The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #291: November 8, 2007

Content summary: A Brand You World 2007 Global Telesummit takes place today; follow up on Wired’s Chris Anderson posting lame PRs email addresses; discussion: allow or ban anonymous commenting on blogs?; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; Office Depot deploys mobile online marketing; what happens when Microsoft fires a senior executive in a communication vacuum?; the power of commenting on blogs; Google coming to a filling station near you; Dan York reports on Google’s Open Social initiative, and more; listeners comments discussion; music by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club; and more.

[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.]

Show notes for November 8, 2007

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Welcome to For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, a 59-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England and Concord, California, USA.

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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 home page for info.

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So, until Monday November 12…

Posted by neville on 11/08 at 09:24 AM

  1. I had to listen to the anonymous commenting discussion on FIR#291 a couple of times, and confer with my partner, to get my thoughts together on this one.

    Given that you cannot stop people posting as other than themselves, a blog that allows comments is always going to have allow ‘anon’ comments, albeit authored under a ‘psuedo-name’.

    I agree that it is better to to use a consistent ‘alter-ego’ to represent one aspect of the commenters character and that this is different from grouping all such comments as ‘anon’. I think a real strength of the new media is that ability to run as many

    alter-ego’s as one feels comfortable with. Look at the number of authors who write

    under multiple names, the old media journos who use a pen name and the requirement of

    Equity for members to have unique names.

    A blog is a type of newspaper but we are re-exploring the ‘space’ without being

    constrained in a regulatory regime such as is applied to and somewhat relied upon, by

    the old school media. A regulatory regime will develop but I hope there is as

    much, or more, input from the ‘new thinkers’ as those who have a vested interest in

    maintaining the status quo come he(ck) or high water.

    Neville has said in the past (if I recall correctly) that most situations can be dealt

    with by an ‘Acceptable Practice’ guideline and I feel this is a case in point.
    Assuming a blogmaster can cope with the work involved with managing comments, they should be turned on anon et al if not, turn them off and solicit comments by other methods.

    Ask commenters to identify themselves and manually moderate the comments if they are ‘off beam’ for the purpose of the blog, as the FIR blog allows. But this is not the open blog approach which would be ideal, although probably not practical in this spammy world without a full time moderator.

    I do think that any comment is a valuable reflection on the material commented upon,

    it may not come in an acceptable manner, language or style but it is a source of

    material itself and that is what the new media world is about for me.

    I don’t know if I have broad enough shoulders, a strong enough sixpack or sufficient

    stamina to survive in this world, but I am giving it a go.

    I do not agree with the comment I heard from a young reporter promoted to a producer at NPR, who said she was giving up with Facebook now it was open to all and sundry, including her colleagues whom she did not want to know what she was doing off the job, but she did not want them to know that she did not want them to know!. She was treating (IMHO) the new media as a childish toy to be put aside now she had become a “real reporter”

    With great respect and admiration for your stimulating output over the past year. I wish you a Merry Xmas07.

    Posted by mikethebee  on  12/23  at  06:46 AM

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