From Podcast to Published

After discussing podcasts in class today, I decided to do a search of my own and came across this interesting article. Scott Sigler is a podcaster turned published author after podcasting his novels free of charge to the public. After gaining circulation and popularity, his podcasts caught the attention of Crown Books, who offered him a publishing contract.

This just goes to show one of the many opportunities that podcasts have to offer. After reading the chapter on podcasts in "The New Influencers," I was surprised to find how many people found unexpected success in podcasting when really only meaning to play around with it, like the mommycasters and the HT guys, etc.

He has also used a lot of social media outlets like myspace and facebook to promote his book. "I do several promotional videos around the book, like book trailers, and those are up on the pages and so are the audio trailers for my books. So as soon as people stumble onto my page, they’re getting exposed to what the podcast sounds like, getting exposed to the story, they’ll see the video, and it makes it really easy for them to communicate and interact with me"- Scott Sigler.

What I thought was really neat about this is that it is different from buying a book because you don't get to have the whole thing at once. Listeners had to wait every week for the next chapter, which is probably what made a lot of them keep returning. His book "Infected" has also picked up by Crown Books, and I think that he is a perfect example of how podcasts can work in our favor.

Another CEO Blogger: Bill Marriott

After discussing CEO bloggers last class, I decided to do a little search for other CEOs of large companies that are blogging. One that I encountered was the CEO of the Marriott hotels, Bill Marriott.


http://www.blogs.marriott.com/

While the blog seems a little bit on the formal side, it seems very helpful to customers and organized. In my opinion a hotel is a good candidate for a blog because you can get customer feedback on their experiences at the hotel easily, but this idea could have its downside. Negative comments from customers could be seen by potential guests and stray them away from staying at the hotel. But, that aside, hotel companies are very big on customer service, or they should be, and a blog is one good way to get information out on new resorts, new amenities, or apologies for recent issues or problems at the hotel.

Bill Marriott has recently used the blog to inform people of a tragedy that occurred in the Islamabad Marriott Hotel in Pakistan when a car bomb killed or injured many Marriott employees and destroyed the front of the building.

Overall, I think that he is an effective CEO blogger, when I looked back at his first post he seemed very honest about the fact that he didn't know much about blogging, but he was going to give it a shot, and honesty is always a good way to start a successful blog.

David Blaine Dive of Death: Good PR or Bad PR?

So, this past week David Blaine, the magician/dare devil/stuntman completed his new dangerous escapade by hanging upside down above Central Park for 60 hours. ABC aired the event in a special called "David Blaine: Dive of Death." Unfortunately, this new stunt might have hurt him more than helped him. The ABC trailer for the event seems to have been a little misleading.



Apparently, he took a break from hanging upside down about every hour to go to the restroom, drink some water, and have his vitals checked by a physician. Now can you see why maybe the trailer was misleading?

In my opinion, this new stunt was a PR effort to get his name and his image back out there since Criss Angel, a fellow magician, has gained popularity recently, but unfortunately this stunt did the opposite. While I am sure the stunt was still very dangerous and grueling, it seems kind of uneventful when you go to see him hanging upside down, but instead you find him relaxing and having some water for about 20 minutes. I think that he is a very talented performer, and I hate to admit that I am easily drawn in to his magic and stunts, but I think that the public's upset and negativity towards the stunt could have been avoided if it were presented more honestly and straight-forward.

Microsoft Windows: "The Mojave Experiment"

Since the Microsoft commercials starring Seinfeld and Bill Gates began to air, they have received mixed reviews by the public. The most common response seems to be just confusion while others either love them or hate them. Recently I have noticed that Microsoft seems to be running less of the Seinfeld commercials and more of the "Mojave Experiment" commericial.



This commercial was definitely a public relations strategy and a crisis response to the overwhelming negative viewpoint of Windows Vista. The question is whether this commercial is more effective than the humorous strategy of the Seinfeld commercials. It seems to me that the Mojave Experiment would be interpreted as more real and effortless, while the message of the Seinfeld commercials seems to be unclear. If they are trying to change the public's image of Window's Vista then the Mojave Experiment might be more successful.

