Order your copy of David Meerman Scott's terrific "New Rules of Marketing & PR"

One of the things I like most about David Meerman Scott's just-released book, The New Rules of Marketing & PR, is the fresh, conversational voice it's written in. Yes, you can call it blog-like.

David is a friend and colleague so I'm lucky enough to be sitting here with my autographed copy in hand. He writes, wisely, in his introduction:

From the Introduction

"As the lines between marketing and PR on the Web have blurred so much as to be unrecognizable, the best media choice is often not as obvious as in the old days. But I had to organize the book somehow, and I chose to create chapters for the various online media, including blogs, podcasts, online forums, social networking, and so on.

But the truth is that all these tools and techniques intersect one another. Some things were difficult to place in a particular chapter, such as the discussion on RSS (Really Simple Syndication). I moved that section four times before settling on chapter 13."

And he continues...

"As I was writing, I was wishing I could link you (like in a blog) from one chapter to a part of another chapter. Alas, a printed book doesn't allow that, so instead I have included suggestions where you might skip ahead or go back for review on certain topics... You'll notice that I write in a familiar and casual tone, rather than the formal and stilted way of many business books, because I'm using my "blog voice" to share the new rules with you."

I suffered the same challenge in writing The Corporate Blogging Book (which David kindly mentions on page 202). It is indeed much easier to write "online" these days than to write a book so I like David's frank admission of how he handled it.

A super useful read

This is a super useful read for any business person wondering why the heck he or she needs to understand blogs or podcasting or social media press releases or viral marketing. The answer is tied up neatly in David's introduction. And then amply illustrated throughout with specific chapters on audio content, blogs, forums & wikis, going viral, etc.

There's a Foreword by uber-blogger Robert Scoble which is really more about Scoble (and what he did at Microsoft) than about David. But it's a good read too.

The book was officially published on June 4, 2007. Order your copy today on Amazon! It's ranked #112 in book sales as I write -- which is a fantastic achievement. Go David!

David's special offer - valid through Friday June 8th

Purchase your copy of New Rules of Marketing & PR on Amazon by Friday June 8, 2007 and David will send you a CD of his audio seminar on Online News Releases. Details here.

Take Melcrum's Social Media Survey

My friends over at Melcrum Publishing are running a Social Media Usage survey. Click here to take it (it's quick).

You get a nifty free download at the end: Melcrum's Quick Start Guide to Social Media for Internal Communicators (a 23-page PDF).

The survey is aimed at large corporations and asks about your use (or intended use) of blogs, wikis, podcasts, social bookmarking tools, RSS, Second Life, online video, etc.

Social Media for Internal Communicators in London - March 22, 2007

I'm speaking at Melcrum's social media conference in London in a couple of weeks. Topic: What's Your Story? Getting the Tone and Content of Blogs Right. Attendees will get a copy of my Content Strategy Workbook -- one of the things that will be included in... (drum roll)... The Corporate Blogging Toolkit.

I'm developing it now. It's an extension of The Corporate Blogging Book, designed to be a practical blueprint and manual to launch a corporate or CEO blog.

Consider this a below-the-radar announcement. More TK.

60% say the ROI of corporate blogging does NOT need to be quantified and/or tied to the bottom line

Forrester's Charlene Li and several colleagues have published a new best practices study on The ROI of Blogging. It's fascinating reading for those of us who've been wrestling with the question of how you can quantify the impact of a corporate blog. I'll make a few comments about Forrester's new report in a moment.

Does corporate blogging need to be tied to the bottom line? "No..."

But first I want to tell you about a rather surprising response I'm getting to the "ROI of blogging" question in an informal survey I'm running. Thus far over 250 respondents have responded to the corporate blogging and social media survey I posted on Feb. 2, 2007. (Respondents range from Fortune 1000 to small business and one-person shops. Majority are small business.) The answer to the question "Does corporate blogging need to be tied to the bottom line" is a pretty clear "No."

Specifically, 60 percent say that the success of a corporate blog does *not* need to be measured in dollars. 25 percent say it does. And another 15 percent have interesting comments to make. A sampling follows:

Q: Does corporate blogging need to be tied to the bottom line?

