Post 63: Is now the time to introduce second class email?

July 31, 2007 in Freelance life, Web 2.0, Work, social networking

I’ve just discovered anonomi.com, a more than useful site that lets you set up a web contact form so strangers can send you email without knowing your email address.
The service is free and billed as an anti-spam measure, thanks in part for the need to complete a Captcha to send a message.
But the Captcha is [...]

Post 62: I really must stop taking phone calls on my bicycle

July 31, 2007 in Bicycles, Freelance life, P-aaaaargh!, Work

I really must stop taking mobile phone calls on my bicycle.
There seems to be some weird variant on Murphy’s Law that means if I ride my bike and the phone rings, it is PR person trying to pitch to me.
A very odd conversation ensues in which the poor PR, quite reasonably, finds it hard [...]

Post 61: New contender for Worst Pitch Ever

July 29, 2007 in P-aaaaargh!, Work, Worst Pitch Ever?, Worst practise

There’s a new contender for Worst Pitch Ever.
To understand why, you need to know about Media Connect, a service hereabouts that lets journalists post requests for information to the subscriber base of PRs and vendors.
I use it a LOT.
Which is why this pitch, via email, is so poor.
PR: I just noticed your posting on media [...]

Post 60: A new use for Twitter?

July 26, 2007 in Freelance life, Traffic, Web 2.0, Work

One of my gigs is editing Techtarget.com.au, a network of five sites for IT pros on subjects like security and VoIP that interest them.
Like everyone else online, we are looking for traffic.
So today I fired up a new Twitter.com profile, twitter.com/techtargetanz. The plan is to post a link to our new stories on Twitter and [...]

Post 59: My kid’s school on YouTube

July 26, 2007 in Computers

Post 58: Oh the irony that William Gibson’s ‘Spook Country’ is being distributed here late!

July 25, 2007 in Globalism, Web 2.0, Worst practise

William Gibson has a new book coming out, called Spook Country!
Hurrah!
Hang on. NOT Hurrah
That’s because while Amazon will sell it as of August 7th for $UD17.13 (plus shipping), the book will not arrive in Australia until September 7th, for $AUD50. It’s not likely to be a huge seller, so it could take weeks [...]

Post 57: The futility of surveys

July 25, 2007 in P-aaaaargh!, Vendors I have met, Work, Worst practise

PR: Hi Simon, our client the big important security vendor is releasing a report based on their new survey tomorrow

Want to know what happens next?
I have long since assumed that all security vendors allege largeness and importance and all emit reports on how bad things are on the security front as often as humanly possible [...]

Post 56: Wow! Actual Social PR!

July 23, 2007 in P-aaaaargh!, Web 2.0, social networking

Kudos to my mate Tim in London.
While I hear heaps of stuff about Social PR and PR 2.0, he’s bloody well doing it. And doing it well, IMHO.
Google his client ‘Truphone‘ and you’ll see what I mean – the main hits are the company’s blog, press room, YouTube posts, Wikipedia entry and even a Slashdot [...]

Post 55: Dumbest ad ever? Or dumbest society ever?

July 23, 2007 in Globalism, P-aaaaargh!

We went to town yesterday and on every second billboard we saw was an ad for some kind of face cream that alleged that within the mandarin-sized jar on offer was the equivalent of ‘5000′ litres of water.
Yep. One jar. 5000 litres.
Just how did we arrive in a time and place where it is even [...]

Post 54: RFI

July 20, 2007 in RFI, Work

I am writing a feature on emerging data centre technologies. The kind of thing that may seem a bit ‘SciFi’ but is rapidly becoming real.
Drop me a line to simon at jargonmaster dot com if you have anything you think belongs in the story.