Facebook in Reality
May 3, 2008
I only read about last week’s CaseCamp kerfuffle online in the ensuing blog debate. But next time, let’s maybe show this video by UK’s Idiots of Ants at the beginning of any discussion about Facebook friends (imaginary, fake or any kind).
[found via AdGabber]
High Road’s new look
February 6, 2007
(cross-posted from the new High Road blog on the new highroad.com)
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We’ve updated our website and refreshed our brand. We used our tenth anniversary to not only celebrate but also make changes to our corporate look and feel.
We loved our old logo with the road-that-leads-to-the-mountain. It’s been with us ever since High Road was founded back in the days when a website launch still created excitement and media started to think they might want to look into this thing they called “Cyberland” (“Extra! Readers talk back!”).
A lot has changed since then. High Road has grown from two to more than 70 people. We’re still doing technology and digital lifestyle PR but now we are doing it in six divisions and four offices.
We’ve been to the mountain and back many times. But we still love the hike, and we always strive to find new and better ways to get up there. And that’s what we wanted to focus on with our “refreshed” brand.
We searched for people who could help us with that, and found the team of Evoke Solutions (branding and design) – or as I like to call them: Knights of the White Space - and The Working Group (website planning and development).
Together, we came up with a new logo, a new corporate identity, and a new website. We hope you like the result.
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(I will keep blogging here, too. But I can now also be found on the High Road Communications corporate blog.)
New RSS reader feature in Canuck PR Toolbar
January 5, 2007
Users of the Canuck PR toolbar may have wondered about the new button called “RSS - All Feeds” that has popped up out of nowhere. In addition to the existing directory of Canadian PR, marketing and media bloggers and the news ticker, I’ve now also included an RSS reader with all the feeds from the listed Canadian PR and marketing bloggers.
People who subscribe to all these blogs in their own RSS readers, either as part of their browser or in readers like Bloglines or Live.com, may not be interested in this new feature. If you don’t like it, it is easy to turn the RSS reader off by clicking on Toolbar Options (in the Canuck PR menu on the left of the toolbar), selecting “predefined components” and de-selecting “RSS All Feeds”.
The PR and marketing blogger list keeps growing. The following blogs are currently included in the RSS reader (click image to enlarge):
I will update the directory, newsticker and RSS reader with more Canadian PR and marketing blogs as soon as I come across new ones or get a heads up from other people in the comment section.
In other toolbar news: The resources directory has been updated with a link to David Jones’ excellent Social Media Toolbox for PR People in Squidoo.
BTW - if anybody is looking for a list of PR blog feeds that isn’t limited to Canada, I recommend the Public Relations Feedburner Network.
And finally, a quick note on RSS feeds: special kudos to Marc Snyder for having the biggest RSS icon this side of the 49th parallel. It doesn’t have to be that big but it helps to have the RSS icon in an easy to find location, preferably near the top of the page. When I went through all the blogs in the directory to find the RSS feeds, it was interesting to see where some bloggers had placed the links. In two cases, I couldn’t find a link to an RSS feed at all. So one blog isn’t included in the RSS reader and with the other I was lucky to guess the feed URL.
P.S.: If you don’t have the Canuck PR Toolbar installed yet, you can download it here.
New FeedBurner network for Public Relations
November 27, 2006
Dave Jones over at PRWorks.ca has just created a FeedBurner network for Public Relations. I haven’t used a FeedBurner network before but it seems like a great concept for staying up to date on a subject. Read more about it on Dave’s blog, subscribe to the feed and join in!
Links of Note - November 12
November 12, 2006
- New York TImes: Entrepreneurs see a Web guided by common sense - welcome to Web 3.0… (via CNET News.com)
- Four second cut-off: 75% of shoppers would not return to a website that took longer than four seconds to load according to research by Akamai (via BBC News). Once again it seems I am part of a minority. But my spirit is with the 75%. Don’t make sites fancy, make them fast and easy to use.
- The BOBs: The results of Deutsche Welle’s 2006 blog awards are in…and the winner is The Sunlight Foundation (via heise.de). The awards highlight many other interesting blogs this year. Wish I would speak Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, Persian, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, too, so I could read them all.
Links of Note - October 15
October 16, 2006
-New York Times: Wallflower at the Web Party - Good article about the rise and fall (and rise?) of Friendster.com.
-Telegraph Blogs: Blogging for Britain - Trying to create the biggest metablog of all time:
Yes, it [is] the One Day in History when the National Trust, English Heritage
and other charities, all supported by the Telegraph, want people to
record their impressions of this otherwise ordinary day and send it as a
blog to them at http://www.historymatters.org/.
Ben Fenton, Telegraph.co.uk
Links of note - October 9
October 9, 2006
Temple of Technology: Interview with Amiga CEO - Who knew? Amiga is (still) developing a new operating system. Ah, the good old Commodore days…
Business Week: First, blame the software - Good article about the “human factor” behind Airbus’ software issues that caused the company to delay delivery of the new A380. The Airbus CEO stepped down this weekend (after the BW article was published), further highlighting the management issues at the aircraft manufacturer.
The New PR: Five steps to starting a successful blog - Ryan Anderson provides great advice for anyone looking to create a blog.