A: from Senior Consultant at a Fortune 500 company: "No"

A: from Marketing Director of a small company (under 100 employees):

"No" would be an irresponsible answer; of course it has to be tied to
the bottom line, but it doesn't have to be measured like e-mail or a
coupon campaign. It's more like event sponsorship or PR."

A: from Communications Director of a small company (under 50 employees):

"Yes, but it is not a direct investment to return measure. It is more
about here is the investment we made to change our culture (or the
perception of our culture) and here is how the new culture has
benefited the bottom line."

The survey is still open. Click here to take it. The survey is now closed.

Oh, and what do I make of the survey results? Well, I guess it's pretty obvious: many marketers, execs and business owners aren't as concerned with calculating the ROI of blogging as they are with more practical challenges: how much time will it take? Who will write the blog? What should the topic be??

More about Forrester study on ROI of Business Blogging

I've been as fascinated as anyone by the ROI of blogging question. I devote a chapter to it in my book where I call it ROB (Return on Blog).

I like Forrester's approach to quantifying the ROI. The model they've built is elegant, smart and tidy. Quantifying "risk" by 1) identifying uncertainty and 2) calculating probability (...that something will go terribly wrong; a PR disaster, etc.) is especially clever. 

I also like the way Forrester uses proxies to calculate some of the benefits. For example, a blog provides an on-demand focus group compared with the cost of running a traditional focus group once a month for a year (total cost: $180,000). See nifty diagram. That last number came out of the accompanying case study on GM's FastLane blog: Calculating the ROI of Blogging: A Case Study.

Trouble is, even Forrester admits that "calculating the ROI of blogging has limitations" and "the exact benefits of blogging are impossible to measure" (I'm quoting directly from the Jan. 24, 2007 Best Practices report.)

So where does that leave us?

Pretty much back where we started, wouldn't you say? Corporate blogging is valuable because:

- it creates a conversation with customers

- you can learn a lot from the conversation

- it can lead to mentions in mainstream press (so PR value)

- Word of mouth marketing

- it gives a company higher Google search results, etc.

What do you think?? Would leave to hear your thoughts on this. (Hint: use the Comments link below.)

Useful Links

New ROI of blogging report from Forrester (Charlene Li)

Corporate Blogging ROI - Now We're Talking (Mario Sundar on the MProfs blog; read the comments. Very interesting.)

Forrester creates a model to measure blogging ROI (Steve Rubel on Micro Persuasion)

Learn Mandarin Chinese with ChinesePod, one of Time's "Top Ten" podcasts for 2006

Just got an email from Ken Carroll, the brains behind an online podcasting and tutorial service that teaches you Mandarin Chinese. ChinesePod has been named one of the Top Ten Podcasts for 2006 by Time Magazine. Kudos to Ken, who is based in Shanghai, for such a clever and engaging idea.

Again, with the publication of The Corporate Blogging Book in Chinese, I am hoping to get to Shanghai in 2007. So Ken, count me in as a new customer.

New York Times columnist David Pogue misses his calling as stand-up comedian

I haven't laughed so hard in ages. David Pogue, The New York Times popular personal technology columnist, gave the keynote at today's Bulldog Reporter's conference on advanced PR technologies in New York.

He strode in - tall, lean, clean-cut, dark suit, very corporate looking. Within two minutes he was hopping up and down at the lecturn and screeching, making fun of everything related to "social" media ("I hate buzz words," he said). Think Robin Williams (except tall and lean, etc.) and you've got the picture.

I suspect some of his jokes went right by the earnestly intent audience of PR professionals gathered at the Yale Club to learn the latest and greatest about corporate blogging, online video, wikis, SEO and online measurement. All of his slick-looking PowerPoint charts were fake (I rode down in the elevator with him and he confirmed this.)

One slide was labeled "Movie Tickets Sold" and underneath "in gazillions." Another purported to show the explosion in social media between now and 2009. "These things are new and there's going to be a lot more of them," he dead panned. The legend explaining the hockey stick curves included "splogs" (OK they do exist),"klogs" and "phlogs."

"I love making these charts with PowerPoint," he said. "It's so easy."

Some useful tidbits...

