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The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #524: February 8, 2010

Posted on February 8, 2010 at 8:54 pm (UK)
in: For Immediate Release

Content summary: MediaFunnel FIR interview is up; Help A PR Pro Out; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: what Vodafone did when an employee tweeted obscenely, wide and mostly negative reaction to Forrester Research plans to stop analysts from blogging personally; listener comments discussion and FIR Friendfeed Room round-up; news about Thursday’s show; music from Antiqcool; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for February 8, 2010: A 65-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

FIR #524 show notes at The New PR Wiki

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Thursday February 11…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

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Twitter and Facebook part of Costa Rica election

Posted on February 8, 2010 at 7:52 am (UK)
in: Communication, Costa Rica, Politics, Social Media, Social Networks, Society, Twitter, Web

Electing a woman to be your head of state isn’t that big a deal these days.

The latest country to join a long list of states with women leaders is Costa Rica: in the presidential election conducted yesterday, the winner by a comfortable margin is Laura Chinchilla Miranda, the first woman to become head of state in this Central American republic.

Chinchilla’s victory also vividly demonstrates democracy in action in a country that’s in a part of the world where such freedom of expression has a pretty poor track record over the years – with Costa Rica being a notable exception.

I lived in Costa Rica during most of the 80s, and so it’s a place that still has close interest for me (family and friends there, too). What I found especially interesting about this presidential election is the role of social networks like Twitter and Facebook and how people used them during the election period including voting day yesterday.

According to a concise report in La Nación, Costa Rica’s most influential newspaper, such social networks played a big role in how people shared comment and opinion. Here’s my loose translation from La Nación’s Spanish-language report, “Redes sociales también vivieron esta elección”:

Minute by minute, many people followed everything connected with the elections held yesterday via Twitter and Facebook.

For most of the day, "votocr" (the hashtag used on Twitter to address this issue) was the most-used word on Twitter in the Spanish language. [What I’d describe as a ‘trending topic.’]

Costa Ricans used Twitter mainly to discuss the news, but also to report on the atmosphere at polling stations. Some posted photographs.

While there were no definitive numbers at press time, at certain times of the day nearly 1,000 messages were posted on Twitter every hour with information on the elections in Costa Rica.

[…] La Nación’s Facebook profile recorded about 250 comments at press time. The presidential candidates (in particular, Laura Chinchilla, Otton Solis and Otto Guevara) also generated participation within their own profiles through various news and comments made during the day.

Not only individuals used Twitter but also institutions such as the Tribunal Supremo de Elecciones, Costa Rica’s electoral authority, which tweeted updates of voting count estimates after the polls closed.

A good example of a country where freedom of expression is the norm and people can make use of whatever communication channels they want to and are able to access. According to Internet World Stats, Costa Rica has the highest internet penetration in Central America at over one-third of the population.

Pura vida, Costa Rica!

Related post:

First report of Costa Rica quake on Twitter

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FIR Interview: Andreas Wilkens and Michele Macpherson of MediaFunnel

Posted on February 6, 2010 at 8:11 am (UK)
in: For Immediate Release

MediaFunnel is a web-based platform for managing team contributions to an organization’s social media output. Initially developed for teams contributing content to branded Twitter accounts, it is expanding into Facebook and other social media channels.

In this FIR Interview, co-host Shel Holtz speaks with one of the platform’s co-founders and its business development adviser about the potential uses of the platform and how it works.

Get this podcast:

Download the MP3 file (10.3Mb, 25:42)
Get the show on iTunes
Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

About our Conversation Partners

macpherson-wilkens Andreas Wilkens is the founder and Managing Partner of Companity Group. Companity Group specializes in SaaS software development, IT outsourcing and consulting as well as VPN solutions

Michele Dundas Macpherson is Managing Partner of Macpherson & Associates, a firm that provides strategic positioning, fundraising and general management for clients in retail, entertainment, self-serve kiosks, technology and social media. With over 12 years of general management consulting and venture capital experience, she has been instrumental in defining and implementing strategy for dozens of clients. Previous, she was Vice President of Entertainment for NCR Corporation, where she served as the general manager of the retail consumer business operating more than 2,000 DVD/media rental kiosks across North America.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

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The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #523: February 4, 2010

Posted on February 4, 2010 at 8:56 pm (UK)
in: For Immediate Release

Content summary: New FIR Speakers & Speeches podcast is up; upcoming FIR Interview with Marc Wright; Dan York’s report; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: new Pew study on social media/mobile internet use among teens and young adults, where does social media fit into Toyota’s global recall crisis?, trust in peers plunges and bad news for social media mavens says Tom Foremski, Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz tweets his farewell; listener comments discussion including a CIPR statement on the ‘An Inconvenient PR Truth’ campaign; music from Billy; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for February 4, 2010: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

FIR #523 show notes at The New PR Wiki

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday February 8…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

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Wikio Top 30 UK tech blogs for Feb 2010

Feb 4, 2010

There are some interesting changes in the ranking of the top 30 technology blogs in the UK compared to last month, according to the latest data from Wikio, the Luxembourg-based search engine and news portal.
An advance look at this subset of the complete list of 100 UK tech blogs which will be published in [...]

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FIR Speakers and Speeches: Chris Christensen on online business communities

Feb 4, 2010

Content summary: Chris Christensen, former Executive Vice President of Engineering and Operations for LiveWorld and host of the Amateur Traveler podcast, spoke at the February 3, 2010 Social Media Breakfast/East Bay in San Francisco.
His remarks focused on the various approaches different organizations and brands take to building online communities focused on their products. Among the [...]

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The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #522: February 1, 2010

Feb 1, 2010

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (25.8MB)

Content summary: Congratulations to Doug Haslam who joins Voce Communications; vote for FIR at Podcast Alley; update on pending FIR iPhone app from iSites.us; the Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop; News That Fits: recruiters really care about your online reputation even if you don’t, an inconvenient PR truth, closed Apple and open iPad a PR [...]

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Recruiters really care about your online reputation even if you don’t

Feb 1, 2010

Did you know that Thursday January 28 was Data Privacy Day, an annual event celebrated in the United States, Canada, the UK and 26 other European countries?
No, I didn’t either. Its aim is to raise awareness for consumers around privacy issues.
One of the sponsors of Data Privacy Day is Microsoft who commissioned research in [...]

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