Monthly Archives: February 2009
Sweet Steamroller Single Speed
Mercedes-Benz Geländewagen celebrating 30 years
How Smart Does Your Music Make You?
I am really surprised about how jazz fans rank. That said, Radiohead and U2 (classic) are at the top of my faves and my favorite piece of music ever is Eroica by guess who? (Via WSJ)
America Returning to Western Liberal Civilization
According to MSNBC, Obama to rescind Bush abortion rule, which is just the very beginning of undoing all of the laws and regulations America passed while it was a reactionary theocracy. It is hypocritical to want business to enjoy a free market while micromanaging women’s bodies and reproductive rights as spelled out by law.
President Barack Obama wants to rescind a Bush administration rule that strengthened job protections for doctors and nurses who refuse for moral reasons to perform abortions.
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The Bush administration instituted the rule in its last days, and it was quickly challenged in federal court by several states and medical organizations. As a candidate, President Barack Obama criticized the regulation and campaign aides promised that if elected, he would review it.
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Federal law has long forbidden discrimination against health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions or provide referrals for them on religious or moral grounds. The Obama administration supports those laws, said the HHS official.
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The Bush administration’s rule adds a requirement that institutions that get federal money certify their compliance with laws protecting the rights of moral objectors. It was intended to block the flow of federal funds to hospitals and other institutions that ignore those rights.
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But the Obama administration was concerned that the Bush regulation could also be used to refuse birth control, family planning services and counseling for vaccines and transfusions.
You Can’t Advise Clients on Social Media if You’re Not on Facebook and Twitter
Bloody great advice from Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley Watcher, Can You Advise Clients On Social Media If You Aren’t On Facebook Or Twitter?
- You cannot know much about social media by reading about social media.
- If you don’t blog, or aren’t involved in blogging through reading and commenting, you cannot know about blogging.
- If you don’t use Facebook you can’t know what is acceptable behavior on Facebook.
- If you don’t use Twitter you cannot know what is possible with Twitter.
Google Mail Offers Multi-Attach Uploading Finally
Google does everything you could ever want, just a little ghetto. That’s why Google is permabeta — because they are interested in being everything to everyone first, and then refining over time. Well, Gmail and Google Mail now offers the ability to be able to attach more than one file at a time to an email, something that everyone else has always done, even Google Video and YouTube, if you know where to look. And so does Facebook and Flickr as well. And now, Gmail! Huzzah!
If you use Google Mail for your email needs and get frustrated that you can’t select more then one file at once well you can now rejoice because Google have enabled the feature in their service. The system works a bit like the flickr uploader where when selecting a file you hold down CTRL and select the other files you want to attach and what’s even better when you attach them you can see each attachment uploading through the new progress bar. This is another great feature added to an already amazing email service. (Via Neowin)
Apple Needs a Netbook Soon or Die Die Die!
There are guided instructions on how to install OSX onto the current crop of netbooks. It breaks my heart because the PowerBook Duo line of notebooks actually defined the executive sub-notebook (they also defined the PDA/PIM with the Newton and dropped that ball, too), Why Apple must do a Netbook now:
My brother-in-law Ken IM’d me the other day with this message: “Did you see they’re loading OS X on Netbooks?” He sent me a link to a Gizmodo article that explained how to hack a Netbook into running Apple’s OS X. He also pointed me to a chart that BoingBoing put together showing how compatible various Netbooks are with OS X.
Obviously, none of this stuff is geared to the average consumer–and there are certainly some bugs to contend with–but with some tweaks, techies have gotten certain Netbooks to run OS X shockingly well. Perfect or not, those articles and some videos had my brother-in-law, who’s a total Applehead, champing at the bit to get his hands on an Apple Netbook. (Via CNet Reviews)
Well, the market decides (he writes on his XP-laden Lenovo S10 netbook, considering installing OSX just out of spite) and Apple’s slow to the punch. Not just that, but Google is preparing to eat Apple’s lunch. And the MacBook Air is more form than function, an aesthetic useless peice of shit!
I Resent Tropicana’s Rebranding as Fugly
Online Marketing and Online PR Converge
I got trained up in marketing and evolved into PR and there is a convergence going on. Not just between PR and marketing but also with advertising and … SEO (yes, I said it). David Hargreaves of Bitemarks agrees that there is a strong convergence — and so does the originator, Jeremiah Owyang:
Jeremiah Owyang produced an interesting piece earlier today asking what will happen to PR firms in a recession based on research among 200 PR agencies. I must confess I am not surprised to see that a small majority of firms are predicting that PR budgets were smaller than they were in fiscal 2008, but then if you if you look at any operating cost, I would be surprised if this wasn’t pretty much tracking the downward pressure on all operating costs.
Having said that I think cost reductions fall into two categories: reducing costs because in this climate ‘you can’ and ‘you need to be seen to’ and then there are those companies that are having to reduce costs because ‘they must’. I wonder what if the PR budget reductions are greater or smaller than comparable ad budgets?
I both agree and disagree with the second point Jeremiah makes when he says that “things don’t look too rosy for the PR industry.” If you are a traditional PR agency doing the same old stuff then I would be worried. However, if you accept that the world has changed and embracing social media is neither an option or an add on to your traditional offering then the world looks rosier.
By putting social media at the centre of what we do, we have a fantastic opportunity to extend our remit more broadly into the world of online marketing. Far from being gloomy, as someone who has been involved in the PR industry for 20 years and who has always embraced technology, the future for the industry has never been more exciting.