Online Communications

Tracking PR Thoughts

Well, it's not that easy to find the good place to stay at in this permanently fast moving Web 2.0 environment...;o) I am now based on Webjam, probably for the next year at least...;o)

My new blog as of the 13th december 06 is here.

Experimenting SquareSpace

Following a discussion I had with Philippe at the IAOC conference, he convinced me to give a try to SquareSpace. I've set up a new blog there and I am going to give it a try.

I have to say that I am so used to Typepad that it's not so easy to find my way in any other weblogging solution, but I made my decision to change and I now have to find the one I feel more comfortable with. I will definitely also consider WordPress, following Neville's exemple and successful move since few months already, so if you have any feeling you'd like to share on one or the other of those both, please jump in the comments.

Technorati Tags: squarespace, typepad, wordpress

Map your blog's network

An amazing way to graph your connections, although no information is available on the nature of each link, still a nice visual effects. Get your own graph here.

Click on image to enlarge

See more informations there.
Via RMen's

Another tool available is TouchGraph, providing much more information on your network as it shows who is each contact and their own network of connection:

Click on image to enlarge

In the same spirit, you should also have a look on Swarm:

Swarm is a graphical map of hundreds of websites, all connecting to each other. It updates itself every second with where people are going and coming from. As sites become more popular, they move towards the center of the swarm and grow larger. Conversely, sites that lose traffic move away from the center and grow smaller.

As soon as you use Firefox and download Swarm extension, you share the information regarding the websites you are visiting with other users and so does every member of the community. The most popular web sites will be the closer to the center of the map. Definitely worth having a look !

Click on image to enlarge

Technorati Tags: firefox, swarm

Supporting PR students

Mark Phillimore sent me a list of questions he prepared with his students from the London Metropolitan University and asked me whether I could answer them through a podcast, what we did together thursday evening, and also blog the list here to give a chance to his students to get other point of views...
I won't share the podcast here as unfortunately it was one of my worth (on the technical point of view, I also lost 3 minutes of it, it has been a real mess....) so I decided to moderate this blog...;o)
Regarding the list of questions, I copy paste them below, if you could give few minutes of your time to grab some of them and leave your thoughts in the comments or on your blog and trackback here to let us know, this will be great for Mark's students.

Questions:

1. What do you think of Google’s use of its corporate blog to announce the recent
court case settlement. This caused a great deal of fuss from the investing
community. Was this due to Google perhaps misunderstanding role of blogging
and failing to consider more formal communication routes for certain
announcements (such as online press office) or do you think it was deliberate to
highlight growing role of blogging ?
2. How important is new digital media technology for the PR industry?
3. Have you come across the Vocus system which was demonstrated to us. The
CEO said PR companies have been slow to invest in IT infrastructure, what do
you think?
4. How long did it take you to develop the “right” style for your blog?
5. Losing control in the social computing model seems a concern to business, what
is your view? How are you able to reassure company’s or organizations on this
issue?
6. Today we have been looking at company web sites and many have used very
traditional communication models. Which sites would you suggest highlight or
are starting to explore more advanced social computing models?
7. Do you think podcasting may become more influential than text blogs?
8. We noticed that many blogs actually have very few comments from readers.
Does this highlight the limits of blogging as an interactive medium or that
“information grazing” is a key participation process in blogging as opposed to
actual interaction?
9. Do you distinguish between forums/chat rooms and blogging? Do you know of
companies using forums in an active dialogue?
10. How much time do you spend blogging each day?
11. Tell us about some of the projects you are working on and the communication
issues this is tackling?
12. Which new media technology, do you consider, is one to watch and is going to
become influential and powerful over the next few years for the PR community ?

Powered by Qumana

Welcome PRojetZ

A new french PR blog entered the blogosphere yesterday, PRojetZ, authored by Philippe Cherel.
If you can read french, I fully recomend it to you as he is a very smart writer and I am sure you'll find his blog a great daily RDV while drinking your first coffee in the morning...;o)

Welcome Philippe !

