Andrew Lark

Portals - WSJ.com

Lee Gomes on the use of the word Breakthrough in press releases. There are plenty of other common phrases. Like "leading" - if everyone is leading then who isn't? A simple and imperfect Google search on 'press release leading' resulted in 92,700,999 results...

All companies, but especially those in technology, like few things better than to talk about their "breakthroughs," those great leaps forward that make products out of the formerly impossible. A search by Factiva Consulting Services found that more than 8,600 press releases have been issued over the years with "breakthrough" in the headline, a majority of them by computer and electronics companies.

Our laziness in crafting news releases isn't just tiresome, to Lee's point, it perverts the very language we depend on for our trade.

Source: Portals - WSJ.com

NZ Gets Gaming Studio...

NZ has a real richness of interactive talent so this is great news:

Microsoft announced Wednesday that it will be creating a video game studio in collaboration with "Lord of the Rings" director Peter Jackson. Wingnut will be based in New Zealand, Henson said. He would not elaborate on the business terms of the arrangement.

Link to Microsoft, Peter Jackson to form game studio | CNET News.com

Engagement Level - A New Metric of Success for Online Advertising

Worth a read. Measuring engagement should be a priority for communicators as well. And I would extend the mandate to include all marketing.

US Airports Take The Liquids Out, Bangkok Puts It Back In...

Gizmodo reports that the new Bangkok airport will be cooled by fluids flowing beneath the floors: "Cold water flows directly underneath the floors on all levels, keeping the air a steady 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit up to 8.2 feet above the ground." Very cool (sorry, couldn't resist that...).

Explanations

• Good explanation of RSS.
• Good explanation of the Second Life opportunity for PR. Text 100 was the first PR agency to establish a presence in Second Life.
• On Social Bookmarking.
• CNN on CEO bloggers. What's surprising here is the lack of new CEO stories. It's the same old crowd.
• DemoFall companies announced.
• Of the Google brain via Fortune:

"What emerges from months of interviews with employees ranging from fresh-out-of-college hires to the CEO is that Google firmly believes it has a framework for figuring out the future. It should come as no surprise that the plan is as irreverent, self-confident, and presumptuous as the company itself. Google's executives don't articulate it this way, but the framework can be found in the title of Shona Brown's book: structured chaos. Indeed, along with Googleyness, chaos is among the most important aspects of Google's self-image. Understanding how Google thinks about chaos -- like Page's teachable moment after Sandberg's million-dollar mistake -- is critical to divining where the company goes next. "Are lots of questions hanging out there in the market?" asks Sandberg. "Sure. Because we don't always have an answer. We're willing to tolerate that ambiguity and chaos because that's where the room is for innovation." Good strategy -- if it actually works."

Eloqua Gets A Shot In The Arm

Eloqua - a product we use extensively at LogLogic - got a shot in the arm from U.S. VCs by raising US$13-million. We're going to see more marketing technology like Eloqua which rather that existing as a standalone product runs on your dominant sales and marketing platform - in our case Salesforce.com. This has been part of the challenge for many of the marketing measurement vendors - without a dominant marketing suite or application to pivot off they can't establish any reach throughout marketing organizations or real momentum. There is a real need for a suite of applications for the communications practitioner - something that perhaps blends Salesforce, biz360 and socialtext.

Sad...

In a sad reflection of the ever diminishing rights of people and extreme reactionary - and entirely unaccountable - travel policies here in the US a company has sprung up that will ship your products to the hotel for you...

Analyst Consolidation Continues...

This time it is Aberdeen getting gobbled-up by marketing firm Harte-Hanks. Aberdeen Group will remain as a separate operating unit and keep the Aberdeen Group’s fact-based research brand. Aberdeen have been long regarded the most, well, vendor-friendly of the analyst firms so this is probably a good fit.

Wired News: Web 2.0 Winners and Losers

 Flickr wins in Wired News reader poll. Interesting that Odeo also gets high marks - need to go play with that. del.icio.us comes in at #3 - probably my fave.

Without del.icio.us, I'd be drowning in a morass of bookmark clutter. Seriously, drowning. Every article I've saved for later, every YouTube video I've earmarked for repeat viewing, every cache of free MP3s, every (ahem) NSFW page I come across. It all gets posted to del.icio.us. It's truly a lifesaver.

Ludicrous

Virgin is banning the use of 'certain' Dell and Apple laptops. Certain? How will they possibly enforce this? Has it occurred to them that the same manufacturer for Dell and Apple also makes the batteries for Sony and others?

What bothers me so much about current security policies is their implementation - cumbersome, half-arsed, and complicated. Everything a good security and safety policy shouldn't be. Dell rightly says this is an overreaction. I'd call it plain stupid.