to double about every 5 months
• The blogosphere is now over 30 times as big as it was 3 years ago, with no signs of letup in growth
• About 70,000 new weblogs are created every day
• About a new weblog is created each second
• 2% - 8% of new weblogs per day are fake or spam weblogs
• Between 700,000 and 1.3 million posts are made each day
• About 33,000 posts are created per hour, or 9.2 posts per second
• An additional 5.8% of posts (or about 50,000 posts/day) seen each day are from spam or fake blogs, on average

Thanks to Steve for the pointer.

NetNewsWire Acquired By Newsgator...

Probably old news to many of you but in searching for a news reader that integrates well with Outlook I stumbled across this:

 Acquisition of NetNewsWire strengthens NewsGator’s RSS Platform and extends it to the Mac esktop, Brent Simmons joins NewsGator team.

Denver, CO – October 4, 2005 – NewsGator Technologies, Inc., the leading RSS platform company, announced today that it has acquired NetNewsWire, the leading RSS reader for Mac OS X. NewsGator also announced that NetNewsWire will integrate tightly with the NewsGator Online synchronization platform. Brent Simmons, the creator of NetNewsWire, will be joining the NewsGator team as a product architect.

NetNewsWire is a great product - would be terrific to see it on Windows.

This Summarizes The Change Taking Place In the Valley

"Ten years ago, everyone thought they were the next Bill Gates," said Harley Shaiken, a University of California-Berkeley professor specializing in labor issues. "Now you may realize you just have a lot of hours and no social life, so you want some compensation up front. ... Increasingly, innovation is going to have to be balanced against reasonable working conditions.'' [from Good Morning Silicon Valley]

Blink...

Read John's post over at Brandshift... good read...

"Companies spend billions on market research to divine the needs and wants of consumers and businesses. Yet the new-product failure rate remains high. And we’re not coming up with better product concepts by listening to the voice of the customer. Why? Maybe the customer isn’t worth listening to."

I worked for John Roth at Nortel - he said the same thing differently... listen to the leading-edge customers. The ones right at the bleading edge. In other words, don't listen to the ordinary. Innovation doesn't come from the ordinary - it comes from the edge.

John W says it right - focus on participating with customers. Inevitably a vast amount of businesses don't sell to the end consumer. We participate in a value stream. We need to participate to truly understand the value our products create. And then we need to innovate around that value.

FD: I write for Brandshift

Hard to Argue with This...

New Zealand is the best place on earth. I agree.

Readers of London's Daily Telegraph newspaper have voted New Zealand as their favourite place on earth, for the second year in a row.

More than 25,000 readers were polled in Britain's biggest survey of travel habits and the results were announced at the eighth Telegraph Travel Awards reception at the Royal Opera House in London.

Hip & Zen Blog

Worker Bees have a cool new blog - Hip & Zen. Nice job Elisa...

The Next Big Thing

"What are you doing?" This is about one of the most popular questions I get asked. The simple answer is that I continue to manage a portfolio of interests with a real focus on...

The Big Deal...
A month or so ago I decided to join a really exciting start-up here in the Valley as chief marketing officer. LogLogic is to systems data what Google is to the web. We capture 100% of log data from any device - networking, storage, server, application (industry or homegrown) - and enable it to be stored, reported and alerted on. Unlike homegrown log management or niche security event managment solutions, we're enterprise-class (think scaleable; thousands of devices, 50,000 messages per second, 10,000+ reports...) and arrive in your data center in an easy to install appliance. Think 10 minute install, 10 seconds to reporting. I'm having a blast and we're growing like cazy. (and yes, I know we need a new web site, RSS, a blog and all that good stuff...)

Alongside that I'm also working away on:

The Lark Group...
... continues to flourish. I'm still leading it as we operate in stealth mode (if there is such a thing). What is interesting is our clients are more non-tech enterprises (manufacturing), travel, financial services and consumer companies. They appear to be embracing blogging and other participatory technologies at a really fast rate. We have a range of commercial blog projects underway that will debut over the next year - of of which are really, really exciting.

No. 8 Ventures....
I continue to be a director of N0. 8 ventures, New Zealand's leading venture capital firm focused on technology and bio-tech. We're weil into our second fund and participating in great companies such as Esphion, Argent, SurveyLab and VCU. I love the time get to spend here and also the companies I get to spend it with. Thanks to Jenny for her support, mentoring and insights...

... and if that wasn't enough...
I'm chairperson of the New Zealand Trade & Enterprise's US technology beachhead. And I write for Corante as often as I can. And I'm trying to be a great dad to my gorgeous little buddy, Sophia...

Worth a read...

AlwaysOn has a terrific piece with Chris Anderson on the Long Tail...

New Apple Blog...

Tom at Infoworld has a new Mac blog, looks like something I will definitely read:

"everything related to Apple that is of interest to grown-ups with jobs"

What a news day...

It's fascinating sitting in the 'real world' and observing the announcements flood the news this morning. First Sun with new servers, then eBay buys Skype and then Oracle takes Seibel...

Only one of these intersects me in my current life and that is Skype. I've come to depend on it for hours of communications each week too and from New Zealand. I spend more time on it than my mobile. I'm also a keen eBay user. And I am totally stumped as to what possible value eBay can derive other than a full frontal assault on the VOIP world. Which they are now brilliantly positioned to do.

The rest of it I can't figure out... I don't want to chat to anyone I am bidding with and I definitely don't want to talk to anyone I am selling to... The whole point is that this is just a really simple way to sell. And I definitely don't like PayPal... It ain't my Pal... I just want to use my Visa card.

But Ross has a point in that it might be in eBay's DNA not to constrain communication... and that VOIP will become the dominate way we seek to communicate in the future via our computers... and so, it makes sense from that POV.

And, they also have been moving to create a significant developer community which I am sure Skype will plug into.

Om has a good point in that bringing VOIP to eBay could be useful in countering fraud.

The eBay Skype announcement really lacked any compelling customer-centric messaging - and this is the fastest way to convince investors of the move. Now, having been wrapped-up in hundreds of acquisition announcements I know how hard it is to get this done... But, Oracle took a good shot at it in speaking to the ability to reduce complexity and provide a single integration and management point. And they spoke to a customer - GE - as a driver.

Update: Dan also has another perspective related to privacy...

And... David hits on the most amazing aspect of all of this...

From my point of view however, the part of this deal that should ignite the best water cooler discussions is it's size.  Imagine this:  Oracle buys Siebel for $5.8 billion.   Siebel has been around for long time.  The company is public, has a huge installed base, and lots of customers and employees.  Meanwhile, after only three years in existence, Skype gets swept up by eBay for $2.6 billion.   How amazing is it that the young, tiny Skype is worth nearly half of what Siebel is?

Blogs Are Here For Real This Time

MIT Magazine has a great piece on Blogs and Hurricane Katrina. It points to a variety of sites covering the disaster.

Barnett's blog, The Interdictor, had previously been a "private little journal," according to Barnett. But when he began chronicling Katrina's destruction and the terrible aftermath, it became a lot more.

Currently, tens of thousands of readers a day visit it. "I get thousands of instant messages an hour, I can't keep up with them," he writes in the blog. Barnett's blog is just one of tens of thousands of blogs covering Katrina's aftermath...

Then there is this terrific quote from Clay Shirky: "The so-called 'memory hole' that many politicians of all stripes have relied upon is now closed," says Clay Shirky, an adjunct professor of interactive telecommunications at NYU. "The blogosphere has become the institutional memory for the country."