On Social Media

Blogs are self-expression via text; podcasts are self-expression via audio; V-logs are self-expression via video. "These tools are NOT equivalent," he said. "Social media as one entity doesn't exist. Some people don't want to appear in front of a camera. Anyone can write a blog. The ability to speak well for a podcast is less common." (I'm paraphrasing.)

On Web 2.0

His slide showed a giant ugly brown spider clinging to a web. "This Web 2.0 thing," he called it, "is where the audience provides the content."

The New York Times on blogging

"It's like an elephant trying to put on ballet slippers - very tentative, very conservative."

Social media ideas for PR practitioners

Off the top of his head, he said, some ideas for PR folks. Use blogs, podcasts, online video for: 

- behind the scenes glimpses of corporate life

- focus groups at Microsoft showing users trying to click and navigate confusing user interfaces

- design prototypes

- videos of employee's cubicles (all the stuff they hang up)

- customer submissions (videos, fan sites, etc.)

Useful Links

Pogue's blog

Pogue's videos for The New York Times (he makes them himself - no staff, no special equipment, no studio)- can't find the link.

I'll add more later...

A few tips from SNCR's Inaugural Research Symposium

Having questioned whether live blogging is a good thing or not... I'm here this morning at The Colonnade in Boston to bring you a few tips from the Society for New Communications Research Inaugural Research Symposium.

First, a word of thanks to SNCR executive director Jennifer McClure who has worked incredibly hard to produce this event. (Thanks Jen!) Second, in the spirit of full disclosure, I am an SNCR Fellow (oops, looks like I need to add my bio).

You won't find anything, er, snarky in what I write today, given that I'm not a totally impartial observer.

The New Influencers

Tech jurnalist and consultant Paul Gillin offers a few highlights from his new book: The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media (to be published in spring 2007).

Tidbits from Paul:

- Used to be that a happy customer tells 3 people about your company; an unhappy customer tells 10 people. Now, via blogs, an unhappy customer tells 10,000 people. He shows as an example the by now iconic video clip of customer Vincent Ferrari trying to cancel his AOL account. (Yes, the AOL customer service rep was ultimately fired.)

- "Marketing has become a spread-sheet driven discipline."  But that's not working anymore, says Gillin. He's referring, presumably, to impressions, click-throughs and other Web metrics that online marketers live and die by.

- Refers to P&G CEO A.G. Lafley's keynote speech to the ANA's annual conference and his key point: marketers are most likely to succeed when they let customers be in control.

More later... maybe. I'm gonna just listen for a while.

Useful Links

AOL said, 'If you leave me, I'll do something crazy' - Randall Stross's Digital Domain column in The New York Times (requires subscription).

Backbone Media and Northeastern University's Blogging Success Study (published Nov. 2, 2006)

We're at the inflection point for corporate blogging

As I noodle around with a number of presentations** I've got coming up (I've finally figured out Keynote for the Mac), I want to take a stand.

It's the end of marketing, advertising and corporate communications "as usual"

It's not enough to say that blogging is important or that social media tools are going mainstream.

Here's my little manifesto

I'm still noodling with it. Feel free to jump in and add something, help me clarify my thoughts or tell me to stuff it:

The Inflection Point of Corporate Blogging

- Blogs and other social media tools are here to stay

- Blogs are just next-generation Web sites

- Social media tools (RSS, blogs, podcasts, video, wikis, etc.) can be used by any company, large or small, B2C or B2B

- They symbolize community, conversation, mutual respect between users and an ethos of sharing

- These tools are more powerful at informing/influencing/persuading than traditional forms of marketing, advertising and corporate communications

- They help you get found online

- If you can't be found, you don't exist

Conclusion: This isn't optional

You gotta start using blogs, podcasts, online video (social media) today!

Defining an inflection point

Google's acquisition of YouTube yesterday for $1.65 billion is extremely significant. (Watch the CNN video with the announcement.)

Yes, it's a lot of money. Yes it's eerily like the dot com boom days when companies with no revenue were perceived to be hugely valuable.

But I see it as more than that. It's a tipping point (thanks to Malcolm Gladwell). Or an inflection point.