Tags: philippe cherel, projetz, projet z

Launch of Netizen, first french magazine on blogging

We now have in France the first magazine (traditional paper edition, not online one) on blogs, wikis, citizen journalism and podcasting: Netizen. It's a monthly, the first issue is this month one, and it seems to me, a very ambitious challenge. Is an offline magazine about the online world going to be able to keep attention from a world which is moving quite in real time...?

The first edition has a focus on blogs and politics, good number one, congrats and all the best for nexts issues !

Technorati Tags: netizen

Social Radio

I was looking for a social radio application and I think I found it. I found Last FM on a blog recently and I believe this might be THE one I needed.
This free service allows you to create a personal radio station hosted on your blog, you can share play lists, but also play your favorite songs.

I also heard about Radio Blogs few month ago but it has some technical requirements I've not been able to answer as user of a hosting weblog solutions.
I am definitely going to test Last FM on this blog and will let you know my first thoughts. Hope it will be as easy to use and set up as it seems to be...

Technorati Tags: lastfm

Back !

Well, I've been out for more than one week, some fresh air and distance to make good decision and plans for 2006 ! This is, I am now "quite" ready for this new year !

The main decision is that PR Thoughts is going to be and remain exclusively my personal blog (well, it was already the case, yes, but also a bit professional, a kind of mix...not always easy to manage...) engaging my personal views, opinions and positions where I will talk mainly about IT, Internet topics that I really fancy (yes, I am a geek at some point...) but not really about PR. Ok, now I am going to face an issue with the title of my blog, "PR Thoughts" should be talking at some point about PR, but well, I don't have all the answers now.

Second point is that I am going to continue my podcast on new communications as this is my daily job in my business life. This is going to be a weekly meeting on blogs, wikis, podcasting, RSS and exciting practices around the world... I don't know yet where it will be available, the last shows are available here at PR Thoughts, the podcasting section is hosted on the left vertical menu and the subscription feed is this one.My last guest was Hugh Davies, Head of Communications at Microsoft UK, I hope to publish it in the very next days. As soon as this new podcast is ready, I'll let you know.

So things will be clearly separate, personal on one side and professional on the other (I hope it won't mean smart on one side and boring on the other...), and "probably" both will remain in english.

Conclusion is: I am still blogger and podcaster, but depending of your center of interest, you might have to update your blogroll ! ;o)

All the best for 2006 !!! ;o)

265 attendees at "Les Blogs 2.0"

The organisation of Les Blogs 2.0 that I am coproducing with Six Apart and Elizabeth Albrycht is going quite well while at the same time consuming a lot of time ... We are very happy to see that we now have 265 attendees so this is really going to be a great event thanks to this world wide participation. Getting all your inputs is going to be fascinating ! US, Europe, Asia, Africa, we'll all be there...

My nightmare of these days is the Wifi... We were supposed to get a sponsor, one of the main wifi constructors ( you know, companies like, D-Link, Netgear, Linksys) but unfortunately, last time change, this is not going to happen... Bad news... So, Loïc got a suggestion to contact The Cloud, what I did this morning, I hope they will get back with a positive answer... As you all know, we NEED a wifi hotspot in the center of the room, we'll be more than 300 bloggers, so you can easily imagine our need of a professional solution. By the way, would you have any recomendation, please leave me a comment !

So yes, I am sorry for the lack of posts those days, my arrival at Edelman and Les Blogs 2.0 in less than 3 weeks are 2 good reasons to be quite busy, but what a great job ! ;o)

Looking forward to meeting you on the 5&6 december !

Technorati Tags: edelman, lesblogs2

CEOs find blogs usefull

Quick post following an article from CNET News:

A growing number of American chief executives rate blogs high as employee communication tools, though a majority of them remain skeptical about starting their own, a new study shows.

This is also about employee blogging:

Many companies encourage employees to share new ideas in their blogs and get feedback from customers or users of their services.

Read full article. Via Nevon