As Eric says: "Blogs have made a leap toward legitimacy: a story is now a story whether it originates on a blog or on CNN. The medium is no longer the message. The message, in fact, is now the message."

Army to better monitor blogs...

Well, you'd hope so right?

Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, wants military leaders to better monitor soldiers’ Web sites and blogs for the posting of sensitive information that could aid the enemy.

Schoomaker said some soldiers, for example, continue to post pictures “depicting weapon system vulnerabilities and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).”

“Such OPSEC (operational security) violations needlessly place lives at risk and degrade the effectiveness of our operations,” he said in a memo issued earlier this month obtained by the Federation of American Scientists and posted on its Web site.

A Code Of Ethics...

Interesting read from the former Ad exec Shona Seifert - the "Proposed Code of Ethics for the Advertising Industry" as required by the judge who sentenced her in U.S. District Court to 18 months in prison and $125,000 fine. It even includes what AdAge suggests (registration required) might work as a tagline for her own tattered brand:

“Boring work has never resulted in a prison sentence. Poor timekeeping practices have.”

I'm With Dwight...

This whole Dell thing is just getting rather dull. Dwight takes a good swing at the issue. I also agree that the thinking on what Dell should do when confronted by bloggers and it's little crisis are lame - these are PR tactics reframed for the blogosphere. Same old same old.

Who would have thought the echo from a blogger would be so loud? Well, me for one. The problem is that the thinking on how to deal with this as an issue is to treat the blogger like some new breed of journalist. Wrong. The way to deal with this is to fix the very problem that created a pissed off customer. Dell is listening. Like HP is listening and IBM is listening. The issue is, who is doing... One old PR pro once gave me some wise counsel... all business problems are communications problems, but you can't fix communications problems without first addressing the business issue.

Dell built an incredible business on the back of incredible customer service. I worked as a consultant to Dell for many years. It was the customer service that pulled Dell through many a battle. Growth clearly comes with challenges. And if there is one thing I am certain of, within Dell, customer service will be undergoing scrutiny like never before. They understand that it all starts with the business, not the blogger...

That's A Lot Of Posts...

Interesting little tidbit from Gavin over at Ostranenie

Technorati reported the average number of blog postings is again on the rise, having dipped briefly last winter. There were 900,000 posts created each day by the end of July, working out at 37,500 posts per hour or 10.4 per second.

Gartner Hype Cycle

Gartner has done one of those Hype Cycle things in which they look at podcasting and blogs... No time right now to analyze the analysis... here it is... Although I gotta say this is about the weirdest analysis/statement on blogging I've seen for a bit:

Corporate Blogging. This involves the use of online personal journals by corporate employees, either individually or in a group, to further company goals. It reached the peak of hype in 2004 although mainstream firms have not yet got involved. Its impact will be on projecting corporate marketing messages primarily and secondarily in competitive intelligence, customer support and recruiting.

Video Blogs In BusinessWeek

Great piece on rocketboom... And here is the site... Why more companies aren't jumping on the Vlog bandwaggon and creating their own news shows is baffling. Get going gang... And, for all you naysayers, listen to Mitch....

As these videos flow into the living room, they will reshape what we think of as television. "TV will be transformed," says Mitchell Kapor, the founder of Lotus Development Corp. (IBM ) and now an investor in Participatory Culture, an online video startup. "People will look at it as historically quaint that you had to watch something that others chose for you."

Google Messaging...

Here is all you need to know to get going with Google messsaging...

Classic Quote From Linus...

Linus, creator of Linux, really gets at the value of Slashdot... not... (care of Good Morning Silicon Valley)

"Gaah. I don't tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own 'insightful' comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not." -- Linus Torvalds, in an e-mail elaborating on his defense of a Linux trademark.

Nielsen//NetRatings on Blogs

Nielsen//NetRatings announced today that 11 percent of Weblog readers, blog site visitors who claim to read blogs regularly or occasionally, use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to sort through the increasing number of blogs available. According to Nielsen//NetRatings’ “Understanding the Blogosphere” survey, nearly five percent of blog readers use feed aggregation software and more than six percent use a feed aggregating Web site to monitor RSS feeds from blogs.

“While RSS is an established technology, the growing popularity of blogs has catapulted RSS into the spotlight as a content personalization tool,” said Jon Gibs, senior research manager, Nielsen//NetRatings.

Zorbing...

Ok, us Kiwis have invented some weird sports and food... The bungee jump... The Kiwifruit... Mad Dog River boarding (once on a very wet and windy day I suggested that my wife and her sisters might like to try this on a Cat 4 river... heh, heh, heh... it was really funny until they got back to the hotel...)

And now, there is Zorbing... Here's how Gadling describes it...

Huh? What’s that you say? Zorbing? WTF is that? Well, imagine yourself taking momentary leave of both your senses and the little cubicle you call your office, and harnessing yourself into a VW-sized, transparent ball of plastic. Then imagine someone rolling you down a steep hill at 25 mph. You are the boy in the plastic bubble, on steroids.

Blog depression...

All the help you'll ever need... thanks to nonist...

Amen...

Thomas Friedman had a terrific column in the NYTimes the other day in which he suggested that if he were to run for office it would be on one platform - to make America's cellphone service work as well as that of Ghana. Amen.

Having just spent a week in NZ - better than the US on cellphone service (just) but with appalling broadband connectivity - I didn't get many of my voicemail messages. In fact, one suddenly appeared at 1.20am this morning - our days later. In Silicon Valley - ground zero for all things technogy you can barely hold a call driving up its main arteries. It's just pathetic. Never have I paid so much for such appaling service.

Mr Friedman, you've got my vote!

(btw, if the US ranks behind 15 other nations in terms of broadband connectivity, I can only imagine where NZ sits)

SEO Tips For Bloggers...

Stumbled onto this one. Must read for anyone interested in SEO.

That Microsoft Sound

Love this post from 43 Folders in which Brian Eno chats about creating that MSFT sound... From an article in SFGate ...I think I've got every Eno albumn and didn't know this... Brilliant...

The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I’d been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, “Here’s a specific problem — solve it.”

The thing from the agency said, “We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,” this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said “and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.”

I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It’s like making a tiny little jewel.

In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I’d finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.

Trumps got a blog...

Well how about this.

Bloggin as you go broke...

Hey, most of us are broke anyway... Pretty wild tale from BW. One of the most common questions I get during my workshop is how do you find time to blog and does it detract from doing business. The answer is that it does require a committment but it should enhance your business. But there is no subsitute for putting first things first.

Google to Introduce RSS News

According to Infoworld

Sun on Blogs

Bill Howard on Sun Blogs. Bill's office was next to mine at Sun - great guy.

Still In Taupo...

Hi Gang, more posts coming tomorrow. Still in NZ...

Downunder...

Will be posting sporadically this week as I am back in NZ for a series of board meetings and the Morgo High Growth confernce. All lots of fun. It still baffles me how NZ has become such a broadbad slouch. Hotels charge too much. WiFi access is hampered with ludicrous billing systems from carriers that require you to have a residential account - the irony of which is that NZ has a hot telco billing company that could fix that. Sigh... this is a sign of lack of compeitiveness...

Learning from Lance...

