JKL Blog

Word of the Day

...can be found here.

//Billy

Why companies should use RSS

From the New Venture Marketing Blog: "RSS enables companies to communicate more effectively with each of its specific audiences from customers, employees, and partners to editors, analysts and investors. It also has the hidden value of improving a company's online presence and the companies ability to be found on the Internet. Today many large companies, such as Cisco, IBM or Boeing use RSS in their communications arsenal, but small companies can use it too, and perhaps, to even greater advantage.

Almost any bit of information can be sent out via an RSS feed and in almost any media format. A company's press release, new software rev or a security alert can be sent out in text form by RSS as can audio content via an .MP3 reader (such as the Apple iPod) or video via, say, your cell phone. RSS feeds and readers allows you to deliver media rich messages that make content more attractive and powerful, says RSS expert Rok Hrastnik, and he is right."

//Billy McCormac

Quote of the day

From the Forbes cover story on blogs: "Bloggers are more of a threat than people realize, and they are only going to get more toxic. This is the new reality," says Peter Blackshaw, chief marketing officer at Intelliseek, a Cincinnati firm that sifts through millions of blogs to provide watch-your-back service to 75 clients, including Procter & Gamble and Ford. "The potential for brand damage is really high,"says Frank Shaw, executive vice president at Microsoft's main public relations firm, Waggener Edstrom. "There is bad information out there in the blog space, and you have only hours to get ahead of it and cut it off, especially if it's juicy."

But Forbes offers some questionable advice about how to deal with "lowlife bloggers":

"BASH BACK. If you get attacked, dig up dirt on your assailant and feed it to sympathetic bloggers. Discredit him."

I couldn't agree more with Business Week's Stephen Baker on this one: it could blow up in your face. If it leaks out that a company is "digging up dirt" on critics, the ensuing brand damage would be far more extensive than anything a rogue blogger could muster.

//Billy McCormac

Pols cultivate bloggers

From Blogometer: "House GOPers met 10/20 with conservative bloggers on Capitol Hill, the first event of its kind for the House caucus. It was the 2nd officially sanctioned GOP blog event since the '04 convo in NYC, following last week's RNC conf. call with Ken Mehlman (see 10/13 Blogometer). This event was both an attempt to make a connection with friendly bloggers, call attention to fiscal matters and, not least, make sure both the MSM and bloggers know that they're doing so."

The Blogometer attended, along with Justin Hart of Right Side Redux, Ian Schwartz of The Political Teen, Matt Margolis of Blogs for Bush, Eric Pfeiffer of NRO's The Buzz, Matthew Sheffield of MRC's News Busters, Tim Chapman and Mary Katherine Ham of Townhall.com (representing the Capitol Report and C-Log blogs, respectively), Pat Cleary and David Kralik from lobby org. NAM, writing for their Manufacturers' Blog and also representing RedState, Kevin Aylward of Wizbang, and the presumably pseudonymous Flip of Suitably Flip.

"House GOP spokespersons said they plan to start sending "feeds" to bloggers -- not just talking points, but audio and video tape as well."

"Whether intended or not, the nature of the event likely had a disarming affect on the bloggers present. Not just the procession of luminaries and the swank digs (with a great view down the Mall, as GOP handlers pointed out more than once), but also the parade of news cameras and MSM journalists who attended the middle stretch. Add to that, the caucus also filmed and photographed the event for its own purposes. While the interest in forging ties with amateur bloggers seemed genuine, it was also a rolling photo-op -- for the benefit of not just the MSM, but the blogosphere as well."

//Billy McCormac

Enter the "show blogs"

Reuters notes that “CBS.com is bringing viewers into the blog universe as a new way of giving its audience insider information and exclusive looks behind the scenes of some of CBS’ biggest hits.

Nancy Tellem, president of CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group, tells Reuters that the blogs are a “bonus for the network’s viewers that reward their loyalty and interest.” “Blogs are a great way to bring the millions of viewers who enjoy our programming into the creative process,” she said.

