podcasting – another pr tool in the box?

"The PR people are drooling over the potential for going "beyond the press release" and influencing what journalists write - even those who fail to turn up to an event - because they can listen to it at a time of their choosing. Disney, General Motors, Purina, Cisco, Macromedia, Virgin Atlantic, TV Guide, Jupiter Research, are all podcasting."

Before we come to this quote, does anyone remember the quote just recently mentioned to us in one of the PR and Technology seminars? "Don't just use technology for the sake of it." The opening quote of this post is taken from a website called Blog Relations. And what is interesting is the fact that this was written in September 2005!

The point I am trying to make is the one that even though we should greet every new step the online technology brings us as progression of some kind, I totally agree with Tom Kelleher where he writes in his book Public Relations Online (2007): "...we have to be especially careful not to overstate the implications of the new technologies we embrace."

Podcasting, which at the time was touted as a revolution in communication and the way of modern PR, hasn't really caught on as people expected. As has been demonstrated (like in our class today, thank you George) it can be very helpful and it can also be an utter waste of time. All depending on who the producer is and what he wants to achieve.

So another tool in the PR tool box? Yes. But keep the breakthroughs coming by all means. Gradually the way we practise PR will be changed by technology, but it will not be revolutionized overnight by a single invention.

of rss and "system overload"

How many of you have noticed the symbol/logo (on the left) on your browser without even making the slightest attempt to check it out? I am one, for sure. A bit amazing really, as through my work RSS would have/will be of great advantage.

Basically RSS (short for Really Simple Syndication) is a group of Web feed formats used to publish web-content that is frequently updated, e.g. news sites. You can subscribe to as many feeds as you like to enable you to have an overview of proceedings.

Most browsers already include a RSS reader, making it very easy to establish your own family of feeds. Once gathered, they can easily be managed. You can delete the ones you don‘t want any more and add new as you feel necessary. Really, really simple!

I guess most of us only use the technology we feel we needed at any given moment, be it the use of software like Word, Excel or Photoshop. That probably also applies to Web-browsing. But is it just because we‘re lazy or is it perhaps a sign of “System Overload” in an age where technological breakthroughs seem to be the order of the day?