A great, great OpEd from Thomas Friedman. He makes the point:

There is no doubt that Lance Armstrong's seventh straight victory in the Tour de France, which has prompted sportswriters to rename the whole race the Tour de Lance, makes him one of the greatest U.S. athletes of all time. What I find most impressive about Armstrong, besides his sheer willpower to triumph over cancer, is the strategic focus he brings to his work, from his prerace training regimen to the meticulous way he and his cycling team plot out every leg of the race. It is a sight to behold. I have been thinking about them lately because their abilities to meld strength and strategy - to thoughtfully plan ahead and to sacrifice today for a big gain tomorrow - seem to be such fading virtues in American life. - NYT, July 27, 2005

A Very Big Ad...

Thought you'd like this one...

Video Blogs come to phones

Video blogs are coming to phones... It would be great for me to be able to get a video blog of Sophia at home while on the road.

This all might work brilliantly in 3G Europe but I'm not so sure in Silicon Valley where reception is nothing short of pathetic. The carriers here - Cingular, T/Mobile, Sprint... should all be ashamed of their service quality and delivery here in the valley. Its actually got to the point that I pretty much can't use my mobile for anything other than a 20 second call unless I am in the city or out of town. That is really sad.

Thanks To Blogsavvy...

Quick thanks to James over at Blogsavvy. He's been a huge help to me in setting up servers from which folks can download my various presentations. One of the great things about playing in the Blogosphere is meeting guys like James who are willing to donate a time and technology to help others be successful - and all in the name of blogging.

James also has a great post on how blogs relocate the Internet.

Cool...

Monkey boy James has tips to this great photo post of a guy in London drawing caricatures on his windows tablet. Love it...

Brandshift

Samsung has executed a stunning brand campaign that has established it as a worldclass brand. Evidence of that came today in the latest Interbrand rankings. According to AdAge:

(AdAge.com) -- In a reversal of fortunes that has been building for years, Samsung trumped Sony on Interbrand's Top 100 Brands list. On the just-released 2005 poll, published in conjunction with Businessweek, Samsung has taken Sony's No. 20 spot this year, while Sony dropped to No. 28.

Sony, in fact, topped the list of companies that lost the most brand value, dropping 16%, more than any other company in the top 100. On the other side, Samsung, which was No. 21 in the 2004, ranked in the top five of companies whose position climbed highest, with a 19% increase in brand value.

The overall top 10 brands on the list for 2005, in descending order, are the Coca-Cola Co., Microsoft Corp., IBM, General Electric Co., Intel, Nokia, Walt Disney Co., McDonald's Corp., Toyota Motors and Marlboro (Philip Morris USA).

WebSense Nonsense...

In a lesson for all PR types, Berlind calls WebSense into account for what is either a complete lapse of judgement or really unethical PR work. They've issued a release making all kinds of claims about the cost of "cyberslacking". I'll leave it to you to click and read.

It's this kind of beahvior that should get PR types censured by our industry bodies. Hacking other folks research and then slapping it back together, for a new purpose, really begs the question of ethics. It's a mosaic at best, at worst it's sensationalism.

Anyway, I'd challenge that surfing the web represents cyberslacking.

31 percent of online public opinion leaders have blogs

Article from Idil over at BM on the blogosphere... along with some good tips...

According to research from Burson-Marsteller, 31 percent of online public opinion leaders have blogs. The newsmaking process has become a collaborative process between the media and publics. Audiences who follow events through traditional and alternative channels, and sift piles of information to unravel a story, are replacing those who receive news only from well-known media outlets.

Murdoch On His Latest Buy...

News Corp acquired Intermix this morning - they run MySpace. Here's what Murdoch had to say:

"What is happening is, in short, a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don't want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don't want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what's important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don't want news presented as gospel. Instead, they want their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it."

Good List Of Blog Best Practices

From Shel and Scoble. I really disagree with some of Scoble's recent comments on not making your posts accurate in terms of content. But this is a pretty good list of best practices.

I really like the idea of writing a book as a blog. Wonder if comms teams shouldn't do the same for company publications?

Disintermediation...

Great Op-Ed in AdAge on disintermediation by John Battelle. Bloggers are the new middlemen. The thing that really resonated with me in this story is the notion that content is being trumped by intent. I now search. Search overrules any predispositions I might have had based on content.

"If content is not found when intent is declared, well, you lose." Search engine optimization and search skills will become hallmarks of great communicators going forward.

What's Up With Technorati?

Jeremy ponders what the heck is up. I've been wondering the same. Not only is it bloody slow but also ever increasingly inaccurate with a long time lag. Sigh... Thoughts anyone?

Web Is A Big Influencer Of Purchases

Doubleclick's third annual Touchpoints Survey reveals that the web is the most consistent factor in purchase influence across ten product categories, according to MediaBuyerPlanner.

Al On Hilton

Interesting piece by Al Ries on Hilton and the need for clear brand positioning. (logon required).

Do you know your brand?
What’s your brand? If you can’t answer that question about your own brand in two or three words, your brand’s in trouble.
Powerful, long-lasting brands are built by owning a word in the mind.
What’s a Volvo? A safe car.
What’s a BMW? Fun to drive.
What’s a Barilla? Italy’s No. 1 pasta.

News Blinks & Pointers: July 11, AM '05

• Branchannel on GE positioning


• Effective communications strategies for the blogosphere

• Superfuture (thanks to Mr. Whipps)

• Holmes report reports: This year, according to the 2005 KPMG International Survey of Corporate Responsibility Reporting, the majority (52 percent) of the world’s largest companies issued separate reports detailing their corporate social responsibility performance, up from 42 percent the year before." Other highlights:
  • At the national level, the two top countries in terms of separate CSR reporting are Japan (80 percent) and the United Kingdom (71 percent). The highest increases in the 16 countries in the survey are seen in Italy, Spain, Canada, France and South Africa.

• Pew reports newspapers and traditonal media still valued: "Most Americans continue to give favorable ratings to their daily newspaper (80 percent, compared to 20 percent unfavorable), local TV news (79 percent to 21 percent), and cable TV news networks (79 percent to 21 percent). The margin is only slightly smaller for network TV news (75 percent to 25 percent). In fact, the favorable ratings for most categories of news organizations surpass the positive ratings for President Bush and major institutions such as- the Supreme Court, Congress, and the two major political parties. The exception to this pattern are large, nationally influential newspapers, such as the Washington Post and New York Times, whose favorable ratings have declined markedly. According to Pew, ”The public has long been ambivalent about the news media—faulting the press in a variety of ways, while still valuing news and appreciating the product of news outlets.” And...
  • Overall, a third of Americans below age 40 cite the internet as their main source of news and many of these people are reading newspapers online. Consequently, while people under age 50 remain far less likely to read a print newspaper than are older people, they are turning to local and national newspapers online in fairly significant numbers. Overall, one-in-four (24 percent) Americans list the internet as a main source of news. Roughly the same number (23 percent) say they go online for news every day, up from 15 percent in 2000; the percentage checking the web for news at least once a week has grown from 33 percent to 44 percent over the same time period.

• News audiences more likely to watch news that discloses VNR sources: News audiences say they are more likely to watch a news broadcast that always discloses the source of any thirdparty video it uses, according to a recent survey of more than 1,000 television viewers by Ipsos for video news production company D S Simon Productions. Overall, 42 percent of respondents said they were more likely to watch a program that always disclosed video sources, and 39 percent were just as likely to watch—a total of 81 percent who said they would be affected negatively by disclosure. Only 16 percent said they would be less likely to watch a news program if it disclosed the sources of outside video. <<Aside: this is the value of subscribing to the Holmes Report... nothing on the DS Simon website... sigh!>>

• ODEO for podcasts

Just love mindmaps...