Intel's Andy Grove popularized "inflection point" as a business term. It's really a mathematical expression meaning a point on a curve at which the tangent crosses the curve itself. I don't pretend to understand calculus so don't ask me to explain.

Translated into business, it means something new is happening and there's no going back. No more "business as usual."

Read Andy's explanation here. It's an excerpt from his 1996 book, Only the Paranoid Survive:

"Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change... They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let's not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to." - Andy Grove, founder of Intel

** I'm speaking at a bunch of different venues over the next two weeks - both here in the U.S. and also in London (Oct. 18th and Oct. 25th) and at a private event in Paris! (Que j'adore Paris!)

Good overview of social media: The Economist's New Media Survey

Looks like the first two sections of The Economist's New Media survey (April 22, 2006 issue of the print magazine) is accessible online, at least for now. I highly recommend it. It's got some nice tidbits and turns of phrase related to blogging, wikis, podcasting, interactive journalism and the definition of a media company.

And quotes a good selection of social media insiders, including Mena Trott, Chris Anderson, David Weinberger, David Winer, Adam Curry, Jeremy Zawodny, Dan Gillmor and others.

The survey, written by Andreas Kluth, poses the big question: So what kind of revolution is this? And comes up with a (to me, at least) interesting answer. Namely, that:

"... nobody knows whether the era of participatory media will, on balance, be good or bad. As with most revolutions, it is a question of emphasis. Generally speaking, people who have faith in democracy welcome participatory media, whereas people who have reservations will be nostalgic for the top-down certainties of the mass media."

Useful Links

Survey intro
It's the Links, Stupid (about blogging)

CBP #02: Interview with Edelman's Phil Gomes about "self-regulation" of the blogosphere

The second edition of the Corporate Blogging Podcast (my companion podcast to The Corporate Blogging Book) has been posted. You can download it here (MP3, 12.9 MG, 14 min.) or subscribe via RSS.

I interviewed Phil Gomes (Senior Counsel for Edelman) a few weeks back about "self-regulation" of the blogosphere. Robert Scoble and DL Byron stopped by to say hi while Phil and I were chatting. You can hear all their voices on the podcast.

Podcasting: I interviewed Elizabeth Albrycht and was a guest on The Podcast Roundtable

It was a podcasting kind of weekend. Also unseasonably warm and delightful here in Washington DC. I finally got the first edition of the Corporate Blogging Podcast up! It features a face-to-face interview in Palo Alto with the articulate Elizabeth Albrycht, founder of the Society for New Communications Research and co-producer, with Jen McClure, of the NewComm Forum.

Download the show here (MP3, 12.9 MB, 14 mins) or sign up for the RSS feed to get it (and future editions of the Corporate Blogging Podcast) automatically.

In addition, I was interviewed on Saturday by the crew of The Podcast Roundtable about The Corporate Blogging Book, my thoughts on CEO and senior executive bloggers, etc. Download or listen to the podcast episode here.

The Podcast Roundtable consists of Jeremiah Owyang (a global Web strategist for Hitachi Data Systems and one of my panelists at NewComm Forum on March 2, 2006), Martin McKeay, Dennis McDonald (who turns out to be my neighbor across the river in Virginia) and Robbin Tippins.

My podcast heros: Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz

I've just come out of a four-hour Podcasting 101 workshop, presented by the incomparable Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson of For Immediate Release fame. More later...  But wanted to register a thank you for a wonderfully demystifying session. Bravo!

P.S. Our class of 10 participants created a podcast at the end of the workshop. I'll post the link as soon as I get it!  Download the MP3 file here (12 minutes). Or subscribe to Neville and Shel's Speakers & Speeches RSS feed.

Breakfast (and podcast) with NewComm Forum's Elizabeth Albrycht

Back atcha, as they say! I had breakfast this morning in sunny Palo Alto with Elizabeth Albrycht. She's the co-founder, with Jen McClure, of the NewComm Forum (where I'm speaking this week) and also one of the founders of the Society for New Communications Research.

Elizabeth is a marvelous thinker and writer (and consultant) on the topic of social media tools & technologies and what they mean for organizational communications. And it was a thrill to meet and chat with her in person.

In fact, I recorded my first official podcast with her. It will be #1 in a series of companion podcasts to The Corporate Blogging Book. Stay tuned!

