Alex asked me to reblog his post on PodServer here. So here goes:
This afternoon we had a Big in Japan meeting and the guys presented several new features, a couple of which were interesting enough to share. So I have explained PodServer here. So if you need to catch up do so. For the rest of you, here goes:
Feature One: PodServer makes it easy to create, store and share your podcast by simply uploading an mp3. Each time you create a new ’show’ you upload it to your podcast and it becomes available to anyone subscribed to your feed. The relationship is simple - 1 person per podcast. What if the relationship model could be broken wide open? That is exactly what the Big in Japan guys have done.
Imagine that you are a member of the Book of the Month Club. Now you and the rest of the club can get together once a month to review your thoughts of the book, but what if you could time-shift the meeting? Each of you could record your thoughts in an mp3 and upload it to the Book of the Month Club Podcast (i.e. anyone in the club could upload their mp3) and the podcast would be a combination of all of your thoughts. This could work for public debate on topics (maybe not as well), but for limited groups it might be interesting. Thoughts?
Feature Two: FrankenFeed for podcasts. Imagine that you are a fan of three different VC podcasts and you want to share them with your friends. You could send all three RSS feeds (in their long URL glory) to your friends or you could use FrankenFeed to combine them into a single VC Podcast Feed. As you found new VC podcasts you want your friends to listen to you could simply add them to the original VC Podcast Feed without bothering your friends - they would just get the new content in the original feed. Neat, huh?
PodServer is written with Ruby on Rails and features touches of Ajax. Today it is deliverying ‘alpha’ podcasts and should be launched (in beta) as part of the Big in Japan toolbox next month.
According to IBM it is. Beth Bulik from Adage detailed IBM’s excitement about blogging as a marketing technique in her November 10th article title, "IBM SEES BLOGGING AS MARKETING’S NEXT BIG THING."
More than 2,200 IBM employees maintain external blogs and the company is using Wikis and RSS feeds for internal communication and collaboration.
“This is a way to get our expertise out there, not by shoving it down people’s throats, but by just starting conversations,” Mr. Barger said. “It expands our reputation, perceptions and reach of IBM, at the same time expanding the number of people we can learn from.”
Read the full article here (oh and you will need to register - I hate that too).
Brian and I have been talking about ‘event’ driven blogs and how businesses can use them in conjunction with traditional marketing/pr promotions. One great example of an event driven blog is the GM Smallblock blog.
GM started the blog to talk about the 50th anniversary of the Corvette’s small-block engine. Now that the anniversary is over, so too is the blog. According to Debbie Weil GM did consider turning it into a powertrain blog, but one astute reader suggested, "Keep to one topic… don’t try to take on too much in one blog."
Maybe you just need a bigger box? John Moore, from Brand Autopsy, points us to Douglas Rushkoff’s book, "Get Back in the Box" which explains that, "…if you always have to think outside the box, maybe it’s the box that needs fixing."
The book has yet to be released, but Douglas started a blog to release short excerpts on his blog.
That is, TV ads work if you buy enough of them. Mike Bloomberg spent $60MM of his own cash using traditional media tools to beat Freddy Ferrer who could only gather together $7MM in the NYC mayorial race. Seth Godin reminds us/you it is "worth noting that you don’t have $60,000,000."
Seth’s post, Of course TV ads work, reminds us that most brands, products and candidates "are Freddy, not Mike." As a result, "your seven million dollars isn’t going to help a bit if you spend it on a medium that rewards the market leader." He concludes, "if you’re Freddy (not Mike) and you want to grow, time to make a remarkable product and market it in a new way."
Our very own Brian Oberkirch was on the Citizen Journalism Panel at the Blogging Enterprise Conference. The panel was moderated by Lorraine Branham (director of the UT School or Journalism) and included Hal Strauss (editor of The Washington Post), Fred Zipp (managing editor of The Austin American Statesman), and John Lebkowsky (CEO of Polycot Consulting).
Brian was invited to the panel to talk about his experience writing the Katrina-centric Slidell Hurricane Blog.
In a first, Budget Car Rental is using ‘blogadvergaming’ as a marketing tool. Budget is hiding a $10,000 prize in four cities over four weeks giving away $160,000 total. Clues will be delivered on Budget’s blog in cartoon format (featuring our favorite cartoonist Hugh MacLeod). The ‘blogadvergaming’ program was organized by B.L. Ochman. Via Adrants and Business Week.
Technorati Tags: adrants, blogadvergaming, budget, budgetcarrental, hugh MacLeod
Remember Gahbunga? It was a neat little application for teenage girls, a hot-or-not for their camera phones. Basically, you could take a picture of your date, send it to Gahbunga and get a rating from your friends or the entire Gahbunga community. Our WebWork Team recently decided that there was not enough room on the boat for several of their current projects including Gahbunga. The team is almost completely focused on the development of a set of Web 2.0 tools they are calling Big in Japan: Web 2.0 Toolbox.
No one on the WebWorks Team wanted to ‘own’ the project by promoting or adding features to it. The team decided that the best solution would be to sell it on ebay so here is a link to the auction. Own a dating service? Own a dating website? Want to start a cool little online dating business? Maybe Gahbunga is for you. Wonder if they will get any bids?
BMW is pulling the plug on its four year old ‘The Hire’ smash-hit short film series. WIRED magazine awarded the series the "Best Excuse for Broadband" award in 2001. If you have not seen the series check the episodes out at BMWfilms (episodes include: Ambush, Chosen, The Follow, Star, Powder Keg, Hostage, Ticker and Beat the Devil). BMW also create a comic series based on the episodes found here. BMW is going remove the films from it’s website, so you need to act fast if you want to see the show that over 100 million people have watched over the past four years. To learn more about the marketing genius behind the films click here.
There are two airports in Dallas, but you can only fly out of state from one of them due to the 1979 Wright Amendment. Southwest Airlines has been fighting for the repeal of the amendment, while American Airlines and DFW airport have lobbied to keep the amendment in tact. Both sides have websites (Keep DFW Strong, Set Love Free, and Fight Wright). Recently they moved their fight to the people’s encyclopedia called Wikipedia. American denies any involvement, but a supporter with access to American Airline’s computer network added the following sentence to the Wikipedia:
"a notoriously litigious company constantly seeking to change laws to gain an advantage."
Next another user deleted the phrase. and then about twenty minutes later the user with access to American Airline’s computer network added this phrase:
"Known for its PR machine and litigious nature."
This sort of editorial editing has been going on for months. American claims they cannot find the user who is making the entries. It is unclear who is deleting them, but it is common practice for Wikipedia users to remove editorial comments.
Technorati Tags: americanairlines, dallas, dfw, fortworth, setlovefree, southwestairlines, wright, wrightamendment
ShopSavvy Coverage -