Stumbled onto these mindmaps today in a momentary lapse of focus - actually, it was a pretty sustained period of zippo focus...

On Corporate Blogs

Interesting story from InfoWorld. Points to the Cannondale blog, which I hadn't come across before. Includes comments from iUpload CEO - they've recently integrated their blogging solution with Google maps..And, Robin over at iUpload has an entry on Canadian Idol's use of blogs to engage with thier community...

London...

My old home has been hit by horrific terrorist attacks. Why attack working class Londoners? It's just so pointless and futile. Our thoughts are with all suffering through this.

Lots on the blogosphere on this one. Here are a few links:

• Sky News
• Perfect
  
• London Bloggers
• Jeff Jarvis
• Technorati
• BBC Blog
• Flickr
• BBC
• Wikinews

Glad James is OK - remembered his office is in Aldgate East. Waiting to hear about the rest of the gang...

One of the other reasons...

That old age print media is going to continue to struggle is that they are just lousy marketers. Lousy, lousy, lousy. Or, as Bart Simpson would say - "You suck!"

I've subscribed to the Wall Street Journal for years - print and online. Suddenly, looking for my daily dose, I'm offline. Seems when I resubscribed back in January I only did it for print - not the combo offer. Why they wouldn't automatically upgrade both is beyond me - why downgrade an existing subscriber? I thought I was just continuing my subscription...

Having encountered the virtually unintelligible "you can't come here anymore screen" I called. And waited. And waited. The person I was talking to for ten minutes - who needed all the skills of a CSI Investigator to figure out what was going on then said I needed to speak to the print department. Although my problem was with online access it really wasn't an online problem. So, over the the print department... We finally sorted this out.

People, get with the program. How about getting rid of your stupid voice response systems and multiple call centers. How about putting the customer first. How about removing complexity. Simplicity saves you money and makes customers happy.

The Rise Of Communities

Been reading an interesting post by Tim Porter on an article by Markoff. Anyway, stumbled across this quote which really reinforces one of the key tenets of my Participatory Communications Workshop - that is, the rise of communities:

"The internet is more than a bonding agent; it is also a bridging agent for creating and sustaining community. Some 84% of internet users, or close to 100 million people, belong to groups that have an online presence. More than half have joined those groups since getting internet access; those who were group members before getting access say their use of the internet has bound them closer to the group. Members of online groups also say the internet increases the chances that they will interact with people outside their social class, racial group or generational cohor." Pew Internet Survey

Tim makes the point: "To borrow a phrase from Hodding Carter and convert it into advice for newspapers: Don't reflect the community, be the community". Same goes for the PR pros and brand communicators. Don't just message to the community. Engage in the community.

Skype For Outlook PlugIn

Cool... Skype remains my fave application of the last two years.

Blogs Bring Brand Insight

The WSJ says Blogs are great for brand insight thanks to new technology:

Purveyors of the new methodology and their clients say blog-watching can be cheaper, faster and less biased than such staples of consumer research as focus groups and surveys... For a Japanese auto maker, Mr. Rabjohns says MotiveQuest studied online postings about minivans. Soccer moms said their young children love minivans, which they regard as "a playhouse on wheels," but teens regard them as lame and want SUVs. MotiveQuest recommended developing a loyalty program to persuade minivan owners to buy the company's SUVs, rather than trying to get them to buy another minivan.

Schwartz On Blogging...

Good interview here...

Open Media 100 List...

Care of the team at Always On...

Outcast Bought By Next Fifteen

Tom is on the case with news that Next Fifteen bought Outcast - and he beat PR Week to the news... This is a great move by Tim Dyson who continues to build out the most formidable group of communications consulting firms in the technology sector.

Countries Start Banning Skype Calls.

Oh well, no trips planned to Oman soon anyway. Or the UAE.

WSJ To launch weekend edition...

Another paper will thud onto my driveway on Saturday mornings... much to the despair of my wife who can't fathom why I subscribe to four weekend papers as it is. According to the NYT:

Starting Sept. 17, The Journal will add a Saturday issue named Weekend Edition, with a new emphasis on softer features - entertainment, travel, sports, arts, books, real estate and, yes, recipes. The goal is to attract a more diverse base of advertising to pull The Journal out of its prolonged slump.

The Saturday paper, which will be delivered at no extra charge - at least initially - to subscribers, will have a more airy, more casual feel than its daily counterpart, but will still be instantly recognizable as The Wall Street Journal. - KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

New Computerworld Blogs

• Computerworld blogs...

• Another Ketchum thing... you can't really offer a practice touching on stuff like blogs without doing it gang... more here

• Dan  nails Scoble... I'm with Dan. You are either for free speech or you aren't. By blocking the word democracy anywhere - in fact any word, anywhere... Microsoft is moving against freedom of speech.

• Penn State has initiated a pilot program of 10 wiki-based composition classes... They found that the self-governing ecology of the networked wiki format creates a fruitful environment for discussion and debate. - IfBook

• 10 Marketing trends...

• Sam Whitmore's tech podcast

• More on open source analysts from the monkies...

• Lovely tribute from Dan Edelman to his dad Richard.

Blogs play key role in launch of Open Solaris...

C/Net reports on Sun's launch of Open Solaris - or, launch, launch, launch, launch - in which blogs feature prominently. I think this is the first time we've seen blogs integrated so fully into a launch. I'm sure the skeptics will dismiss this as yet another PR stunt but it simply isn't (although I won't deny the PR benefit).

Sun deserves credit for the geek-centric approach, said RedMonk analyst Stephen O'Grady. "The best aspect of it for me is seeing a rather large software organization actually recognize the audience they want to be speaking to--in this case the developers." - Shankland, C/Net

This is a really smart and deep use of a complete spectrum of participatory communications technology to enhance and streamline communications with a fast growing community - it goes well beyond the standard corporate blog which for the most part is still about transmitting information and soliciting a response. I like how they are providing tags as well. Then there are the photos on Flickr. And, Johnny L - Sun's head of software launched his blog. It's a regular blogfest!

They've lit up the Open Solaris community inside Sun to light up the community outside Sun. You need to be a tripped-out geek to get some of this but the mobilization of the Sun team to provide different views on the product is great.

Conversations are a feature of the launch. Having spent 18 years in tech I can't tell you how different this is - most launches follow a standard pattern of big transmission followed by an expectation that what was transmitted will be written about then read.

The launch is about inviting participation. Shankland points to a great example of this as Sun flags 300 bugs in the product and invites the community to get involved with fixing them. Here is Liane Praza's first bug-fix.

Stephen has a terrific Q&A over at the Tecosystems blog, an excerpt from which looks at Sun's blog-fest:

Q: What did you find most interesting about the launch itself?

A: The way that it targeted the most important constituency of all; developers. Back in April, I posted the following note:

Spoke to a vendor marketing representative yesterday who I won't name (though they should feel free to identify themselves if they wish) that actually initiated a dialogue around del.icio.us, Flickr and tagging in general. First time that I can recall that's happened. Very refreshing, and a good sign for the product line in question.

Well, that person was Claire Giordano, and the product line was OpenSolaris. Her hand is directly visible on the OpenSolaris.org page itself with links to developer-friendly services like del.icio.us and Flickr, and also in the lack of a big bang style launch, press release, etc. The focus has instead been on conversational and participatory launch mechanisms like the aforementioned services and an explosion of related blog entries. OpenSolaris, as with any other product, will ultimately sink or swim on its own merits. But if those merits will jointly determined by Sun and the community around OpenSolaris, it's obvious that engaging developers using the means and mechanisms that they prefer is imperative. Given that context, I'd say that today's launch was an excellent start.

