LB's Rambles

Diana: Let It Be!

Enough, already, with the coverage of the anniversary of Diana's death.

I remember being awakened in the middle of the night, on the day she died. I was responsible for our online news coverage as it would appear on a major partner's website, and it was that partner who called and woke me. We shook our heads (figuratively speaking) at the senseless tragedy, and we arranged the coverage.

Since then, though, Diana's "celebrity" has grown, though her newsworthiness really has not. So, on the anniversary, we are being given breathless report after breathless report - leading the newscasts, which is ridiculous, with reports about Diana, and, perhaps with even less justification, about who was invited to ceremonies and who was not.

Enough. I am no fan of celebrity news, and this kind of phony "news" about celebrities who died ten years ago makes me hit the "off" switch. Isn't there SOME story more worthy of leading the news today?

Podcasting and Web 2.0

A lot of interesting talk at last night's meetup in New York of the NYC Podcasting Association.

The group's founder, Doug Kersten led a discussion of Web 2.0 attributes and techniques, particularly as they relate to podcasting. There was a lot of lively back and forth - as usual at these events, every participant had a slightly different definition for "Web 2.0," but, perhaps surprisingly, it was all done with good humor and with mutual respect.

I think the consensus was that the primary difference between "web 1.0" and "web 2.0" is that the former tends to be monodirectional, while the latter, as one of the other participants put it, is "simply the social networking web." Doug Kersten thinks that podcasting is definitely part of the 2.0 mashup, even though, as others pointed out, it is essentially a one-way medium - you listen to podcasts, you don't carry on conversations with them, for the most part.

Anyway, a worthwhile meeting - and a good turnout, particularly during the week leading up to Labor Day.

Shocking Internet Revelations

Golly gee, I am shocked, shocked to read a new report today on Reuters. They have discovered, apparently much to their horror, that a lot of employees just MAY be using the Internet for personal uses at work!

Wow. Who'd have thunk it?

Reuters - in a heavy-breathing report datelined Jerusalem for some inexplicable reason (maybe that's where the suddenly-Internet-aware reporter is based) sounds as if it is profoundly disturbed/appalled by this not particularly startling revelation. Indeed, it quotes (in remarkably vague terms) a number of studies that have found the same thing over the years. In the best journalistic tradition, it then goes out and finds an expert or two to comment on how this is really a continuation of an old problem of people wasting time at work - or, on the other hand, maybe it's a good thing.

Zzzzzzz. Oops, excuse me. I do find it a little strange, though, to find a story like this (without some kind of hard news peg) on a supposedly major wire service. Perhaps some kind soul could arrange a shipment of No-Doz or its equivalent to the Reuters Jerusalem office?

Hat tip: MediaPost

Unlocking the iPhone

So a 17-year-old techie has become the first person known to have unlocked the iPhone, so that it can be used on a network other than AT&T's network.

I shouldn't snicker, but I can't help it. As I've said before, I can't use the iPhone because AT&T's reception sucks in the vicinity around my home. I use Verizon, so Apple locks me out of the iPhone. Bah. And along comes this teenager and, suddenly, AT&T's sweetheart deal looks a little less sweet.

Apparently, according to BusinessWeek, this is all in an area of "fuzzy" legality - individuals can tinker with their cellphones, presumably including the iPhone, to make them work on another network. But can they sell them? I know what Apple and AT&T will say, and I imagine there's a pretty large squadron of lawyers working on that one right now. That BusinessWeek article linked above has more details.

But I'm still snickering. Sorry, folks. I think this was a bad move on Apple's part - the iPhone should have been compatible with any network willing to pay them a royalty fee. But it could be argued that that insistence on "exclusivity" is why Apple's superior computers are only a small blip on the PC radar screen - and why Microsoft, of all companies with its stringent licensing rules, is such a giant.

Hat tip: MediaPost

It's Still About Content

It's always good to get some positive reinforcement for your own beliefs about the importance of content, when it comes to public relations and communications. So it's heartening to read this Daily Dog column by Virgil Scudder, President of Virgil Scudder and Associates, who apparently feels the same way about the relationship between content and technology as I do:

Too many people think that the way to be indispensable is to be up on the latest, the hottest, the newest. What they overlook is that if they could pick up that information easily, so can their replacements. It's all well and good to know how to prepare content for a podcast, say, but the PR pro who's going to last is the one who knows how to conceive, structure and write that message.  It's also important to be known as a key strategic player on the team, not just a specialist in one area.

Agreed, and please read the whole thing. The PR people who will survive and thrive in the new media world are the people who serve as strategic advisors to their clients. This means knowing how to use new technologies, yes, but it also means mastering and understanding the underlying content - and knowing how to present it effectively. That's what we mean by "communication."

The Bachelors of Broken Hill

The latest "Classic Mysteries" podcast is now up and available for your listening pleasure. It's a review of "The Bachelors of Broken Hill," one of Arthur W. Upfield's mysteries from Australia featuring Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the most unique characters in detective fiction.

