Facebook in Reality

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]

IT World Canada swallows IT Business Group

[Cross-posted from the High Road Blog]
IT World Canada just announced that it has acquired IT Business Group from Transcontinental. That means ComputerWorld Canada and Computing Canada will be part of the same family. For how long? IT World Canada confirmed seven lay-offs in the press release but added there would be “no additional personnel changes [...]

World’s oldest current newspaper now only available online

“Post och Inrikes Tidningar” (PoIT), the world’s oldest current newspaper has discontinued its print edition as of January 1, 2007 and is now an Internet-only edition at PoIT.org. Established in 1645 as the official newspaper of Sweden’s national government, it had lost a lot of readers in recent years, according to Der Spiegel (in German).
Near the end [...]

Links of Note – October 30

More podcasts: ITBusiness.ca debuts a new weekly podcast series which will feature “conversations with vendors, with IT managers and CIOs, industry analysts and our newsroom colleagues”.
Less readers: Circulation for big U.S. Metro newspapers continues to decline. It is the fourth consecutive semi-annual report to register a drop, according to Editor & Publisher. Only three of [...]

"Radio into Talkies" – Visionaries are still in demand

Ryan Anderson over at The New PR has a great post about how “we’re married to our media of choice” and slow to adapt to change.
I just read an old Time Magazine article from 1929 called “Radio into Talkies” about radio and television pioneer David Sarnoff. It talks about Radio Corporation of America’s change from “communications [...]

Links of note – September 27

What is word of mouth? Good question. Sean @ BuzzCanuck has a whole bunch of answers.
Better late than never: a German legend enters the digital age.
“We believe that we have earned the right to positive news coverage.” Really? 

Links of note – September 16

Totally pointless - Marketing Magazine’s article on youth loyalty marketing mentions my High Road colleague Heather Steele and provides an example of our digital marketing and social media work for clients.
Podcast consulting for Mark Evans – David Jones and Ed Lee are smart people. This is the 2.0 version (or ”NGT” version?) of great relationship-building with journalists.

Ads with a personal touch

BBC News has interesting article about the future of advertising and some of the new technologies that could be used to create “personal” and “interactive” experiences. One example is the use of facial recognition software to determine whether the person staring at an outdoor/subway ad space is male or female, which would lead to different ads being served up. More on the BBC [...]

The Internet and the way we spend our time

Statscan today realeased the findings of a survey on “The Internet and the way we spend our time”. Most of the findings aren’t really surprising. But I found it interesting that heavy users watch about the same amount of television as non-users. So the Internet isn’t really replacing television as a favourite past time. I must be [...]

Want to build an online community? Start the printing press

I like what my German hometown paper NGZ is doing. They have embraced blogging and are taking it a step further in a  back-to-the-future kind of way. NGZ and sister publication Rheinische Post launched a “reader-to-reader” portal called Opinio in early 2005. Readers can post their own articles about a broad range of topics. More than a year later, they have contributed 14,000 articles.
The kicker [...]