Couldn't agree more. Gold stars to Sun. Great reporting by Shankland. Great analysis by Stephen.

Black is back!

What a relief!

After more than three years of pushing bright colors, bold prints and femininity in fashion, designers and retailers are heralding the return of basic black for fall. --WSJ

New Technorati Search...

The beta is up and running.

The Great Migration...

Disney's Iger used a really interesting term at the Deutsche Bank Media Conference:

Acknowledging his company's need to "leverage the great migration" of viewers to consumer-controlled media formats, Walt Disney Co.'s president and chief operating officer Bob Iger yesterday said the company has made video on demand and digital ad formats a high priority. - AdAge

BEA Goes Liquid

BEA launched a new brand campaign strongly connected to a new product. Some gorgeous design and, lots of clever thinking by my old Sun colleague Marge.

News Blinks & Pointers: June 6, PM '05

• Washington Post on corporate blogging... worth a read
• Ontology is Overrated - Clay
• Interview with CEO of Vonage
• The Law Of Accelerating Returns... There is a parallel here with the Law of Participatory Communications - that is, the impact of messages and content isn't in reaching 1+1+1 numbers (3 people) ... When communicating to a community and activating that community, the effect is exponential.
• Terrific exchange. Must read for all marketers. Focus is everything.
• Love Google maps? You'll love customizing them...
• Ten Thinkers...
• Making it (again) in Silicon Valley (PWR)
• More on EPIC... From Corante... From FindLaw
• Nice advert from Coke...

News Blinks & Pointers: June 5, PM '05

• WSJ says that Apple to use Intel chips, replaying the rumors running nearly everywhere... Yager has a good view on this.
• Seems Dell is hot water in China for remarks made by a sales person. China worried about Dell? Give me a break. Lets not confuse Dell's competitors using this to turn-up the heat. I worked with Dell for years - it's unlikely you'll encounter a more professional, savvy company.
• Steve Jobs' closet...
• Where to submit your podcast... a list of sites...
• And, five reasons to consider Podcasting... and some more... and some good thinking on the topic from Shel
• PubSub introduces LinkStats - shows inbound and outbound links from a blog. I'm not sure I see these as a complete  communications metric but they are useful in monitoring activity. And, they do point to how active the community is.
• Six reasons blogs are better than traditional journalism...
• Visual bookmarks for the Web...
• Worth listening to... PennSound... recording poets
• Big Kiwi wine tasting in SFO...
• Illuminata has a blog!
• Tim Porter on the future of the newspaper...

Podcasting Emerging As...

Radio Business Extension... Adage reports... Many podacasts are restricted to talk due to copyright issues. Not for much longer:

Podcasting, the new medium burst from the confluence of iPods and audio downloads, is advancing at incredible speed as more marketers and media owners incorporate it as an extension of the radio business.

Clear Channel’s Z100 initiative is the first in what it hopes to be a national podcasting strategy that allows listeners to download snippets of popular programming, either individually as an MP3 file or as part of an RSS stream (RSS stands for "really simple syndication"). The podcasts, free to consumers, will be ad-supported and the company is reportedly shopping 15-second spots to advertisers. - AdAge - Abbey Klaassen

News Blinks & Pointers: June 1, PM '05

• Yahoo publishes blogging guidelines - story via Jeremy
• RSS your press releases...
• How to do media training you are really going to need... the S49rs media training video fiasco... here are the videos... and as he says ... "you do something controversial, it will have an impact on this team... and what you say is not only a relfection of yourself, its a reflection of the San Francisco 49ers..." OK, this was developed for a specific audience and is going to be taken wildly out of context but why would you do this knowing that everything you do is being covered by the media? Oh dear....

News Blinks & Pointers: June 1, AM '05

• VOIP lift-off... great read from Om
• Everyday illustrations
• Cool stuff...
• James on Friedman...
• Mitigating blog overload...
• And, if you are looking for the Rugby, sign-up for Setanta Sports.

News Blinks & Pointers: May 23, AM '05

• The Freakonomics Blog...
• THe new Skype blog... if you don't have Skype, get it...
• Tiny URLs - cause who needs a long one...
• Think Different...
• Lakoff Interview...

News Blinks & Pointers: May 19, AM '05

• Ann Coulter - a fine read on the NewsWeek mess...
• How to start a start-up...
• Public relations on the Internet... good read... and an interesting primer...
• Powerlaw primer and Google on the Longtail...

Hyperspace...

More and more product launches, communities and brands are incorporating blogs as a way of engaging with their constituents. Today's new entrant is Star Wars who have buried blogs in their community site. To find them you are going to need to force on your side but they are there! Here you go...

Blogs are much more than traditional brand extensions. They are brand activators, providing a platform on which the community can come together to share, interact and broaden their experience. You've got to pay to play, but hey, every community membership has its price.

News Blinks & Pointers: May 17, AM '05

• Looking up words on your Mac...
• Is that a Condom in your PodCast...
• Now that's the way to build subscribers... Start charging more... It perhaps the dumbest marketing move of the tear, The New York TImes will, for a fee, provide exclusive access to Op-Ed and news columnists on NYTimes.com, easy and in-depth access to The Times's online archives, early access to select articles on the site, as well as other exciting features. All this will encourage me to do is dump my print subscription all together. The FT is looking nicer by the day... Isn't EPIC looking real?

News Blinks & Pointers: May 16, AM '05

• Work Creep... this is so sad... Get a life people!
• Yawn... Explorer to get tabs... ooooooo... now thats innovation!
• New BBC Blog Column... "Many critics claim that blogs have nothing to say and are pure self-indulgence. This new column, Weblog Watch, will be keeping an eye on the blogs and seeing if the criticism is justified."
• If you don't understand what Creative Commons is, watch this...
• Lots of cool photos...
• And, Stamps.Com are back open for business...

And Now For Some Good News...

Bring on the direct shipments of wine from anywhere to everywhere...

''States have broad power to regulate liquor,'' Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. ''This power, however, does not allow states to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers.''

''If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms,'' he wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Antonin Scalia, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer.

.. The decision puts in doubt laws in 24 states that ban out-of-state shipments, although the opinion suggests the laws will be upheld so long as in-state and out-of-state wineries are treated equally.

The Washington-based Institute for Justice says the 24 states that ban direct shipments from out-of-state wineries are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont.

IBM Blogs

IBM released it's anticipated Blog policy today - created as a team effort using a Wiki - by bloggers, for bloggers.

Dan's Bayosphere...

Dan's launched what will probably be the first of many ventures with a "call to arms"...

"Let's build a space where people can find news and opinion they can trust, and information that helps us in our daily lives."

It's a small nit (like very small) but it annoys the crap out of me when people put the RSS feed/XML button at the bottom of pages. Stick it up front so us lazy buggers can drag and drop while reading the post that bought us to your site...

International Blogging Machines...

Tom reports on IBM's plans to launch a major blog initative next week.

One of the key things I advise companies to consider as they look at blogging is how their company's behavioral norms will manifest themselves in the blogosphere. Both in how they engage in dialogue and drive it. IBM has an incredibly deep technology bench so it will be very interesting to see what topics the dialogue is centered on and the tone that develops.

I've Always Wondered What Gabby Dog Was On About...

Now I can know.... A dog translation service over the phone...

