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).
Two days ago we noticed that Weblogs Work was ranked 24th out of all PR blogs and blogged about it here. Moments ago I read on Alex’s blog that Weblogs Work was ranked 6th - I figured he must have misread the rankings, but he didn’t! According to PubSub, Weblogs Work is now the sixth highest ranked PR blog. Imagine if we had the time to really start blogging!
Another project I am involved with is the production of a HD television series called MotorSport Ranch. I blogged about my experience producing the pilot on a TypePad blog found here. I have decided to continue the project "The making of…blog" and started posting again detailing the production of 13 additional episodes for VOOM.
Interestingly, I barely had time to close the TypePad editor on my second post before my phone rang. The calls started coming in from the talent who appear in the pilot asking to appear in the series, the original director, the director’s agent, prospective talent, the track owner and so on. Make a TV series is a lot like beating yourself over the head with a hammer - no one is happy until the final tape is in the can.
Why? It seems like communication is the hardest part about production - everyone wants to know, "what is going on." I think 50% of a producers time is taken up explaining the current situation. Now I just point everyone to the blog.
Article in Search Engine Watch about using search programs & blogs as part of a larger brand reputation management program. These stats bear out our impression that corporate blogs are really effective tools for driving relevant search results. We alsl agree with the assertion below that blogs are an ideal way to extend information you are already developing in other areas. Not that we recommend ’straight-to-blog’ repurposing, but often there is great stuff that you could make more available via your own blogs.
According to Converseon’s study of the top 20 search engine listings for the BusinessWeek 100 brands in July 2005, 39% of the top search listings were derived from consumer-generated media such as blogs. Based on this study, Converseon estimated there are 16,000 flame sites web-wide and growing. Blogs are giving "the people" a voice, and it’s not always happy.
So use blogs to fight blogs. Because blogs can rank better than corporate sites, Dawkins suggested that a corporate blog could be used as part of a public outreach strategy. She added, "Make life easy on yourself; repackage relevant content from your existing materials. Blogs are a great place for this information."
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."
We’re big fans of John Moore’s stuff at Brand Autopsy. Cause he says great things like he’s saying now on the thought leadership panel at the Blogging Enterprise:
These tools help the small guy look big and the big guys get small. Building interest is simple: have a take and don’t suck.
Shel Israel, the coauthor of Naked Conversations, is here at Blogging Enterprise. He had an interesting post titled What Must PR Do? that I thought might be popular. Shel indicated, "Sometime in the last month or two, blogging reached its tipping point. Businesses are no longer dismissing the blogging phenomenon and, except for a few believing readers of Forbes magazine, they are no longer even angry. They just want to figure out what to do about it and how to fit it in to existing corporate boxes and processes." Here are his suggestions:
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?
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