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Posted on April 19, 2007
I'm Bored To Death with the Content Conversation
BY JAMES CLARK
Okay, I'm at the boiling point with the fact that I need to have conversations with marketing and public relations professionals about the key to good online communications is creating good content, stick in a vertical that you know, etc. Isn't that the key to any business communications efforts?
Now I understand that there are a ton of bloggers out there posting innocuous crappy content, but let's keep this conversation in the mindset of business blogging.
First off - in business blogging you better be blogging about what you know about, or don't even come to the party. Can we all agree on that?
The real conflict is in the need to "filter" employee blog content. Most companies should have a blogging policy about disclosure, offensive content and profanity to set the parameters for blogging under the corporate banner. Can we all agree on that?
Now the crux becomes letting go and not reviewing every post before it goes live out of fear of what employees are going to say. A company MUST embrace the fact that employees are humans, who operate on emotion and from time-to-time might post something that's not totally in agreement with management.
In social media conversations, it is very apparent when someone's content has been cleansed by "corporate message handlers". How do we know this? The same way we know politicians are lying to us. It's too crafted, there's zero real emotion, no personal experience, no point of view that calls out a position on the topic matter that someone is willing to be accountable for.
So here's my plea to businesses considering blogging - if you live in fear of what your employees might say - if your messaging is cleansed and reviewed by legal - then please, please, please don't blog.
Read Wired's recent article The See-Through CEO on Radical Transparency. Use that as a basis for considering if you want to enter the online conversation. If it freaks you out, go back to sending out press releases as your official means of communications.
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Posted on March 5, 2007
Not so Joost
BY JAMES CLARK
I'm on a plane to Denver and two-thirds of the way through the February issue of Wired Magazine and find the article about Joost, "Here Comes Trouble". And by the end of it all I wanted was to test this thing out.
Last week I got my chance.
I found myself underwhelmed. Though, the full screen thing did get my attention. As well as the "now you see it now you don't" interface ala PC DVD software.
Now maybe I wasn't giving the article my undivided attention but I did recall that someone like an advertising director said:
"The key in the past was volume and frequency," says Clark. "Now it’s going to be quality."
Personally, this beta has turned into one of those things like your friend telling you about the best movie they have ever seen. And by the time you go to see it, milk duds in hand, you realize that your friend must have mixed up his vitamins with grandma's meds.
It isn't quite that bad but it surely isn't what I expected for a company that is trying to produce "DVD-quality" video for distribution. It might be starting out that way on their servers but by the time it reaches this end of the pipe and gets compiled from all the other users it looks like a medium grade FLV.
But of course kudos where kudos are due and a reality check on my end, this is only a beta. And, the gumption to devleop such a large media distribution platform in an of itself makes Joost admirable on so many levels.
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Posted on January 17, 2007
Songbird is a podcast receiver?
BY JAMES CLARK
I'm not quite sure that is the way that the uber developers of the Songbird media player would put it but as a podcaster I have never seen a program that makes it this easy to subscribe to podcasts or get media from the web.
The best part is that the word 'podcast' isn't used anywhere in the vernacular associated with Songbird. I find it refreshing. I should probably be questioning it as a guy making a living from his podcast skills (hoy ya!). But damn if they haven't taken all the mystery out of receiving a podcast by simply saying, "Play the Web". No more explaining to newbies what a podcast is or how to download one.
Even in this post at Wired the word 'podcast' is conspicuously missing. I have said the word 'podcast' once every 15 minutes for the last two years . . . so not to see it associated with a media player would be a non-starter for me in downloading it.
They make receiving podcasts so simple. It can be done one of two ways:
1) Use the Songbird and navigate to the website that has mp3's and it finds them for you and allows you to subscribe to the site.
2) Go to 'File' >> 'New Subscription . . .' >> Type in the URL of a website or add an RSS feed >> Point to a folder >> Hit 'OK'
All of the associated media will then download in the background and be ready when you are to play. Sick. What would make it even sicker is RSS auto discovery. That way a subscription could be chosen for the for the feed which usually has many more files than the site alone.
I haven't been this excited about a technology or piece of software since I first found out about podcasting. My recommendation is that you go over to Songbird's site and download the developer version and get a taste of what's to come in liberated distribution . . . the liberated media player.
I might be showing up late to the party since they have been public for over a year, but for me this is a big day. Not only to evangelize for Songbird but for thinking about the next iteration of podcasting.
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