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Please update your links to reflect this.
Thanks
Howard and Jonathan
Some of my colleagues at Boxer, sister agency of TMSW (where I work) in Birmingham, have started a new blog called "Soak It Up"
In their own words...
"Soakitup is our blog and our way of talking to the world. We are based in Birmingham UK and will be posting stuff that we are thinking about, stuff we get up to and stuff that we like."
Good work guys - make sure you keep it up! Nothing worse than a non-updated blog :D hehe *cough*
Howard
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ps - more adventuresdm posts coming soon - if I can get Jonathan to type anything!
Probably the web celebrity for the day (sorry Mike), Kevin Rose was truly rock and roll (in a not at all as extreme as Motley Crue kind of way) in as much as he slept in late, turned up a bit scruffy and was drinking wine during his talk.
Taking us through the pros and cons of digg, i have to say he didn't really, for me at least, go into much detail about what digg could turn into in the future. I was personally hoping for a little bit of comment about how digg might actually be a new form of internet based communication rather than a site in it's own right, but that wasn't really covered. we saw some graphs which were a little hard to make out.
ok - so i've actually not got a lot to say about Kevin's presentation, but ho hum. maybe i should delete this post :)
actually - one thing I heard at the conference about digg was interesting. I happened to overhear a couple of blokes say to each other "do you actually use digg?" "no" replied the other, adding, "no fucker does outside the US".
i don't use it much I have to say - maybe they were right!
Howard
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So I must offer five little-known things about myself. These are:
1. When I was 12 I had a depressed skull fracture. I was helping Dad build a fence in the back garden and the sledge hammer slipped - that's what he says anyway :-)
2. I spent almost 6 years living in Paris, France between 1995 and 2001
3. I have the worst Irish accent ever - see 1
4. I collect cook books and collect recipes but never, ever use them and instead improvise. This concerns those who have to live with me and my clutter.
5. I need a cleaner - see 4
I tag Brigid Buckman, Howard Scott again :-), Peter J. Bogaards, Adaptive Path can you tell that I don't know many bloggers... finally 37 signals
Jonathan
This Saturday, 18th November, London hosts the 2nd annual UK Podcast Con at the CCT Smithfield venue in the city.
Speakers include CC Chapman of Managing the Gray, and Suw Charman of the Open Rights Group.
Registration opens at 10am with the final session finishing around 6pm. A full programme of events can be found here.
I should hopefully be attending so I'll aim to have a report from it some time early next week.
If you want to go, tickets can be purchased via an eventbrite site here.
Howard
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It seems that Walmart isn't the only company who've been persuaded to stick their toes into the fake blog (or "flog") water recently, as McDonalds appears to have jumped right in feet first on a flog called 4railroads hosted over at blogger.
In fact not only have they used one flog, but there was a second, called Mcdmillionwinner, also hosted on blogspot.com, but as The Consumerist reports, this has now been pulled and is only visible on the google cache version which is here.
It really is astounding that there are people out there in this industry, either on the client side or the agency side, that thinks this kind of venture into the blogosphere is a good thing. I mean for crying out loud! It's hard enough work for us to convince people to use blogs in the correct manner as it is, with adequate amounts of transparency and real people, without muppets like this jumping in and trying to get away with it.
From the first post...
"Oh yeah. Its that time of year again. Every since I can remember the
fall means the start of the monopoly at mcdonalds game. Two years ago a
girl walked away with $1 million bucks. Imagine that – $1 million
dollars. I thought I was gonna win that year. I am convinced that this
is the year. What a win it will be."
Could the copy smell any more floggy?
They've put some effort into this as well - it's backed up with YouTube videos (which don't seem to want to play for me) and everything, so it's taken some time to think this through. Oh, and just to make sure you can't go and do anything nasty like add a negative comment (or for that matter, a positive one!), they've disabled them! Blog as conversation enabler? Don't be silly.
I'll say this now (again!)... If you get tempted in any way to suggest to a client that they do a flog, or a client asks you to work on one for them because they think it's a good idea please, please, PLEASE DO NOT DO IT. Don't even entertain it. It won't work. It'll stink of everything that is wrong with trying to use a format that is intrinsically linked to transparency, honesty, and basically having a conversation with your audience that doesn't treat them like idiots - i.e. isn't like advertising or marketing in the slightest!
Blogs are great for PR, immediate response, telling the truth and getting your audience involved - go read Scoble's book Naked Conversations if you don't already know this - but please don't go venturing in like this. Hell, I've even personally mentioned blogs to clients and people I work with (and have high hopes one of them will eventually see the light and take me up on the idea :D), but not in this way - it's just not on.
Whoever you are that did this (perhaps at JSH&A PR agency?): you do none of us who are actually trying to get the world to change with this stuff any good at all, so please stop.
Howard
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A collection of excuses for not blogging more.
"I haven't had the internet and I have been drunk or busy alot."
"This guy says he hasn't blogged in awhile because he's busy becoming a full-time blogger."
"work has rurned out to be a curse and blessing, more money but I work with a bunch of alcoholics"
lol
Does anyone have experience of what to do when Technorati no longer finds new content or pings from a blog?
Have run out of ideas here :-)
Just an update on our technorati situation. Weeks have passed since we first contacted them about our site not getting indexed. Two emails have been sent to them for tech support, with another more agressive email going just now.
I can only assume that technorati are not interested in supporting it's users as they seem to show no interest in responding to our calls!
They're all too keen to send me marketing email newsletters though as I received the "technorati Buzz!".
Technorati -your tech support is a joke, and I know I am not the only one to blog about this!
Howard
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Ex-Rocket Boom presenter, Amanda Congdon, has launched her new video blog project finally over at the domain www.amandaacrossamerica.com.
Focusing not only on Internet related issues, although certainly not averse to them either by the first batch of videos, we join her on a five week trek from the east coast to west on her way to LA.
So far it reminds me of the special editions of Rocket Boom that she used to do where she would interview a person, and it doesn't in any way really reflect the more quirky side to that show, which is now handled by the new host Joanne Colan who, if I am quite honest, doesn't do it for me and I no longer watch the show (I think it's the British accent - it doesn't work IMHO).
Check out AAA over at www.amandaacrossamerica.com and see for yourself. It's worth it for the Google Maps mashup they've done for their navigation alone which is a nice touch.
Howard
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