Hi, I'm Dracula

This is too good to miss.... From Penguin via O'Reilly

... think about all this in the context of remixing (something Katz touches on). The bloggosphere is one big remix paired with a ton of original content.

Small bits of information -- links, tags, images, syndicated blog entries -- are travelling the internet and being recombined, remixed, into new aggregates. Software is being remixed. Business models are being remixed. O'Reilly used remixes as a theme for their recent Emerging Technology conference, and they give a nice heads-up on Penguin UK's contest for remixing spoken word samples with homegrown music. Aside from the remix of two different types of audio programming, the contest highlights the combination of three businesses: Audible, iTunes, and Penguin. - Bill Katz

News Blinks & Pointers: May 10, AM '05

• Lance Knobel's lecture in Australia - "Nullius in verba: navigating through the new media democracy"
• Jay Rosen - "Each Nation its Own Press"
• Google buys Dodgeball some more great commentary at Corante
• Cellphedia - cool
• James' Blog - becuase it's just worth reading...
• ... And, support the Blogher conference by attending...

Milbloggers

USA Today reports Milbloggers are typing their way into history...

"The number of Internet Web logs — or "blogs," as online diaries are known — by American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is soaring, giving people everywhere unprecedented windows into servicemembers' lives.

From 50 or so a year ago, the number of their online journals is now about 200 and is expected to be near 1,000 by the year's end, say the bloggers themselves and experts who track the Web.

The growth means a historic phenomenon is gaining momentum: Anyone with access to the Internet can read many first-hand accounts of life in a war zone within seconds after they're finished.

And the blogs are "full of real substance and depth," says Jon Peede, director of the National Endowment for the Arts' Operation Homecoming program, which helps troops and their families write about their wartime experiences. "They're raw, powerful reflections on the war."

News Blinks & Pointers: May 9, PM '05

• Marketers Don't Want Ad Agencies As Partners : "Marketers don’t want partners. They want ideas. They want results. They want creative solutions to business challenges. The faster big global agency networks recognize that -- and stop pining for some mystical, transcendent client relationship that bears no resemblance to their current status or worth -- the faster they can define their actual value and compete for a spot on the roster." Scott Donaton - Ad Age.
• A Blog Revolution? Get A Grip?: Damn right! As for the blog revolution, Denton put it this way: "Give me a break. The hype comes from unemployed or partially employed marketing professionals and people who never made it as journalists wanting to believe," Nick Denton said. "They want to believe there's going to be this new revolution and their lives are going to be changed." Heh, heh, heh... Brilliant!
• ... and. "Some of my own favorite sites are ones that have no consistency beyond the wit and charm of the writer."
  --Nick Denton
• Firefox is vulnerable...
• They found the other Mars Lander...
• Huffington's Blog Is Up... Be sure to read Harry Shearer's Eat The Press...

News Blinks - May 9 '05

• Tufte's Powerpoint comments called "nonsense" - don't think that's entirely fair but the thnking here is good.
• Open source radio - Chris Lydon's new web site is worth a look. "Public Radio International (PRI) and Open Source Media Inc. announce plans to launch the first radio program to embrace bloggers, Web enthusiasts, and the Internet transformation of media."
• Singapore threatens to sue blogger (via FT - SR) - "A*Star defended its libel threat, saying it had "the responsibility to protect its reputation and also that of Singapore"
• Presos from Blogtalk Downunder
• Yawn - now we're trying to figure out who is important
• Concentrate now!
• Jay in Australia
• Congrats to all at Bite who celebrate their Tenth year.

News Blinks - Tuesday May 3

>> Does your job suck? Overall job satisfaction declining...

>> Excerpt from ICON, the book that inspired Steve Job's "burn all the books" moment

>> Email more harmful than pot

Bringing Transparency To Software...

I'm big on transparency in communications - or at least addressing the lack of it.

Mark Tolliver - my former boss at Sun has joined a terrific new start-up, Palamida, which is in the emerging software IP management space. In short, they've got a rocket-ship of a search engine that sits on a massive database of software code that is enabled with ultra-flexible XML reporting. A developer can then quickly determine whose IP is inside what code and ensure they are in compliance with licensing terms and report on it. They remove a bottleneck in the development of software and automate an otherwise onerous process. <<disclosure - Mark is a close friend and I've given Palamida some counsel on positioning and the like... they are a really neat team.>>

Looking at the coverage today, Mark, Theresa and the team at Chen have done a terrific job in spreading the word of Mark's arrival and that their lead product, IP Amplifer, has entered GA. Congrats to all.

Wouldn't it be interesting if we had the same kind of tool for use in determining the origins of news, affiliations of spokespeople and revenue sources of consultants... Hmmmmm... there might be a business in that. Or would that be a massive infringement of our privacy?

Stuff to read May 2, 05

• Ross on Everthing Bad For You Is Good For You...

Sophia Virginia Lark

Some days you are the luckiest person on Earth and today is one of those days for Kristen and I.

We're thrilled to announce the arrival of Sophia Virgina Lark - a beautiful little daughter weighing in at 8.5lbs. We're too giddy with joy to post more. Thanks to all our friends and family for the support and warmth you've shown us over the past months.

Both Kristen and Sophia are doing great.

Kiwi Gets Big Job At MSFT

New CFO a Kiwi...

From Matamata to Microsoft. Chris Liddell’s appointment to the number three job - chief financial officer - at Microsoft is a huge coup for the former head of Carter Holt Harvey and for New Zealand’s business image.

News Blinks - Tues April 26

• Terrific piece over at CIO insight on the Rise of Social Networking.
• The BBC interviews Kevin Roberts on Lovemarks
• Blogs correct journalists via Rubel
• The future of news - from the Media Center:

It’s mobile, immediate, visual, interactive, participatory and trusted. Make way for a generation of storytellers who totally get it. This briefing summarizes key findings from Media, Technology and Society, a multi-disciplinary research project on the media landscape conducted for professionals engaged in strategies, research, thinking, education, policy and philanthropy related to the future of journalism and media.

• The Boston Globe on that GM thing
• Yosi Vardi speaks...

"20 million bloggers are not journalists, what are they? They want to fulfill a human desire of self-expression. ICQ was founded by four Israeli kids who wanted an indication for when their friends would enter a chat room. Initially they bet they might have 3k users, now approaching 400 million. ICQ 297M, Jesus 277M and Bible 250M mentions on MSN."

Open Kimono

The Microsoft thing debated internally for all to see as Scoble challenges the way the company backed off supporting some anti-discrimination legislation in Washington State. Here's his boss's boss response. Other employees are jumping mad.

First, this is certainly a change in corporate communications - at least for the companies willing to tolerate embrace blogging. It is incredibly transparent - I guess follows the maxim that companies with nothing to hide needn't fear transparency. If you are a stakeholder and you really can't get a fix on Microsoft's position via the media, then here it is. Once we waited for C/Net to publish another 'leaked' Microsoft memo. Now we get them real-time via blogs.

It's also a shift in employee communications. Here we have the management/employee 'food-chain' exchanging views for everyone to see. No closed-door conversations. No gossip about what was said and what wasn't. No time-lag between information distribution and eyeballs (total aside but a major issue for many companies is the hours it takes for email to reach desktops). Everyone is informed. Everyone gets to participate.

Second, it skirts an entire media cycle. Once upon a time we would have read about this exchange in the NYTimes or in The Reg. Now it's here for all interested parties to see - unfolding in real-time. A journalist once said to me that transparency isn't good for journalism. Maybe this points to that being true. If nothing it kills the leaked memo scoop so skillfully used by PR pros to manipulate the media generate coverage.

