Drew B's take on tech PR

New social media tools working doc

The uber blog ranker and Tech PR copywriter The Friendly Ghost has this evening invited a bunch of us industry bloggers to help build a social media working document that will be of wider industry use. Nice idea. It's online on Google Docs, and if you want access just ping FG and he might well give you a wee peek at what's on it. So far it profiles various social media tools and apps and goes through their various uses in PR.

GM's social media newsroom

Lem's just tipped me off that GM Europe, aka Vauxhall cars, is doing something pretty cool and has set up a social media newsroom as part of its online press office. It's dedicated to giving auto bloggers and fans on social networks the stuff that will help them spread buzz about GM cars. And instead of trying to build loads of new social networky stuff itself like some companies try to, GM has done the smart thing and linked away to other places photo pooling on Flickr.

This is quite typical of GM. Earlier in the summer it put its Transformers vehicles into Second Life to give SL residents the option of having a transformer avatar.

Techcrunch UK relaunched

Those looking to learn more about and communicate with the UK web startup market have it good at the moment. TechCrunch has just relaunched its UK site, with new editor Mike Butcher. The previous editor Sam Sethi has been busy launching Blognation, which has a similar focus, and is expanding globally too. Between these two sites you'll catch all th goings-on from the sharp end of the UK's web 2.0 space and keep plugged into the main events that are bringing people together too.

Off to IBC

Getting my stuff together for an early flight out of Heathrow tomorrow and a brief trip to Amsterdam where I'll be visiting the IBC show on some business. Doing my research Web 2.0 style today I've been looking at what photos people have been putting up from the show on to Flickr. Great to see the technology people are putting on show there before I arrive, and that one or two people I know are there already.

If you're there and you have the time to meet up, email me or leave a comment on this and I'll pick it up.

$6000 for a croudsourced logo

A request to budding brand geniuses out there. The European social bookmarking site Mister Wong is doing a smart thing and asking its users to suggest designs for its new logo. I think we call it crowdsourcing in Web 2.0 land don't we? I call it a competition - and this one nets the winner $6,000 and then $3,000 for the runners up. And of course the coolness of having your design as the new Mister Wong.

I know a bit about all this because I've been asked to be on the judging panel, so I'm keen to see what comes through. See more about how to join in here.