Blogging 101, Podcasting 101, RSS 101 for Marketers

Below is an update of my original 101 list. If you've got a great resource page or article - of specific interest to marketers - leave me a comment below and I might add it. No promises.  :)

Blogging 101

Blogging 101 by Rebecca Blood (on MSN Spaces)

Blogging 101 by Kari Chisholm

Blogs 101 by Rich Meislin in New York Times' Technology section

Blogging 101 by Technorati

Blog knowledge center by Cymfony

Business Blogging 101 on the NEWPRWiki

Business Blogging Resources by Dave Taylor

Global Voices' Intro to Blogs

Weblog Basics on About.com

Wikibooks' Blogging 101

Wikipedia definition of Weblog

Blog marketing resources from Paul Gillin

Podcasting 101

Podcasting 101 on MacZealots.com

Podcasting 101 on TechWeb

Podcasting 101 by Merle Stinnett

How to Record a Podcast by Glenn Fleishman

Creating a mini podcast in 30 minutes (how I did it with Stephan Spencer)

How to Podcast Video Tutorial

Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation

The Real Beginner's Guide to Podcasting

If podcasting is 2005 word of the year, why isn't it as easy as blogging?

RSS 101

RSS 101: "Really Simple" 5-Step Guide to Get Started

RSS 101 Screencast by Alex Barnett

RSS 101 for Marketers (Forrester report, July 2005)

RSS Beyond Blogs (excellent round-up of corporate RSS feeds by Toby Bloomberg)

The Business Case for RSS (free PDF download)

RSS Marketing blog by Rok Hrastnik

Seth Godin on What Is RSS?

About Feeds (XML, RSS, Atom) by SixApart

RSS Tutorial (includes tech details)

Round-up of RSS studies & charts (August 2005)

Technorati: corporate blogging; blogging; rss; podcasting; podcast; debbie weil

2006 is the the year of "how" for corporate blogging and other social media - we're beyond the "what"

It's no longer a question of "what" (as in "what in heck is a blog?"). The question I get most often these days is "how." "How do we incorporate blogging into our marketing?" "What about RSS, podcasting and all that other stuff?"

That's the theme - or the premise, really - of this year's New Communications Forum in Palo Alto, CA from March 1 - 3, 2006. The event is organized by Elizabeth Albrycht and Jennifer McClure (can't wait to meet these divas of new media) and includes an all star lineup of speakers including Rebecca Blood, Pete Blackshaw, Toby Bloomberg, Katie Delahaye Paine, Tom Foremski, Dan Gillmor, Elisa Camahort, Charlene Li, Sally Falkow, Jeremy Wright, Robert Scoble, DL Byron, Anita Campbell, Denise Howell, Stephan Spencer, Dana VanDen Heuvel and lots of others. 

I'm excited about participating as a speaker (I'm moderating a panel on Corporate Blogging Case Studies on Thursday March 2nd at 10:15 - 11:15 AM). So excited in fact, that I'm flying in a day early to attend Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz's podcasting bootcamp. They're going to record a special edition of their popular podcast, For Immediate Release, as part of the session. Sounds cool.

If you're going to pick one event to attend in upcoming months - to get up to speed on the new social meda technologies - I highly recommend this one.  And no, I don't get a penny for saying that. But you can get a $200 discount if you use this promo code: NCFR200. This will be an information rich couple of days. You can learn more and register here. Or you can call Jennifer McClure at 650-331-0083 to register by phone.

If podcasting is 2005 word of the year, why isn't it as easy as blogging?

In case you missed it, "podcast" was declared 2005 word of the year by the New Oxford American Dictionary. The concept is simple and yet profound. Podcasts are audio files - talk radio with music thrown in - that you can download, "unhook" from the Internet and carry away with you in an iPod or other MP3 player to listen to at your convenience.

And who's creating them? Everybody, it seems, from Fortune 500s like Whirlpool and IBM to, no surprise, NPR. They're a marketer's dream, really. Whether you're sponsoring a podcast or creating one of your own, you can follow your customer just about... anywhere.

But here's a dirty little secret... while it's easier than ever to subscribe to podcasts via iTunes, podcasts are still not as easy to create as are blogs with their one-click publishing tools.