Third, and if nothing else, this certainly positions Microsoft as a company willing to engage in dialog. But it's more than that - this is an indicator of a new kind of company. A company engaged in conversations and transparency. You could even ask the question - How participatory is your company?

Microsoft might not be perfect - by any stretch - but this does signal a different kind of company.

Darwin on blogs....

In stark contract to BW... read on...

News Blinks Friday April 22

• America lags in broadband - and based on my last trip downunder, NZ is in a far worse position. "In 2001-04, Mr Bleha notes, America fell from fourth to 13th place in global rankings of broadband internet usage" - The Economist.
• Mossberg on blogging. Consumer focused.
• The Future of Jounralism - The Economist on the Murdoch keynote. “I believe too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers,” Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world's largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week.

Another dangerous cliché is to consider bloggers intrinsically parasitic on (and thus, ultimately, no threat to) the traditional news business. True, many thrive on debunking, contradicting or analysing stories that originate in the old media. In this sense, the blogosphere is, so far, mostly an expanded op-ed medium. But there is nothing to suggest that bloggers cannot also do original reporting. Glenn Reynolds, whose political blog, Instapundit.com, counts 250,000 readers on a good day, often includes eyewitness accounts from people in Afghanistan or Shanghai, whom he considers “correspondents” in the original sense of the word. - The Economist, April 29

Even Penquins Pass Through Security...

A classic series of shots...

TechDirt Case Study...

Interesting little case study on the use of blogs to share information internally. Reflecting on prior gigs I can see how this would be enormously valuable. As competitive intel filtered down through the company inevitably folks had other info and intel to add. This would all then need to be updated and resent - generally going unread. Now, you get input, clarity, and change in real-time. Call it Participatory Intelligence.

Thanks to Ross for the pointer...

Winsor on Leica...

John's got an interesting post on Leica over at Brandshift. The FT carried a story in the April 16 edition on their continuing woes (annoying subscription required):

"The crisis at Leica, whose cameras were used by star photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Bailey, has deepened in recent months as sales have slumped and banks have started to terminate credit lines."

Even 100 year old brands need to evolve. Look at what The Times did in London by moving to a new format - they reversed a serious circulation slide. As they say, it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it. And in Leica's case, that would appear to be not much at all.

Cymfony Launches Blog...

Measurement co' Cymfony launches a blog on measurement - current content seems to be more generic PR... If you are looking for measurement tips, take a look at Katie's blog.

Macrodobia Blogged

It's great to see the Macromedia bloogers in the middle of this mightly acquisition still blogging away. There are all kinds of rules and regs at play here. Mike Chambers has a great perspective on the proposed merger. As does Kevin Lynch. These guys are putting a much more human face on the announcement than that which could have been achieved through purely traditional communications.

Let me be clear - I'm not for a minute slighting traditional communications. They perform an essential technical function. And Adobe's PR team has been doing a stunning job of late. (loved the article in The Economist last week!). Blogging is essentially dimensionalizing the content - making it richer and more interesting. I couldn't find the Adobe blogs though.

It's amazing how hard it is on many sites to find the blogodex. Sun and Microsoft are worldclass in this respect. Macromedia is pretty good as well - although they should also feature the link on their news site. Places the link to the company blogodex might be featured include:

• the homepage (might be asking too much)
• the news site (mandatory)
• the developer site (mandatory)
• the exec pages (pretty important)
• other suggestions...

I also liked the overview Macromedia provided of it's blogging efforts.

Is Tom Peters Going to Be Pissed Or What...

I have always marveled at Tom's descriptions of the number of books he travels with. It makes me feel, well, less bad. I used to think I was the only crazed individual who could travel to New York or New Zealand with six books and come back with ten.

Well, apparently our worlds are about to change. Ross reports that according to a Transportation Security Agency (TSA) screener that the book allowance has been cut from 4 to 2. Ummmm... What?

I wonder if that is two thick books or four skinny ones?  Do eBooks count? Are magazines books. Cause I carry like twenty of them.

In the unlikely event someone from the TSA is reading this, could you please clarify? (And I mean really unlikely event).

News Blinks - Sunday April 16

• GM speaks to pulling ads from the LA TImes - discussed earlier on this Blog.
• Worth listening to... Geoffrey Moore (rated 3.1 by listeners) considers what might happen to the software industry over the next decade.
• Malcolm Galdwell from SWXW.

I read the Economist's feature on the customer last night. A good read on the power consumers have. After reading the CEO of Verizon's comments regarding customers in the SF Chronicle this morning I think, as a Verizon customer, I'm going to exercize some of that power::

"Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?" he said. "The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement."

Actually, I'd take it working on 101, 85 and 280 as a starter.

News Blinks Sat April 15

Something for all you time wasters on my site... some time saving stuff:

• Go on, get some things done... More on Getting things done.
• And, the virtue of index cards! (mark, you're going to love this).
• Dan from the "Changing Economics Of News" gathering.
• Smart little site on how to get rich. Kind of.
• That Armstrong thing raises its head again.

New SNT to play with::

• Faster Flickr if you are using a Mac - a cool way to speed uploads. For all of us.
  
• Blogtorrent... "Blog Torrent is the easiest and best way to offer large files on your website without using any storage or bandwidth." - not for the non geeky

News Blinks - Friday April 14

• Why does Stoneyfield Farms blog? Find out at the Red Couch.
• Greg P's Blog on what's like to be Sun working with MSFT...
• And just in case you wanted to know what Area51 looks like, try Google maps
• Open Access Education Journals - Cool! Now if we could just do the same for text books.
• PressThink Q & A with Bill Grueskin, Managing Editor of the Wall Street Journal Online
• You're going to want to read Tim Porter from the American Society of Newspaper Editors.
• And I'm wondering if this six point list doesn't apply just as much to PR.
  1. The 10 Percent Solution. Devote at least 10 percent of the newsroom budget each year to new product and staff development
  2. Don't Tinker, Explode. Big rewards come from big bets.
  3. Leadership in Uncertain Times: Change Must Come from the Top.
  4. Boring Begone!: Most newspapers are filled from front to back with generic copy, must of it ripped from the wires, the rest written by reporters cover institutional events in stenographic fashion. Stop it.
  5. Don't Cover the Community, Be the Community.
  6. Hire Do-ers, Learners and Critical Thinkers First, Then the J-School Grads.

The message here: In today’s media world the audience – and their money – follows trust and credibility, characteristics that evolve from authenticity, transparency and voice, rarities in our newspapers. - Tim Porter.

News Blinks - Thursday April 14

• Media Chaos Scenario. [[must read]]
• Murdoch on the media.
• Blog Censorship Gains Support - Story from C/Net
• Do you have a toxic blog? - from The Reg
• DVR hits ads to tune $27billion over next five years.

" What is happening is, in short, a revolution in the way young people are accessing news. They don’t want to rely on the morning paper for their up-to-date information. They don’t want to rely on a God-like figure from above to tell them what’s important. And to carry the religion analogy a bit further, they certainly don’t want news presented as gospel...

