Drew B's take on tech PR

The purrfect PR blogger's mission control

Just a quick one. I saw this pic online - it's an example of a PR blogger's (Steve Rubel's) "mission control". Look at the clutter-free environ, perfectly honed for creative blogging.

So I thought I would post my mission control, in comparison. Notice the difference. And notice who thinks he's in charge. So true.

Power in PR

Claws out. And no coffee spitting please... but read this. Two PR bloggers you might be familiar with are amongst the industry's most powerful forces it seems. Am looking forward to next week's Powerbook...

Social presence (killer) apps

Whilst playing with Twitter I tried using Jaiku and I can see straight away why the marketing and PR digerati have taken to Twitter as a comms platform instead. It's because you can use it for stuff it wasn't really invented for.

People like to read what others are doing, and they like to chat. That's why blogging and IM are so huge. And that's why applications that bring those together and make them mobile will be so huge.

Jaiku's good, but it only sends messages out on SMS or on your site. Twitter gives you the choice to send messages on IM as well as SMS or the web, and that's what's proving more addictive. More users, more fans, and more fiddling... companies like CNN, the BBC and Apple are already trying Twitter on for size as a comms tool.

• A message to Jack and Ev at Twitter though, here's what I'd also like it to do:
• Post straight into a blog, like del.icio.us lets you do
• Have feeds from other places streamed into your Twitter, so readers can get your Flickr, MySpace, podcast or blog updates on their Twitter, like Jaiku let's you do
• Have a 'popular' section, like del.icio.us
• Delay messages, like Typepad lets you do, so you can plan ahead or set alerts or alarms
• Allow comments
• Have site stats
• Any more?

These things are what got us hooked on all the other social media stuff first time round and if they were options in Twitter then I can see people using it for everything.

BBC News launches Twitter channel

BBC News Online has launched a news channel on Twitter. BBC's not made a big splash about this news - it's an experiment right now they say - but it has been launched quietly here on this blog.

BBC News is now being sent out via Twitter to users' mobiles / IM / web / RSS feeds. The site and feeds are available on twitter.com/bbcnews.

Update - BBC has now launched dedicated feeds for news sections:

News frontpage: bbcnews (the existing bot)
Business: bbcbusiness
Politics: bbcpolitics
Health: bbchealth
Education: bbceducation
Sci/Tech: bbcscitech
Technology: bbctech
Entertainment: bbcentertainment
Sport: bbcsport

England: bbcengland
Northern Ireland: bbcnireland
Scotland: bbcscotland
Wales: bbcwales

links for 2007-01-10

• Want the juice on Macworld? Try Twitter
  "I think Twitter’s gonna be big in Singapore since we’re all SMS crazy here. Combine that with the ability to update all your friends via web, IM, and even your blog, and you’re golden."
• Jeff Sandquist, Microsoft Evangelist - Following CES on Twitter and blogs
  Blog business summit takes place at CES Las Vegas this Tuesday
• End user anecdotes: what gets people hooked on Twitter?
  "There I was, not twittering, with Ev twittering away next to me, with Tantek not just twittering but IMing and IRCing and emailing on not one but two macs.I gave in. I joined Twitter. And I’m so glad I did."

links for 2007-01-09

• The News Sentinel: Twitter
  Twitter, the new Internet phenomenon for people who think even email and instant messaging are just too slow: Twitter works by hypercharging social networks such as those on MySpace or Friendster.

Bloggers getting Twitter

Bloggers - GET ON TWITTER NOW PLEASE! And if you use Gmail, IM, social networks or SMS, Twitter is going to get you addicted. Why didn't I get on to this before? Don't know. But I am hooked now.

Twitter is as easy to use as sending an IM or a text, and really addictive. As addictive as blogging was when you first got into it.

You'll wonder why another developer hadn't thought of integrating IM with web-publishing and SMS before. Twitter's integration of all these platforms means you're getting chats from people all over the place either on IM, texting from their mobiles, or online like bloggers.

If you're into FaceBook, MySpace, Bebo or other similar social media networks, having mobile integration will get you hooked too.

AND, as Twitter lets you use the output so you can stick it into any web page, you can insert your own and your buddies' posts and conversations into your MySpace, blog, wiki, website or whatever. Like this, or this. Or this. You can even build a flash page with your Twitters (v v v cool).

If you do all of the above, then Twitter is massively powerful.

I'm using Twitter on IM from my mobile (a BlackBerry). So I'm getting IM chat from my social network to my mobile, always-on and live. And all this is being also published online here, on SMS and via RSS too here. If you want it on email even, you can get that here. And when I chat back, it's as easy as writing an IM message, getting published to my buddies, to the web, to RSS and through SMS. Being easy as well as addictive means it's going to have a lot of users.

As for business applications, they're not hard to conceive. Travel PR Blog says: "If I was a tour operator running safaris, for example, I would get my top tour guide to Twitter and I would carry the updates live on the web site." Me, I'll be looking at all my clients' businesses and seeing how a system like this can help them. News monitoring teams, event support, tracking execs, offering coupons and special offers... more ideas on a postcard please.

- A few names you might recognise who are on Twitter now: The Guardian's Bobbie Johnson, PR bloggers Renaissance Chambara, Stuart Bruce, and Jeremy Pepper, evangelist Robert Scoble, ex-TechCrunch Sam Sethi, his editor Mike Butcher, author and NMK editor Ian Delaney, Yahoo and Plasticbag.org's Tom Coates to name a few.

BTW - my most up to date Twitter posts will also be in the top left of this blog. As if by magic.

How many readers

This article in the Wall St Journal fleshes out a couple of quick facts that will be useful to remember:
Gawker gets 2m unique readers a month
Lifehacker gets 287,000 unique readers a month

Moved to Twitter - it's nice

I started on Twitter ( http://twitter.com/drewb ) last month but it didn't work on my phone. Twitter works by you texting your brief comments and life updates to the system which then publishes it to your online account, to your online social network, and to their mobiles if they want. When it's not working, or when you've not managed to add anyone to your network, or if you're not on it, you kind of wonder what the point of it is. But when you get it working, you're hooked.

Bobbie Johnson first got me interested a few months back. Then Scoble did it, then Sam Sethi when he left TechCrunch, Mike Butcher and more, so I tried again. Turns out the reason I couldn't get it to work is that my mobile phone isn't compatible with the Twitter system. Rotten huh. So I've installed an IM client on to my blackberry. Now it's working super. Only problem is, I've got IM on my mobile - how dangerous is that going to be!!!! Not only am I 24-7, but all my buddy list (that's work- and buddies-buddies btw) can see when I'm online too :(

What's your RSS reader of choice?

Reading Robert Scoble's blog this morning he says he's read 25,000 articles on his Google Reader in the last month. What's that, about 1000 every day? Blimey.

Has anyone noticed how Scoble's some kind of one man PR machine for Google Reader right now? He doesn't stop blubbing about its shortcut keys etc etc. I love it too, but can't quite come to dump my Bloglines. It's quicker, better on my BlackBerry and doesn't go all glitchy when I integrate my blogroll. Maybe in time Google will take over my RSS habit as well as everything else?

So I'm using Bloglines and Google Reader right now. Is there a better model on the market I would be saving heaps of time by using? Which one do you use?