Corey Miller, executive story editor for "CSI

Miami

," tells viewers how an episode goes from initial idea to final cut as he shares his perspective. James Van Praagh, co-executive producer of “Ghost Whisperer,” is extending his online presence with a blog that provides information about the show, augmented by news relevant to the spirit world. And contestants from previous seasons comment on events during "Survivor

Guatemala

."

“Threshold,” “NCIS” and “The Amazing Race: Family Edition” are among the shows that will offer blogs in the future.

Yes, this is interesting—up to a point. CBS should be commended for embracing the Web 2.0 mindset, but my initial impression of these “show blogs” is that they’re yet another exercise in one-way communication between the networks and viewing audiences. No comments are allowed, for instance, which at the very least would be entertaining for the reality TV crowd doubtless drawn to the Survivor

Guatemala

blog.

//Billy McCormac

"Forget Blogs, Print Needs Its Own iPod"

David Carr in the New York Times: "The newspaper business is in a horrible state. It's not that papers don't make money. They make plenty. But not many people, or at least not many on Wall Street, see a future in them. In an attempt to leave the forest of dead trees and reach the high plains of digital media, every paper in the country is struggling mightily to digitize its content with Web sites, blogs, video and podcasts.

And they are half right. Putting print on the grid is a necessity, because the grid is where America lives. But what the newspaper industry really needs is an iPod moment.

As Carr astutely  recognizes, the "iPod was not a new kind of CD player, it was a new way of listening to music."

"Consider if the line between the Web and print matter were erased by a device for data consumption, not data entry - all screen, no baggage - that was uplinked and updated constantly: a digital player for the eyes, with an iTunes-like array of content available at a ubiquitous volume and a low, digestible price."

Read the whole piece here.

//Billy McCormac

Charting a course for disaster

A few days ago the Daily Show devoted a short segment to this chart posted on the website of America’s much-maligned Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA, it will be recalled, was slammed by bloggers and the media for its bungled disaster response to the states ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Here FEMA’s “disaster life cycle describes the process through which emergency managers prepare for emergencies and disasters, respond to them when they occur, help people and institutions recover from them, mitigate their effects, reduce the risk of loss, and prevent disasters such as fires from occurring.” The only problem is that the chart’s final arrow leads right back to… disaster. Good grief.

//Billy McCormac

Quote of the day

Mike Manuel of Media Guerilla: "Don’t get me wrong, I think blog policies are useful and for now they serve a purpose, but if you strip the best blog policy down to its core, it’s nothing more than a company guide for self expression and a basic set of expectations for “good corporate behavior.”   It shouldn’t matter what platform an employee’s using for expression, who cares?  Yesterday it was message boards and email, today it’s blogs and podcasts, tomorrow it’s who knows what.  The platforms will change, but the underlying principles that guide sensable employee behavior probably won't."

//Billy McCormac

Fira Thatcher med mjukglass

Idag skulle fyller järnladyn Margaret Thatcher ha fyllt 80-år. Det finns många kända såväl som okända skäl till att komma ihåg Thatcher, ett av de mer okända är Thatchers medverkan till mjukglassens födelse. Detta kan man läsa om i Wikipedia, den fria encyklopedin som finns på nätet och som ger oss nästintill obegränsad tillgång till information av varierande kvalitet. Vad gäller sambandet mellan Margaret Thatcher och mjukglassen så var Thatcher, enligt Wikipedia, medlem av det forskarteam i Storbritannien som hittade en metod för att blanda dubbelt så mycket luft i glassen. Att fira Thatchers 80-årsdag med en mjukglass är därmed inte helt fel!

Emma Grönlund

RNC chairman hosts conference call with bloggers

This is interesting. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has hosted a conference call with several opinion-shaping bloggers to discuss (read: spin) Harriet Miers' SCOTUS nomination. I have two thoughts. One, Mehlman should have done this a LONG time ago; the conservative blogosphere has boiled with scathing criticism of the nomination since it was announced. The RNC and Team Bush should have pitched their message long before the doubt, disillusionment and disappointment had time to congeal. No matter. The mere fact that Mehlman recognizes the influence wielded by these bloggers is a step in the right direction.

//Billy McCormac