I'm still trying to figure out how climbing the learning curve on how to produce a podcast from scratch. [Update: as soon as if and when I get there I will publish a quick "how-to" for newbie podcasters. Or maybe I'll be lazy and get someone else to handle the techie part for me.]

 

Big Blue on blogging and podcasting

Nice tidbit in Big Blue bit by the blogging bug on how IBM speechwriter Christopher Barger started blogging on his own, was discovered by his bosses, "panicked" - and then got promoted. Reporter Julie Alterio interviewed (and quoted) me for this nicely-written article in the Westchester Journal News (Jan. 9, 2006). Also see her companion piece: Podcasts a hit inside and outside IBM. Interesting how podcasts are being used as an educational as well as communications tool on corporate intranets.

 

Podcasting for Peace courtesy of Adam Curry

If you haven't listened to The Daily Source Code [subscribe via the link or through iTunes] you're missing something. This is the podcast produced daily by podcast pioneer Adam Curry. First, he's wonderful to listen to. Smart, funny, self-deprecating, utterly relaxed - and thoroughly professional. A combination we're not seeing enough of - yet - in podcasting.

Oh, and he plays great music, although no longer - unfortunately - cool mashups combining licensed songs. Podsafe means music that is not royalty-protected. This is a big issue in podcasting that I won't go into here.

Second, Adam is behind Podsafe for Peace whose first effort is If Every Day Were Christmas [listen here], a collaborative song by 32 singers in 9 countries. You can purchase (and download) the song for a mere 99 cents (U.S.). All proceeds go to UNICEF to help needy children around the world.

Hope you'll click here to purchase the song and take part!

Useful link

Wikipedia definition of podcasting

[via NevOn]

Best Free Downloads of 2005: blogging, RSS, email and podcasting

Well it's that time of year... time for a "Best Of" list! So many free guides, so little time to cull through them. Here's my quick pick of the most informative on this year's hot topics: blogging, RSS and podcasting. Plus the most notable stat of 2005 and of course the best new blog.

AND let's not forget email. Oh, and white papers themselves. They're both still in play as powerful marketing and communications tools for companies large and small.

Update: this blog entry also appears in the current issue of my e-newsletter, WordBiz Report. If you're not already a subscriber, please do sign up!

I generally publish once a month although the schedule has been interrupted the past few months because of writing the book. Subscribe now and you can download immediately my Top 7 Tips to Write an Effective Business Blog.

Blogging

To Blog Or Not To Blog by The Content Factory [download page]

Added: my earlier pick: Seth Godin's e-book on blogging Who's There [PDF]

My riff about it here.

RSS

The Business Case for RSS by Rok Hrastnik [PDF]

Podcasting

Beginner's Guide to Podcast Creation [Article]

Email

DoubleClick's 6th Annual Consumer Email Study [PDF - just released Dec. 2005)

EmailLabs Best Practices Quick Tips and Guide [Download page]

White Papers

2005 White Paper Writer Industry Survey [Download page - free until Dec. 31, 2005]

Most notable stat of 2005

Pew's Report on Teen-Age Content Creators [Download page]

Not sure whether your customers are hanging out in the blogosphere? They will be soon. 57% of teen-agers who use the Internet have created a blog, uploaded photos, audio or video or re-mixed online content to create new stuff.

Best new blog

This one was easy! Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog

 

WOMMA masters the new marketing mix: site, blog, RSS, podcast, e-newsletter, etc.

Not surprisingly, WOMMA (Word of Mouth Marketing Association) has mastered the new marketing mix when it comes to promoting their next conference: a site, a blog, RSS feeds, podcasts, email updates and a companion e-newsletter all rolled up into one at www.womma.org/wombat/. Looks like the only thing missing is a wiki [added: and more women speakers!]

Word of Mouth Basic Training is Jan. 19 - 20, 2006 in Orlando, FL. Sounds fun and they've got some great speakers lined up.