The Mojave Experiment is also a more effective PR response to the Mac ads that have poked fun of Windows Vista multiple times. Such as this one...



The only questionable thing about the commercial is that it could have been a set-up by Microsoft, but I think that it is an appropriate response to the negative publicity that the new program has received. I also think that it was a good choice because they did not respond to the Mac ads by bashing Macs, they just tried to show that the product has been misunderstood and misrepresented, and it could be worth a try.

New Google Phone

As if they aren't already a success, Google will soon release its new Android software phone, which is expected to be in close competition with Mac's iphone. It will have complete camera and video capabilities, and the new Android software is expected to offer an improved internet experience on a phone.

While I am not sure how receptive people will be to a Google phone, I think that the idea behind it is to get a tangible Google product out there that users can associate with the ever popular search engine. This association has the potential to help the search engine build relationships with users and create loyalty to Google. This could also be the start of Google developing other products such as mp3 players. I think that the phone has the potential to increase Google's already well- established brand awareness and recognition by consumers.

The key is to get people to use the search engine at ALL times rather than almost all the time, and what better way to instigate this then by developing a Google phone that makes it easy to use Google's many programs on a hand-held device. I personally never use the internet on my phone because it is too difficult, but I think this new Anroid software is targeted to people like me. It will be interesting to see how people respond to it after the iphone has already generated so much success; however, there are rumors that it will cost about half as much as the iphone, so this should generate some interest if nothing else.

Wikis Used for Educational Purposes

As a person who had no idea what a wiki was before this week's classes,I decided to look into them more on my own. I was surprised to find a few articles concerning the use of wikis for educational purposes. It is understandable that the problem with this could be that the information is unreliable because it can be edited by anyone rather than only experts on the subject; however, I think that they could be very beneficial in college classes.

Take, for instance, a test review that a teacher puts on Blackboard. What I usually do is team up with my friends in the class, split the review up between us, and then we each email our parts to one another. Then once we have compiled the whole review we study and review for the test together. I do not really consider this cheating or cutting corners because it is really just a way to collaborate and get notes that your friends may have that you didn't get, etc. This idea could be adapted on a greater scale into a wiki.

If the test review was uploaded as a wiki in which all of the class members could edit it by adding the notes that they had or parts that they had looked up, it would be a great way to collaborate with the class, and there might be a higher success rate on the test. The only problem with this would be that even classmates that did not contribute anything to the review would have access to the information that others had actually taken the time to add or look up. This could be addressed by the professor actually noting the students who added information and giving extra credit or taking a grade. I am not sure how well it would work but it might be worth a try.

Microsoft Launches New Ad Campaign

On September 4th, Microsoft launched a new ad campaign starring none other than Seinfeld and Bill Gates. The advertisement is what seems to be part of a larger PR effort to change the face of Microsoft as we know it. In recent years the PC has increasingly lost popularity as Macs are the new computer of choice and have dominated the advertising world.



The commercial utilizes that classic Seinfeld humor, which can almost be read as having nothing to do with anything. It takes place in a Shoe Circus store as Seinfeld helps Bill Gates find shoes and later hints at the idea of Microsoft changing and developing something new and exciting. This seems to be an effort to change people's perceptions of Microsoft with a hip new commercial that applies dry humor as well as a promise for improvements.

This could also be in response to the far from warm response to the recently launched, Windows Vista, which did not have quite the success expected. This commercial would be then offering a promise of new innovations to those who were unhappy with Windows Vista.

My question is whether this ad is an attempt to make Microsoft hip like Mac and popular with young people because of the humorous commercial, or whether it is changing its target to an older group. As a PC owner myself, in an environment in which most of my friends my age own Macs, I felt that it was refreshing to see a PC advertisement, but I'm not too sure what it is getting at. Maybe its randomness is what made it so memorable...