September 27th, 2012
Writing a blog post is often a mechanism for me to collect my thoughts on a subject, and put them down in black and white. Opinions can at times be a moveable feast, as it’s only the most-stubborn fool who doesn’t reassess them when presented with contradictory facts. But, for now, here are my core [...]
September 10th, 2012
Someone recently asked if I’d describe myself as a social media expert. I replied that I would not. And to run away screaming from anybody who did. What does it mean to be an expert in social media? Does it mean you’ve got extensive experience in Twitter and Facebook, with possibly a smattering of LinkedIn, [...]
July 18th, 2012
My Twitter client just went into meltdown. I walked away from my laptop for 10 minutes, and when I returned TweetDeck was updating so quickly I thought I was going to get travel sick. And the culprit? One of the world’s largest companies. One that is probably looking for a new head of communications about [...]
September 12th, 2011
It’s about engagement. Talking to people, encouraging them to think and say positive things about your company, your product, your brand. It’s about monitoring. Listening to what is being said, deciding whether it’s positive, negative or neutral. Watching the trends, recording the patterns, preparing answers and responding appropriately. It’s about crafting a message, steering opinion. [...]
July 18th, 2011
After a gestation period equal to that of a baby elephant, Spotify has finally launched in the US. The excitement that’s greeted the arrival of the streaming music service has reached epic proportions, with the amount of press coverage far exceeding its likely short-term impact. With competitor services like Pandora well-entrenched in the US already [...]
January 11th, 2011
Well, after 90 minutes or so, my web site is finally back up and running, after a massive outage at my hosting company. Apologies for anybody who tried to access my site during that time. Suppose it serves me right for using a small company. Oh, wait. I don’t. The company I use owns some [...]
December 7th, 2010
I’m not going to argue about the rights and wrongs of what WikiLeaks is doing: at heart I’m a libertarian, so I believe in freedom of speech and expression. But I also recognise that there are “some” things that are best kept secret to protect the greater good. No, the pros and cons of what [...]
December 6th, 2010
If you’re a Facebook user, and the chances are high you are, then you might well have noticed many of your friends changing their profile picture over the past couple of days into a cartoon character. They may even have added a status message to explain why – and encourage you to do the same. [...]
November 30th, 2010
Every time I post a new blog entry, I also add a link to it on Facebook, on the premise that it doesn’t hurt to use all these different channels to tell people what I’m writing about. In response to my last post, a friend of mine commented that he didn’t know I used to [...]
November 15th, 2010
Reading The Guardian last week I came across this story, concerning the disappearance of the b-side in popular music. It’s a shame in many ways – some of my favourite lost songs were b sides of 7 inch singles or extra tracks on CDs that I’ve bought over the years (this song comes immediately to [...]