Creating a mini podcast in 30 minutes with Stephan Spencer

I had to get this up right away. It's so cool! Click here [MP3] to listen to my first mini podcast, produced in 30 minutes under the skillful direction of Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts. Stephan created a musical intro (yeah, my favorite part) out of a mix from GarageBand. It's a 1 minute and 50-second interview with Tris Hussey of Qumana and Larix Consulting: "What's so great about podcasts?" I asked Tris. "Well," he said, "I feel like I'm creating my own radio show." We caught Tris off guard (he's based in British Columbia) by phoning him through my Skype account.

You'll hear some background noise, as Stephan and I are sitting in the massive hall of the World Congress Center in Atlanta at the DMA's mega conference. Stephan moderated a panel I was on this morning about emerging technologies for direct marketers. Seated next to me during the podcast was Mr. RSS himself, Rok Hrastnik of Slovenia. Rok was at the DMA with a dozen or so colleagues from Studio Moderna, Central and Eastern Europe's direct marketing giant.

Oh, and Stephan hails from New Zealand. Talk about a global conversation...

I'll update this later with pointers to the other software we used to record the call via Skype and turn it into a podcast.

The notable point is that we created this podcast in just a few minutes using nothing but a Mac laptop, Skype, some free software to record and "digitize" the call, my iPod headphones and one $32 app (Audio Hijack Pro) that enhances the audio.

The trick is something about mixing the input from your own microphone with the output from Skype (Stephan patiently tried to explain to me). Anyway, I'm hooked. Very fun. Thank you Stephan!

Subscribe to this podcast

Download the podcast MP3 [01:50] You gotta listen! It's less than two minutes. 

Useful Links

Audio Hijack Pro

Audacity

SoundFlower (for Mac)

Logitech USB headset (which I still need to order)

How to Record a Podcast by Glenn Fleishman

Blogs? Most people don't have a bloody clue

Just when I'm despairing that everyone and their dog will know everything about blogs, RSS, podcasting, wikis, vodcasting, VOIP and  IPTV,*  (ha! did I get you on that one??) in a year, along comes an informative article from The Register in the UK. And I quote:

Blogging = dogging, reckon London cabbies

There is some very refreshing news today for those who live outside the rarified atmosphere of the internet world, and indeed for many of us struggling for breath within it - most people don't have a bloody clue what net buzzwords mean but can evidently function perfectly well in society despite this handicap.

Indeed, a survey of taxi drivers, pub landlords and hairdressers... by ad outfit DDB London showed that 90 per cent... have not the foggiest idea what a podcast is, and an impressive 70 per cent live in blissful ignorance of blogging.

Better still, many think blogging is the same as dogging...

Definition of dogging
If you're not a Brit, you may not be familiar with the term dogging. Took me a few minutes of hunting around on the Web. Definition here. (Hint: refers to having sex in public places.)

Hmmm... there is a connection with the all-transparent, all-the-time, in-your-face nature of blogging, don't you think?

* Thanks to A-list blogger & podcaster and appellate attorney Denise Howell for reminding me about Internet Protocol TV during our interview yesterday for The Corporate Blogging Book. Denise says she's "a nut" about podcasting but that IPTV (interactive, on-demand TV through the Internet) will be just as cool.

What does your brand sound like?

If it wasn't enough trouble to come up with the right string of words to describe your brand, now you gotta worry about what your brand sounds like. That's right. You need an audio logo for your podcast. What's your cue music, your sign off... and those little bits in between, like NPR radio uses between segments? MarketingSherpa writes here and here about what's involved in developing their theme song for podcasting.

Check out Podcastinglogos.com to hear snippets of music used by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Baseball Network and other organizations for their podcasts. The site was just launched by independent film score composer Michael Whalen.

Whalen helpfully poses 10 key questions you should consider before commissioning an audio logo. Here are the first five:

1. How is your company perceived in the marketplace? (big, small, cool, traditional, fun, forward thinking, etc.)
2. How do YOU perceive your company? Is it the same as your answer to #1?
3. Do you think your audio ID should support or work against this impression(s)?
4. Who is your 'typical' audience member or customer? (demographically, sense of their tastes, etc.)
5. Should the audio ID appeal to your audience's taste or should it only support your company's image? (see question #1)

Follow this link and click on Pricing and Suggestions in the left-hand column to get the rest. (This site is designed in frames... bad idea as I can't give you a direct link!)