... they want their news on demand, when it works for them. They want control over their media, instead of being controlled by it. They want to question, to probe, to offer a different angle. Think about how blogs and message boards revealed that Kryptonite bicycle locks were vulnerable to a Bic pen. Or the Swiftboat incident. Or the swift departure of Dan Rather from CBS. One commentator, Jeff Jarvis, puts it this way: give the people control of media, they will use it. Don’t give people control of media, and you will lose them." Rupert Murdoch

Time Is the New Currency

Take a look at this study from JWT. Great stuff. James provided the pointer so thanks! Love this insight::

Given a notional $1,000 Time Wallet with which to spend $1 (U.S.) or £1 (U.K.) a minute on 40 different activities, American men allocated the largest portion of their money, $117, to having passionate sex, while American women invested a much cooler $48. British men put passionate sex at the top of their shopping lists, too, but allocated just £88 to it, which was still ahead of the £52 their female compatriots set aside. 

A Whole New Mind

Dan's new book is a stunner. Well worth the time and money. It's time to develop your right brain!

You Women Get Going...

To the Blogher conference.

BlogHer is a network for women bloggers to draw on for exposure, education, and community. By holding a day-long conference on July 30, 2005, and establishing an online hub, BlogHer is initiating an opportunity for greater visibility, learning and success for individual women bloggers and for the community of bloggers as a whole.

Your House From Satellite...

For some reason I only just discovered this - thanks to Jeff for the pointer. But... if you type your address into Google, select maps and then select satellite mode you can see your house - kind of. This is way cool.

Have Your Say On The NYT

Read and post your views here.

Pogue says:

But that's only part of why the Annotated NYTimes is such a wild, mind-bending Web site. It's a lot like the NYtimes.com Web site — except that the articles have links attached that take you to bloggers’ (Web loggers’) comments... the way it’s organized is ingenious and, I predict, a taste of formats to come.

What Goes On In Court, Stays In Court

Or maybe not... C/Net reports that a Canadian blogger is testing the law on this one. Hey, remember that old "we're not journalists thing"? If you can't fix it, feature it (I guess).

Canada's long-standing practice of barring news organizations from disclosing what's happening in certain court proceedings is being tested by Internet bloggers.

A Canadian commission that's investigating charges of high-level wrongdoing in the nation's Liberal Party has ordered news organizations not to reveal details from the proceedings, which are open to the public.

But Ed Morrissey, a conservative Web logger in Minneapolis, has been gleefully violating the ban by posting detailed reports of the verboten "Adscam" testimony. Public revelation of Adscam, which involves allegations of corruption and illegal campaign contributions, could end the Liberal Party's precarious grasp on power and force new elections this summer.

And his page views have surged to 400,000 a day... Hmmmm, off to court then.

Fake Salmon Shocker...

Now this is real journalism... from the NYT... Dan says this is why we need real journalists. Isn't that why we have the police?

Tests performed for The New York Times in March on salmon sold as wild by eight New York City stores, going for as much as $29 a pound, showed that the fish at six of the eight were farm raised. Farmed salmon, available year round, sells for $5 to $12 a pound in the city.

The irony is that I found the story on Sploid! And in other news, from the NYTimes, to become Miss America, you're probably going to have to eat bugs! Excellent. The point of all this being that Sploid and the NYTimes have lots in common. And I'm not sure it's serious journalism.

All Things Considered...

Bob on the emerging media chaos and anarchy... thanks for Brandshift for the pointer.

Network television audiences are down as cable, the Internet and a host of other new technologies emerge; and marketers are shifting their dollars accordingly. The media world faces an interim of chaos before a new order is determined. The co-host of On the Media delivers his take.

\\ small gripe... but why don't sites offer us the option of pure MP3 or at least an iTunes option?

Oh Dear...

New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer has landed in hot water after his campaign paid Google to link searches for "AIG" to a website -- www.spitzer2006.com -- promoting his bid for governor. "Somebody didn't use good judgment," his office said. "It isn't appropriate to do this with something like the ongoing AIG investigation." Yeah, that would be right.

The link was taken down after media inquiries yesterday, Financial Times reported.

Apparently while busy probing Wall Street and the insurance industry, Washington Post reported Mr. Spitzer eked out enough time to raise $7.9 million for his planned 2006 run for governor.

As the saying goes, nobody is perfect. But maybe he's just showing us the power of using the web to raise funds from the masses while taking on the powerful?

In the Dogosphere

This just cracks me up.

Damn Right

Chris on Mark Cuban.

Those Silly Buggers...

Steve points to the stupidity of major media houses in attempting to charge for online pubs and content. The root of this commentary is a Reuters piece.

I wonder if their strategists have any concept of the Long Tail and how we are embracing it. Moreover, I wonder if any of them are actually listening to customers. (this is already becoming a bit of a rant... sorry...).

What is even more annoying here is the audacity that they think they can wean us off "free" online content. They need to grasp that first, for us the consumer, it isn't free - we all know we're paying directly and indirectly - we're in fact subsidizing and paying for the distribution (computer, broadband...). And they are making money off free - they just aren't optimizing their business models for it.

The one hope I think publishers have of making us pay for online content is to make it valuable. Make it something we want to pay for.

And publishers better get with the Blogosphere, Wiki and PodCast - all of this is about the commoditization of news and raw information - and the addition of all kinds of new value as we, the people, start commentating and providing perspective. That's no longer the exclusive purview of the journalist.

The appointment driven news models of the major publishers is dying fast. And I don't believe that we will be willing to pay for just the utility of on demand (that's where the Long Tail will smack you in the head if you attempt it).  It's going to take a complete rethink for publishers to monetize the current wave of information revolution - and survive. Stepping back in time and overlaying yet another subscription model will only accelerate extinction.

On The Road...

I'm on the road this week. More posts coming. See you soon.

Ideation

BoingBoing links to  a series of Apple design fantasies. There's nothing like others dreaming about what you might do next.... Me, I'd like one of each of them...

Wharton on Bloggin...

worth a look....

Yahoo to Acquire Flickr

There they go... all the richer for executing on a great idea... And I love the announcement on their Blog. That's authenticity.

You Are Paying

Yes you are. You are paying for the Bush Administration's rancid propaganda running on TV stations across the country. Depending on your POV, I guess that might be a good thing. Dan has a good take on this heinous practice.

Classic Quote...

From this morning's Good Morning Silicon Valley...

"Most of you are familiar with the book 'Understanding Media' by Marshall McLuhan. It sometimes comes as a shock to be reminded that in operational and practical terms, the medium is the message. He was right. ... People always say that content is king, but there's a lot of content out there and it can't all be king. So if content is king, you don't just want king. You want King Kong content."

-- Sean "P. Diddy" Combs gives mad props to the original Eminem at the CTIA Convention

Dems Rebranding...

BusinessWeek reports that the Dems are thinking about rebranding. About time.

Although they might want to think about a new brand all together. Do you always need to rebrand - which implies fixing the past (at least to me) - vs. launching a new brand all together...

"Two articles I have read in the last 24 hours--one in The New Yorker about Joe Biden and Nicholas Kristof's op-ed piece in the New York Times today--specifically talk about the Democrats "re-branding" themselves. I have an idea: Dems could stake out being the party for "The Truth" between now and 2008.. David Kiley, BW

Beyond Bullets...

A great blog on how to get beyond the bullets of PowerPoint, Keynote or whatever your fancy might be. And some interesting comments on the opensource presentation project the FireFox team are undertaking. The use of a Wiki to create the presentation is an interesting idea. Could be a great way for brand marketers in large organizations to start accumulating thinking for the next vision pitch or messageboard - so long as they listen to Cliff and start with the story...

Brand America

Boston Globe as a fascinating story on the use of Blogs in public diplomacy - and the opportunity they hold to improve Brand America abroad.