Open The Dialogue

Let's talk a little bit about transparency - not necessarily in the sense of "not hiding" something - when it comes to companies using blogs and other Web presences to get the word out about things. Something I've come to appreciate more and more is when people are just honest and forthcoming about things that people think about on their own. In this post from Monday night over at the Google Talk blog, software engineer Jon Perlow owns up to the fact that the way users of the software are notified of users coming on/off of the network, moving from idle to available, and other changes "can be a lot better."

It's not so much that they've even done anything, but in some ways it's more about doing things like keeping your boss apprised of projects you're working on - even those that are behind the eight ball - before s/he hits you up asking what the status is. Perlow didn't need to come out and say this, but he did. And that's just pretty cool IMHO.

Posted by Tom Biro at 09:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Most of the chatter about RSS is how it allows news, blog, and other typically-serious information to your desktop, online reader, or wherever you happen to get it. There hasn't been much talk about the finer uses for the technology, such as managing your fantasy [insert sport here] team(s). Who needs those pesky email updates with what your players are doing, and who really wants to have to log into the system(s) every day and see what people are doing or go read every box score to find out what your players did? Now, you don't have to.

David Singer found that not only was Sportsline offering a batch of feeds with regards to players, teams, and other sports-related news, but that you could actually subscribe to your fantasy team's own RSS feed through a nifty little mouseover he happened to be doing while managing his team a few days ago.

Now, I don't want to hear any more nasty comments about what RSS is good for for the next few weeks.

Posted by Tom Biro at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Steve Rubel is calling out a few select bloggers for their lack of linking to the "competition," saying that "Bloggers Should Think Coo-petition, Not Competition" - and I don't see how they aren't. As Chris Thilk points out in the comments, it's not as if every single blog on the Weblogs, Inc. network isn't linking to the "competitive" blogs over at Gawker Media. Those of us posting at AdJab most certainly do link to pretty much any "competitive" blog out there in the same space - advertising - as we are. For the fine folks at TV Squad, another blog I have some experience with, the site lives off links in and out with regard to "competitive" blogs. Everyone wants to have the scoop, and no one really has an issue with linking to the person who had the story in the first place.

Understood that Steve is concerned about Jason Calacanis' comments about the Wall Street Journal not linking to bloggers for the most part, but that doesn't mean that any major site isn't linking to its competitors, irrelevant of what one particular site has to say about the links it's indexing.

Now while I do write for the Weblogs, Inc. Network, I most certainly do not speak for them in any official capacity, but I will say that it wouldn't surprise me when a site of the size of Engadget - or Gizmodo's - doesn't link to a direct competitor. Let's just call them outliers, IMHO not the right example for this argument. One of the reason that Steve's blog, Jeremy's blog, and anyone else in the PR space has done so well is because none of us really care who we link to (you know what I mean) or who links in to us, as long as it's a worthwhile story for our readers. If you keep blogging for blogging's sake, and because you are good at it (or aspire to be, or enjoy it in general), that's all that matters. Don't fret about who you are linking to, and who you're not. Just go with it.

Posted by Tom Biro at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

On Sunday, the Baltimore Sun's Tricia Bishop writes about how some people have taken to using Craigslist for no good, including pranks on friends and acquaintances, and to spam other types of sites not related to the topic at hand. While all of this is true, it's not as if people haven't been able to place fake classifieds for cars for sale and apartments for rent in the newspaper forever and ever. The only difference now is that, depending on which marketplace you're using, it's free. Or probably cheaper than it was in the paper. Just sayin'.

Posted by Tom Biro at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Not that they probably hadn't heard about it already, but my attempt to tip off Jess Coen and Jesse Oxfeld at Gawker this morning about...ahem... rellatio, the new PR firm on the blog, er, block.. didn't happen, as I landed a message failure from the inbox for the tips account on my fave NYC gossip blog. Is it by any means possible that George Clooney's plan to "render these guys useless" with a ton of incorrect emails is having that sort of effect?

Or is it just the volume of folks who actually turn on the television and see Clooney's quotes followed by Coen doing her thing that's causing a mailbox overflow? Who knew?!

Posted by Tom Biro at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)