10-26-07

The word farms of the web

A great article by Danny Bradbury published on the Guardian yesterday – “The growing number of websites that mix and match low-quality articles produced by amateurs in order to generate traffic is causing concern”. PR, SEO and online advertising are mixing quicker than ever before and we’re having to get even more technically literate to understand what that means for each of our industries. This is right where I’m at right now. And it’s complicated!

07-27-07

BBC iPlayer

As I’m sure loads of people did yesterday, I was invited to take part in the beta test for the BBC iPlayer which launched today. All very nice but it doesn’t work on a Mac. I think it’s bit rubbish not to release a Mac version at launch, especially as it’s called iPlayer! I’m sure there’s lots of reasons why and the BBC has said that it is aiming to provide for Mac and Vista users in future versions (see cut and paste below), but even so – I feel a bit left out in the cold, especially after being invited to take part.

“To take part, you must have access to a PC with broadband at home. It must be a PC running Windows XP. The technology is not currently compatible with an Apple Macintosh or Windows Vista – although we are aiming to provide for these in future versions.”

Disclaimer – I work with Apple and have done so for the past 3 years.

06-07-07

Read this now if you work in Technology PR

Charles Arthur has let off some steam about PR. He’s had a shocker of a week. Great insight into why PR needs to get a whole lot more “digital”.

05-30-07

The death of specialist media?

Not if London Dog Tails has got anything to do with it. Out in July. Will be keeping an eye on it, even if I am a cat man. Pretty sure it’s aimed at humans and not dogs.

05-10-07

The real digital divide

Great article in the Guardian by Richard Sarson looking at the use of the internet by children. Whilst we all know this (or at least have a good idea), it’s great to hear it straight from the source.

Includes the following quote which made me think. . . “to most grownups, a geek is someone who can use a computer. To us, a geek is someone who can build a computer and its applications himself”.

04-26-07

“How word of mouse makes us all hostages to hype”

Nice double page spread in tonight’s Evening Standard. Well written by Chris Blackhurst and a nice summary of the insanity that is people queuing to buy the £5 “I’m not a plastic bag” carrier bag because they’ve been hyped into buying it. Odd really. I don’t get it myself. I’d feel embarassed carrying one round with me because people would know I’d either queued for it or paid through the nose for it. But fairplay Sainsbury’s for being all over this.

Also I think the £150 quoted for the eBay price for them already seems a bit high. Just checked now and they all look a bit pathetic up there.

More about the story but not the article I’m on about here.

04-25-07

Digital better than advertising?

Iain Tait over at crackunit.com has finally finished his Top 10 of why digital is better than advertising. Well worth a read. Try being a bit of a digital geek in a PR agency . . . that’s why we all stick together.

03-01-07

And now Google Mail is broken [!]

What’s going on?

03-01-07

Guardian site down

So, what’s up with the Guardian site? Hope they are installing lots of new nice things.

02-26-07

Online/Offline

PR Blogger has a good post on the entertainment industry and news that Lonelygirl15 is set to star in a movie (!), along with other examples where the line is blurring between the on and offline worlds.

I also came across this today which is a really great example of digital media content making its way into offline media – Creative Review turning a rather nice blog post on Noisy Decent Graphics into a full page feature a month or so later.

As Russell Davies points out (as does Ben when he posts about the above) sooner or later everything real becomes digital and everything digital becomes real. Bring it on I say and make it quicker.

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