Drew B's take on tech PR

If you don't read newspapers you're...

The geeks reckon they don't need to read newspapers any more. They think they can get everything online, and call paper and books "dead trees". Robert Scoble says he has almost entirely replaced newspaper consumption with RSS feeds. Is this the future? Hmm.

I still read all the papers every morning. As many as I can any way. Most mornings I'm in our press briefings - we look at political agendas of the media owners, the biggest issues of the day, and who's writing what. In the UK the media wields far greater power on a daily basis than RSS feeds do.

I have a few hundred RSS feeds too - but they haven't replaced my media consumption. They've enhanced it. So is this just a UK thing, or is it universally acknowledged that you can't replace media with RSS and still influence the influencers?

What have I missed more?

My wife and I moved house last week. We arrived at our new place to find there was no TV reception (at all, not even with one of those portable aerials). So I've been waiting for NTLhell to install cable, and give me my broadband back while they're at it. Their ineptitude is another matter altogether. Suffice to say my 30-channel package includes only channels 1-4 and pay per view movies. Grrr.

While doing DIY and unpacking has kept me busy at home, I have to admit I've really missed not having TV. Now that NTL's back I can catch up with online social media stuff again too. I'm updating my iPod, watching some vids, and obviously most importantly catching up with the blogs I haven't had time to read (work has been just too frantic this last week for me to find any time to catch up whilst at my desk - which itself didn't happen much).

The main reason I've had a week long online drought though, apart from the fact there was no broadband at home, is because my working week was squeezed into three days. One day disappeared because Monday was a Bank Holiday. The other day, Thursday, I took off work as it was my wife's five months tummy scan. My family now all know, as do friends and some colleagues, but here's a pic of the scan from our Thursday's visit. Isn't little B a handsome one! And boy does s/he wriggle! So my life's going to change massively in about four months, and we can't wait! Expect another blogging drought in January :-)

links for 2006-09-02

• FT - Valley voices find their value
  Full page feature in FT on blogging - Is it a way for maniacs to grab their 15 minutes of fame, somewhere to hang out between jobs and just shoot the breeze, a tool of the marketing industry or a new business model for the publishing world?
• New Statesman - Bloggers for hire
  Cover story in this week's New Statesman - The days of genuine "citizen-generated" media may be numbered. Suddenly big business is all over the blogosphere, paying armies of willing recruits to praise products.
• Jailed video blogger granted bail, almost free | CNET News.com
  Video blogger Josh Wolf, who has been jailed since Aug. 1 for refusing to hand over footage to federal officials, was granted bail on Thursday by a federal appeals court.
• globeandmail.com : Blogger spills the beans on RIM's latest toy
  Is RIM/BlackBerry engaging in a viral fake tech leak blogger? "RIM, I know you love how The Boy Genius has your stock above $80 per share for the first time since April. This is viral marketing at its best," the source said in a posting on Engadget