Content summary: It’s the first show of the month: please vote for FIR at Podcast Alley; new Speakers & Speeches and FIR Interview podcasts posted, more coming; introducing our new sponsor: Pollstream; listener comments and FIR FriendFeed Room round-up; 5 minutes on… Ann Taylor listens to its customers, Microsoft invention lets you insert batteries in any direction, Best Buy trying to fire employee over video, UK product placement TV programmes will carry audio and visual alerts says regulator, signs of social media; News That Fits: new research from Pew suggests the future of online socializing, the Media Monitoring Minute from CustomScoop, farmers fight back using social networking tools, Michael Netzley reports from Singapore on India’s demographic dividend and Twitter’s ascension in Japan, the Financial Times launches digital press cuttings service, if you’re too busy to blog try counting your keystrokes; music from Jupiter One; and more.

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For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for July 5, 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 #554 show notes at The New PR Wiki

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. 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.

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So, until Monday July 12…

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