Bony (as his friends call him, and I'm sure he would include us) is half-white, half-Aborigine, and he has never failed to solve any of the difficult mysteries presented to him. Broken Hill is (or was at the time the book was written) a mining community, and a number of older men have been poisoned by cyanide. There are few clues - and a particularly ham-fisted and witless detective has managed to alienate any potential witnesses. But Bony, who always makes time his ally, manages to assemble an unlikely coalition of assistants - including a career burglar - to help him solve the puzzle.

Only a few Upfield novels are still in print - this is one of them. Please listen to the podcast for more details. I think you might enjoy the novel - and Bony is a character worth meeting. The podcast is available through iTunes (search the store for "Classic Mysteries," by subscription, using the link on the right side of this page, or you can listen to any of the reviews by clicking the appropriate link. As always, it's free. Please let me know if you like - or dislike - them.

Read a Book!

This is profoundly depressing: a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll finds that one in four Americans read no books at all last year.

I'm a new media person. I spend far more time than is good for me reading online. I read newsletters. I read email. I read the occasional newspaper (all right, I should do more of that, but I do get much of my news via radio and online). But I also read books.

I read to learn. I enjoy reading history and biography.

I read for the fun of it. I read Harry Potter and classic mysteries. I also podcast about classic mysteries.

I read a lot of books. And I re-read them.

The study says that, excluding that one in four who hadn't read any books, the usual number read was seven.

My wife is a school librarian. I think she'll agree that too many educators think books have been supplanted by online materials. That is so wrong.

Yes, we can (and sometimes do) read books online. But we also have to make sure that the art - and pleasure - of settling down in a chair or in bed with a good book doesn't disappear.

(Hat tip: MediaBistro)

Late August Break`

Blogging will probably be light between here and Labor Day. Taking some time to recharge and reconnect with Mickey Mouse and company (among others). Only occasional entries 'til then. Although, there WILL be a new podcast late next Monday or early Tuesday. Enjoy!

A Graveyard to Let

As you probably know (if you look at the right-hand column of this blog, anyway), I am very partial to what I call "Classic Mysteries" - the great detective stories, mostly American and British, most of them written between, say, 1930 and 1980. I do a weekly podcast, reviewing some of my favorites, which I think some of you might enjoy reading.

I publish these on Mondays, and I'm going to start posting an entry each week about the current podcast. You'll find subscription information on the right, along with links to the individual episodes, in case you want to sample. They're all free, of course.

This week's podcast is a review of Carter Dickson's "A Graveyard to Let." Carter Dickson was the pen name used by John Dickson Carr to write his series of stories featuring Sir Henry Merrivale. I'm very fond of them for a number of reasons. First of all, Carr was the absolute master of the so-called "locked room" or "impossible crime" novel - the kind of stories that couldn't possibly have happened - but they did, and it's up to the detective to figure out how. In "A Graveyard to Let," Merrivale is confronted by a man who quite literally disappears in front of several people. How? Read the book. In the podcast, I'll also tell you about one of Sir Henry's tricks, when he practically starts a riot in the New York City subway system by demonstrating how he (apparently) can charge through the turnstiles without paying the fare, simply by reciting a series of magic words.

Sir Henry Merrivale is a brilliant man with a wicked sense of humor, prone to outrageous behavior. Carr was a brilliant writer with a wicked sense of humor, who gave us some incredible puzzles - and played scrupulously fair with the reader, providing all clues, if the reader had the wit to catch them and interpret them correctly. Check out the podcast - and you may be moved, I hope, to read the book.

Who's Watching Me?

Nick Desai, CEO and founder of Juice Wireless, has an interesting and thought provoking column over at MediaPost today. He looks at the millions, or even billions, of user-generated videos that are being created, and wonders: who's going to watch that user-generated content anyway?

The answer to that question is in the phrase "of little broader interest." That isn't a problem as much as a positioning statement. True UGC--defined now as the stuff we all post, on the fly, in whatever "grainy" quality we shoot with our unstable hands and cell phone cameras and camcorders--will succeed as part of something JuiceCaster calls Social Broadcasting.

We define Social Broadcasting as sharing the content you care about with the people who care about you. Videos of me singing Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" at 2 a.m. at some bar in Hermosa Beach are only rolling-on-the-floor hilarious to the people who really know me well. The people who know that I am basically never up at 2 a.m., never at a bar, and never sing.

That concept is social broadcasting. Sharing your videos with the people you know. Those people will care. While the core of social broadcasting is socializing with the people you know through videos, social broadcasting does expand out in concentric circles.

Read the whole thing, because I think he raises some valid points. But I think that we need to go further. It may be fine to say, it's fine if my dozen friends watch my videos. But as marketers, or as communicators, how do we reach a larger audience? And, as marketers, how can we get OUR messages out to the millions of people watching these social broadcasts? How do we monetize it, so that somebody can pay for all that bandwidth?