Get the new Canuck PR Toolbar - version 1.0
October 3, 2006
As promised a couple weeks ago, here is a first version of a Canadian PR toolbar. Download it at http://canuckpr.communitytoolbars.com/.
The toolbar is based on a very cool, free service by Conduit. I am looking for a few people who are willing to test it and provide feedback. I hope this will be a community effort.
It is now called Canuck PR Toolbar because somebody else must have already reserved the term ”Canadian PR Toolbar” (Ed?) on the Conduit site. Anyway, the Canuck PR toolbar includes:
SEARCH BOX
Google.ca is set as default but once you download the toolbar, you can change it to other search engines. I’ve added Technorati, MSN, Yahoo!, MSN News, Yahoo! News, Google News and Wikipedia. Other wishes?
It also comes with a “highlight pen”. If you put in words in the search box and click on the highlight button, it highlights those words on the current site in your browser.
PR BLOGS
The current list of Canadian PR blogs is just a start, it has nothing to do with a ranking or a “top list”. If you have or know of a Canadian PR blog that is missing, leave a comment and I will add it. Don’t be shy (you are in PR, remember). Nominate yourself and others. It makes it easier for me.
The cool thing about this toolbar is that once you have it installed, your toolbar will be automatically updated whenever I update the list on my end. So it doesn’t matter if your blog isn’t on the initial list; everybody who has the toolbar will still get to see it once I’ve updated the list.
Question: do we want other related blogs (marketing, news, U.S. PR bloggers etc)? Let me know your opinion. I can include submenus to differentiate between different blog types.
PR RESOURCES
This is a list of links that includes events, associations, podcasts, publications and services. It will serve as a directory of PR resources. Again, just a start. If you have an idea for additional links, please leave a comment.
PR BLOG NEWS TICKER
The news ticker provides the latest headlines from Canadian PR blogs. Right now, everybody included in the blogs list is also included in the news ticker (except for one of the blogs where, ahem, I couldn’t find an RSS feed). Also included are two del.icio.us feeds with PR headlines from Constantin Basturea (Daily PR Digest - okay, let’s call it an honourary Canadian feed) and David Jones to broaden the scope a little bit.
I will try to include all new blogs that I am adding to the blog list in the news ticker, too. Since this toolbar is based on a free web service, there may be restrictions for the number of RSS feeds that can be added. It doesn’t say so but I am still trying to figure out the whole system, so I will add Canadian PR blog feeds for as long as possible.
OTHER FUNCTIONS
The toolbar also comes with the option of adding a few other features including weather forecast (you can input the city), a pop-up blocker tool, an email notifier (works with Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Gmail) and buttons to open Windows programs such as Word, Media Player or a calculator. With the exception of the search box, all items can be activated/deactivated.
Again, according to the instructions by Conduit, it is not necessary to download new versions of the toolbar to receive updates to the installed features such as the blog list, the resource list or the blog newsticker. A new download would only be necessary for a major change. So if you send me suggestions for Canadian PR blogs and sites, I can add them in (just give me a bit of time, I do have a day job).
So much for now. It was a fun project putting a first version together. Please go ahead and try it out if you are interested. And let me know if you like it or think it is a waste of time. Feedback welcome.
[Please note that I have only tried the toolbar with IE7 Beta. There is a Firefox version for download, too. But I have not tested it]
What would a Canadian PR Toolbar look like?
September 18, 2006
Just came across pr-toolbar.de, a free PR Toolbar created by a German agency. The download offering for German PR professionals includes 380 PR links, a PR glossary, RSS feeds with PR news as well as gadgets like cookie cleaner, unified email notification and a chat function. I haven’t downloaded it but it looks like it also includes a couple features that are supposed to generate leads for this agency.
I am not a huge toolbar fan in general because it further diminishes the little screen space I have on my laptop and the new IE7 Beta browser (just like Firefox) has an integrated search box anyway. But it is still a nice marketing and community-building idea.
pr-toolbar.de was developed based on a free toolbar creation service from Conduit, so it would probably be easy to create a Canadian PR toolbar.
Not sure if anybody would be interested. But, just for the sake of an exercise, here’s a quick brainstorm of what could be included.
- Sean over at Buzz Canuck has just created “The Power 50“, a list of Canadian marketing bloggers. Not all of them are PR blogs but it would be a good starting point for community links and/or RSS news. And why not cross over into other marketing territory for some of the links?
- Third Tuesday, Third Monday and CaseCamp and other PR events
- Inside PR for podcasting
- Since it is not just about blogging but about PR in general, we should throw in links to CPRS and IABC for good measure
- prmeasurement.ca on the resources side of things, of course, and links to vendor partners like CNW, CCN Matthews, NewsCanada, Bacons, Vocus etc.
- And I am sure for additional resource links we could also take a look south of 49
Yes, there’s plenty more to be found in Canada. But it’s time for dinner. Other ideas anyone?
Links of Note - September 2
September 2, 2006
Two articles on managing people from business author and consultant David Maister that I found well worth reading:
- Why (most) training is useless
His blog and more articles can be found here.
I found David Maister’s articles by reading a new blog called Managing the Professional Services Firm by Australian consultant Jim Belshaw. It features good insights on training and recruitment.
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