Drew B's take on tech PR

Apple iPod Touch shipped early

It's like Christmas Eve in Chez B. Today's the day Santa sets off from his grotto to bring me the shiny new gift I asked him for (online) one month ago. The gift that will let me be much more social media and web 2.0 than I already think I am. Yes, today's the day my iPod Touch is shipped. Or at least it was meant to be.

Yesterday at 10pm I was emailed by Santa's elf, Apple, saying my pressie had now been shipped. W00t! A day early! But what's this? Estimated arrival date of 10th October?! That's two weeks. It really is coming from Lapland by reindeer. And what's that? It 'has' been shipped on 28th September? A day after the email was sent. Maybe it hasn't actually beent at all. Glitchy, glitchy Apple.

I am none the wiser as to when my Touch will arrive and am just hoping the product itself isn't as glitchy as the delivery process is looking from here.

Anyone else experiencing a teensy bit of iPod Touch anxiety?

Update: Ouch! The iPhone customers in the US  are having major problems.  This post on Scoble's blog is worth a read: Apple has a PR nightmare brewing.

Microsoft's social moves

Some cool social media stuff being chatted about right now... Google's apparently looking at virtual worlds with more talk about its Second Life killer. And Microsoft's buying a bit of Facebook. And cooler than both - booze 2.0 - you can get your Stormhoek Blue Monster reserve soon on these shores following last week's FT coverage. Nice work Hugh Mcleod  who, in case you've not seen his updates on this project, has been talking through the process of using his web trickery to help Stormhoek Wines and Microsoft in their respective battles to create social objectivity.

Another Gmail anti-launch?

Remember when Google launched Gmail back in 2004? It was invite only, and initially through bloggers on its Blogger.com platform. It was the first web anti-launch that I remember being so successful that I took part in (as a pawn, rather than doing its PR or whatnot).

Today there are lots of rumours of Gmail launching a new interface. I hope we see some kind of interesting PR launch to go with it. Gmail has a huge fan base. For something as (hypothetically) dull as an email programme, that's kind of interesting I think. They've done well to achieve that. But personally I'd like to see what's new soon as I'll be using it on my iPod Touch when it arrives next week and need to plug Gmail into it so that I can do a nerve centre hotwiring of the thing :-)

links for 2007-09-22

• The Economist leaks to blogs for online buzz
  The Economist has identified influential US bloggers and leaks tips and stories to them, in order to create online buzz before the articles are published in the Economist.
• gapingvoid: thoughts on microsoft
  This week Hugh Macleod unveiled the bottle of Stormhoek wine with his blue Microsoft monster on the label. Yesterday he met with Microsoft in London, and this post is about what he thought of it
• Micro Persuasion: How to Data Mine Google Reader Feeds for Trends
  A good post on using your RSS / blog reader to mine generate useful trends

The way ahead for digital advocacy

Reading Hugh Macleod's blog today I saw part of a long post, where he talks about the meeting he had with Microsoft after the unveiling of the Blue Monster Reserve. Squirrelled away in his post is a point about the demand and supply for innovative digital advocacy-centred campaigns. I can see exactly where he's coming from:

"A few weeks ago, I was having lunch with somebody very high up the global Digital Advertising foodchain. He was telling me about how once he was pitching for a ten million dollar account with a large international client. The client basically said, "I love the idea. Let's do it. But... can you scale it to a hundred million dollar spend?" My friend sadly had to confess that his idea did not scale that large. My takeaway: Advertising clients are lining up to give talented folk their money. The only problem is, this brave new world is still in its infancy, much the same way TV advertising was in its infancy fifty years ago. Unlike traditional advertising media, demand for services exceeds supply. There lies the opportunity, but even the smartest minds in the business are still having a hard time figuring it out."

Erick Schonfeld moves to Techcrunch

News from the blogosphere this morning is that Techcrunch is getting a new co-editor - Erick Schonfeld, formerly the editor-at-large at Business 2.0 and senior writer at Fortune Magazine. Techcrunch is really beefing up and still a cracking source of all things webby. All the best with the move Erick.

Hugh's big project

Social media 'marketing strategist' Hugh Macleod's newest project, which he's been talking about for yonks now, has finally been unveiled in the Financial Times this morning. Today's unveiling of a Microsoft-branded bottle of the cartooned-up, blog-friendly Stormhoek Wine, is really interesting. A cartoon made popular by blogs, a wine that got its big break after some canny social media marketing (remember the Threshers voucher blog 'leak' thing) and an underground movement at Microsoft have all come together with this project. Well done to Hugh on helping to take Stormhoek this far with his social web marketing jiggery pokery. You can read more about the project on Hugh's blog.

Yahoo Mash first look

Have just been trying out Yahoo's new social network, Mash. It's in private beta and I managed to get an invite from Mdy through Twitter. If you want to see what it looks like, best take a look at what the first few users have been posting up in the photo pools. My first impression is that it's not as intuitive as, say, Piczo or Bebo. It doesn't offer the skins that most blogging platforms do, like Vox or Wordpress. And it's not as networked as Facebook. I'm wondering what segment of web user Mash will appeal most to.

I'm sure that its best bits will develop over time, but being Yahoo, I thought that from the start maybe more would be made of the niche networks that are under the same roof - like Flickr or Upcoming. You can't even take your profile pic from your Flickr account.

So let's see what happens over time. If you'd like a Yahoo Mash invite let me know.

On Radio 4, on eBooks

Just got back from a whistlestop trip to Radio 4 where the 12:30 debate on You & Yours was around the eBook. I met fellow panellists Joel Rickett from The Bookseller and Jeremy Essinghausen from Penguin. Both were super knowledgeable on the issue, and so I was keen to hear what they thought about my conclusion that unless the eBook gets sexy and unless the content can be shared, edited and copied, then it is going to have the worst traits of the print and the digital media, not the best. You can hear me in the show's listen again feature and read more about Joel and Jeremy on their blogs.

Childbirth 2.0

Tech blogger Robert Scoble is right now posting to Twitter from hospital - his wife is in labour and they are both on Twitter from their iPhones. For anyone that wants to take a peek into the kind of geekiness simply not on display anywhere else on the planet, take a look at what's going on over there right now. Baby's not born yet so you might see some funny posts shortly! Recent Twitter posts like this one: "Drugs are a good thing. We got a little bit of sleep and are back at it. Maryam is a trooper. This won't be a short process" and "I am walking the corridors with maryam. This is why iPhones were invented"

Robert's little 'un is going to be a blogebrity the second hes born. His daddy's going to be posting to his Twitter account, Zooomr account, Flickr account, Facebook account, Pownce account, Plaxo account, YouTube account, Kyte account, Jaiku account, and blog.